I strayed away one summer day
from the land of bustle and noise.
My thoughts?
They wandered far away to play
with their dreamy toys.
The shore was cool, but the sun was bright;
I felt the day and thought not of night.
My dreams! How they sparkled in rainbow hues,
And brightly danced in grays and blues.
And colors sublime? I saw them, too.
I know ‘twas so.
But now…now …Where did they go?
‘Tis dark! ‘Tis dark again at night,
The dark without a ray of light.
The green of the trees, the blue of the skies,
Have gone with my dreams.
To Paradise?
Ah, Yes! I’m sure! I’m sure ‘tis so!
And now I pray through everyday
The shore was cool, but the sun was bright;
I felt the day and thought not of night.
My dreams! How they sparkled in rainbow hues,
And brightly danced in grays and blues.
And colors sublime? I saw them, too.
I know ‘twas so.
But now…now …Where did they go?
‘Tis dark! ‘Tis dark again at night,
The dark without a ray of light.
The green of the trees, the blue of the skies,
Have gone with my dreams.
To Paradise?
Ah, Yes! I’m sure! I’m sure ‘tis so!
And now I pray through everyday
that I again to them may sometime go.
(1922)
Here mom shows her knack for escaping into her rich imagination and enjoying, at least for a moment, its “rainbow hues” and brightly dancing “colors sublime.” She is the dreamer, the “blind man,” speaking in the masculine voice, and I can’t help thinking that, though she never stops or stopped believing in her dreams, there were moments of melancholy, moments she kept to herself, when she wondered, “Where did they go?” In those moments, her faith kicks in and she realizes that all dreams end in “Paradise.”
This is not only a sample of her early sophisticated poetic skills (she was 17 in 1922) but it is a profound statement of her faith. WWI had been over only a few years. A wave of cynicism had been sweeping the country and the world because of the vast devastation in lives and the disillusionment in institutions. The Roaring ‘20s were just beginning as an escape from the war. Mom shows her deep sense of optimism here, of coming out of the dark and, eventually, into the light of paradise. In literary circles, there is a tradition of blind poets (for example, Homer and Milton) who are inspired by their suffering and who also espouse the sanctity of nature. Mom alludes to that here, at least unconsciously, indicating she had studied or been aware of this tradition. After WWI, there was a general sense of tragedy lingering in the consciousness of people, but poets often asserted the idea, as mom does here, that even within tragedy the life that is nature (and super-nature, i.e., “Paradise”) will reassert itself. As a foot note: In 1990 my sister Julie’s daughter, Jennifer, was studying Helen Keller. Jen memorized this poem and recited it for her class.
I remember when we first took mom to St. Agnes Hospital in Fresno after her first major stroke. It was sometime in the early 1990’s, I think, about 80 years after this poem was written. She began hallucinating in her room because of her medication. She told me to “get the spiders” off the wall across from her bed and to “turn the water off’ on the faucets which were also on the wall. At first I was frightened and tried to reason with her, bring her back to reality, then I realized that for her, she was in her own reality. To her, the spiders and running water really existed! So I entered into her world, her “belief system,” went over to the wall and pretended to wipe off the spiders with some Kleenex and turn off the water faucets. She felt better then, even smiled. I didn’t feel like a professional entering the mind of a patient, which is a technique I teach to students, but like a child believing with his mom that this is what’s going on, this is reality, this is the way things are. I was prepared, conditioned all my life for this moment!
Throughout her life, mom maintained her sanity by moving in and out of her imagination at will, crossing back and forth between the actual and the imagined as if they both exited on one plane. Working about the kitchen or the living room, she talked incessantly to herself. She lived in overlapping realities. This poem is an early indication of the deep structure of her faith and her imagination. She was healthy that way, though most of us could only follow her for a little while into the rich and colorful world of her dreams and visions and imaginations. Most of us did not have that deep spiritual infrastructure. Maybe we were more spiritually “frail,” which is why we so idealized her and regarded her as a “saint.” In our experience, she was one, though we hardly understood how deep her spirituality really was. Few of us could truly follow her there though we are grateful to have her as our model of strength and character.
(1922)
Here mom shows her knack for escaping into her rich imagination and enjoying, at least for a moment, its “rainbow hues” and brightly dancing “colors sublime.” She is the dreamer, the “blind man,” speaking in the masculine voice, and I can’t help thinking that, though she never stops or stopped believing in her dreams, there were moments of melancholy, moments she kept to herself, when she wondered, “Where did they go?” In those moments, her faith kicks in and she realizes that all dreams end in “Paradise.”
This is not only a sample of her early sophisticated poetic skills (she was 17 in 1922) but it is a profound statement of her faith. WWI had been over only a few years. A wave of cynicism had been sweeping the country and the world because of the vast devastation in lives and the disillusionment in institutions. The Roaring ‘20s were just beginning as an escape from the war. Mom shows her deep sense of optimism here, of coming out of the dark and, eventually, into the light of paradise. In literary circles, there is a tradition of blind poets (for example, Homer and Milton) who are inspired by their suffering and who also espouse the sanctity of nature. Mom alludes to that here, at least unconsciously, indicating she had studied or been aware of this tradition. After WWI, there was a general sense of tragedy lingering in the consciousness of people, but poets often asserted the idea, as mom does here, that even within tragedy the life that is nature (and super-nature, i.e., “Paradise”) will reassert itself. As a foot note: In 1990 my sister Julie’s daughter, Jennifer, was studying Helen Keller. Jen memorized this poem and recited it for her class.
I remember when we first took mom to St. Agnes Hospital in Fresno after her first major stroke. It was sometime in the early 1990’s, I think, about 80 years after this poem was written. She began hallucinating in her room because of her medication. She told me to “get the spiders” off the wall across from her bed and to “turn the water off’ on the faucets which were also on the wall. At first I was frightened and tried to reason with her, bring her back to reality, then I realized that for her, she was in her own reality. To her, the spiders and running water really existed! So I entered into her world, her “belief system,” went over to the wall and pretended to wipe off the spiders with some Kleenex and turn off the water faucets. She felt better then, even smiled. I didn’t feel like a professional entering the mind of a patient, which is a technique I teach to students, but like a child believing with his mom that this is what’s going on, this is reality, this is the way things are. I was prepared, conditioned all my life for this moment!
Throughout her life, mom maintained her sanity by moving in and out of her imagination at will, crossing back and forth between the actual and the imagined as if they both exited on one plane. Working about the kitchen or the living room, she talked incessantly to herself. She lived in overlapping realities. This poem is an early indication of the deep structure of her faith and her imagination. She was healthy that way, though most of us could only follow her for a little while into the rich and colorful world of her dreams and visions and imaginations. Most of us did not have that deep spiritual infrastructure. Maybe we were more spiritually “frail,” which is why we so idealized her and regarded her as a “saint.” In our experience, she was one, though we hardly understood how deep her spirituality really was. Few of us could truly follow her there though we are grateful to have her as our model of strength and character.
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