Because We Live

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I stole the complete works of Shakespeare from my Jr. High library. It was huge sin, but I was resentfully certain I would not get caught. I might have checked it out but in all my years at the k-12 Christian school I’d never once been shown how to use the library and didn’t know how to borrow anything from it.

I was certain that they would never miss it. And I needed it.

My brother had come back home after his adventures in Jr. College and tossed some Shakespeare plays at me, little single play paperbacks.  I ripped through them and asked for more.

“Don’t you find them hard to read?” my big brother asked.

“Why? They sound just like the Bible.” The school did at least tutor me in King James’ English.

I re-read them and knew I needed more. It turned out that Shakespeare wrote a lot. My heart burned for all of it. That’s when I stole the Complete Works.
 ***
Six years later I was perusing the English language books at the Russian American School of Tomorrow where I taught. The first class—older kindergartners in this English immersion school—had a library of English books. I loved the English translations of the Russian fairy tales, which were certainly age-appropriate. Then my hand felt the cloth cover of a tall orange book:ALEKSANDR BLOK

The all-caps cover and foreign spelling of the name. I picked it up and opened it.

What was this? WHAT WAS THIS?

Poetry. I sat down right away and kept reading. The words, the images, the feeling.

This time I asked.  Nicholai Ivanovich happily loaned it to me. These lines required solitude, a precious and rare commodity. I carried it with me for weeks and read it over and over in empty staircases.

***
Back in my native Alaska, trying to finish college. I never doubted that I would major in Literature. Life places obstacles and requirements on the way to enlightenment, though. 22 years old and I am attending my first literature class: Intro to British Lit.I walked in the snow between my three jobs and the University, because my car was broken most of the time. I still had homework to do. If I walked slowly I could hold the Norton’s Anthology in front of me and read.
If I read out loud to the snow berms and sidewalks, I could comprehend it. That is when I learned that poetry is very very tasty when read out loud.

John Donne’s flea.

Tennyson’s Memoriam.

When I found Keats Ode to a Grecian Urn I disintegrated.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, –that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”

 ***
I have fallen out of the habit of poetry. I read very little of it, and I write even less.
Poetry is a jealous goddess and demands my full attention. She does not endure multi-tasking. I may be addicted to multi-tasking.

So I hide. I am afraid to have my world rocked on a daily basis.

Coward.

I know I love poetry. Poems can rip me out of this time space continuum and hang me  by my heart in eternity.

I don’t want to run from this immortality.

There are more lines to read and re-read.

Best of all, not all the poets are dead.

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