Perspective

Beyond my narrow window lies a world of things,
Beginning with this tree which gives my soul its wings:
From deep within the silent sod
The sun has drawn its hidden life to God.
(While the usually noisy street still sleeps,
The majesty of early dawn
Quietly rustles through her green leaves.)
Through the darkened curtains of night,
Two red beacons of the air,
On the distant shore,
Keep their lonely vigil with my fingers,
While I “tune in” with God.
Though root-bound to home and homely chores
My hands and feet may be,
My soul now soars with God eternally.
(June 1945)

This poem is another prayer. It was written while we were living in the housing project in Newport. Mom had eight children then. Mom had eight children at the time, ranging in age from 3 to 14. She wasn’t yet pregnant with Julie. I can imagine, then, that she looked out her window often, both before going to sleep at night and on awaking in the morning, and in this looking-out put her life in perspective. She did this every day that I can remember…pull open the curtains, look out the window, connect with the stars, the moon, the night, the sun, the clouds, the blue sky, the trees, the birds, etc. It was her way of being part of life, of connecting to life outside the home, and of being connected to the larger Creation of God’s world. It was this perspective that kept her going, helped her transcend on a daily basis the feeling of being “root-bound to home and homely chores.” It was, in her own words, how her soul “soared eternally” everyday. This prayerful existence went on right before our eyes, unpretentiously, subtle, imperceptible. We considered her “saintly,’ but our understanding barely scratched the truth of her deeply spiritual inner world, so connected was she to God and His Creation: “this tree which gives my soul its wings.”

In the Armenian Home, when mom finally got her bed by the window looking out over the lemon and eucalyptus trees and open fields near the orange orchard, I felt so much at peace, finally, with myself, knowing we couldn’t ask for anything more at this time, that the Hand of God had intervened, in her final days, to give her what she most loved and needed…that window out onto His World. It was there each morning, and throughout the day, that she connected to the tree (Nature) and through it felt drawn to God:”From deep within the silent sod the sun has drawn its hidden life to God.” Mom was the tree and the bird and the lemon—was one with all these, a part of the natural order.

I like mom’s reference in this poem to the “two red beacons of the air on the distant shore.” I guess that these might be lighthouse beacons guiding the ships at night, and that, as she “tuned in” with God by moving her fingers through her rosary, she connected to the sense of guidance these beacons symbolized, guidance she sought through prayer. This is another example of how sensitive her mind was. As she did with the beacons in the night, she could turn nearly anything into a part of her relationship with God: “Keep their lonely vigil with my fingers.”

The word “perspective” is an abstraction. It never enters the poem. Instead, the imagery carries the thought. The window, of course, is an obvious metaphor. Though it may be “narrow,” a narrow window, even a slight crack in the door, a simple ray of light, a mere shadow showing through a curtain, the quiet rustling of leaves, is enough to awaken the poetry of the creative mind. Abstraction here is expressed in the concrete, displaying the force of mom’s poetic imagination. Philosophically, Mom understood that if we could just get a little bit outside ourselves, we could go the distance, transcend self— “Beyond my narrow window lies a world of things”—which is why she encouraged us to work hard, do our homework and chores, use our talents and skills, care about others, plant trees and flowers, say our prayers and stay close to one another. Being self-centered and closed-minded was unacceptable. Being open to the world and embracing life and others was the ideal. Throughout her poems mom expresses a sense of both social and spiritual consciousness.