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We fall into
the next wave. No
matter how many times
we come out of the blue
laughing,“What a legless,
aimless jelly I was,”
it does nothing to
keep us from
going under
again. We
can tell
a new
day,
“I
can
lift my
body
weight, I
balanced on
one leg in a
subway car, I have
thick bones and clean
thoughts, I can read
people by their
shoulder curves,
their voices.
I have
steady
eyes
and
I can
walk just
as straight.”
But what does
truth matter in a
Wave? Where we
are blind and weak,
shivering and upended,
wearing pointless feet and inept lungs,
looking as sad as kelp to the
dolphins.
Here comes a dip again. We will feel
grounded. (but we won't say
it too too
loud: the last wave still knows,
and the
next one is always ready to learn
How wrong we are.
Late at night, it becomes inevitable: feeling like a fool or a fiend or a weakling again, from your latest life lesson – your latest trifling transgression – which should be funny for its tenacious recurrence, and educative in its folly*.
ReplyDeleteAnd on a good night's sleep, it will be – they always are.
No good – only the dark doppelganger of humility – comes from tired retrospection.
*(“If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise” - Blake)
** Thanks to Christy (Japanese hills), Todd (river road &blackout sky, NY), John B. Trevor (wife at the door, 1914), Les (leafy sea dragon), Aurelie (dolphin wayfarers), & Khaldei Yevgeny (city tatters, Nuremberg 1945) for making this collage full.
Adage!
ReplyDelete"Celebrate your stumbles:
it's a double-win that does not scathe, yet humbles." - JK
JK,
ReplyDeleteThis poem is a pleasure to read for it addresses the timeless message that people fail to learn from past mistakes, but also provides insight into why people continue to do so. I was drawn to this poem due to its honest nature and the creative use of waves and the ocean to describe people's relationships with life lessons and their disregard of them.
I like how the first few lines clearly point out that we make the same mistakes (for me, it's procrastination!) because it establishes the speaker's honesty and allows the reader to accept ideas later in the poem. When the speaker lists, in what I perceived as the second stanza, his/her accomplishments, there is a sense of reassurance that we can relate to. In my case, when procrastination causes me to stay up later, I find myself making justifications like I was busy doing other important things, etc. Therefore, the following line "But what does truth matter in a Wave" really resonated with me for in the long run, the truth is that I was busy with other things, but the problem is actually that I have trouble managing my time.
Therefore, when the "dip comes again", I promise that I won't procrastinate and I feel "grounded", but like the speaker explains, "we won't say it too too loud" because we all subtly know that we will probably break the promise we made to ourselves, such as the promise to not procrastinate!
These such lines "we won't say it too too loud: the last wave still knows, and the/
next one is always ready to learn/ How wrong we are" provide insight into why people continue to make mistakes. We are clearly aware that we may fault again, but we are stubborn in our resolve and unwilling to accept or admit defeat. The wave that is life always knows "how wrong we are" and that we will fail again despite our stubbornness and attempts to reassure ourselves.
Lastly, I like how the physical structure of the poem resembles waves, and the fact that it ends where a dip will be formed - likely where we will "fall into the next wave" and make the same mistakes, or we may learn from this poem and avoid them.
Again, awesome poem! A pleasure to read! :)
Angelina V.
Interesting reading - not what I originally intended (a human coming to terms with the limits of hitser nature, checking hitser pride by seeing how powerless shet becomes out of hitser element ... ie, off-land, in the ocean) but valid - projecting some justification on one's vices (procrastination, drug addiction, bigotry, etc.) is an analog of that same human pride: "surely I'm not doing this because I'm WEAK. Nooo, it's because I choose rationally to indulge in this activity."
DeleteFirst, I thought the title was very fitting in that, it brings to mind the image of wave crests, from a swimmer’s point of view, crashing down on them as they are subsequently tossed underwater amid the foams that resemble tumultuous and stormy clouds. In the first stanza, I found it interesting that the speaker describes how we are helpless against the powerful waves, yet we continue to willingly throw ourselves back into the waves, as if we are thinking there is still a chance we can defeat and overcome them.
ReplyDeleteLike waves, I see the process as cyclical, how we initially and superficially laugh and ‘admit’ our shortcomings and faults as “legless aimless jelly,” yet we gradually lose resolve in trying to improve our weaknesses. As a result, we repeat our mistakes and are caught vulnerable again in the currents of the waves. To comfort ourselves, we dwell on and celebrate our strengths, no matter how insignificant and trivial they may be. It is human nature to reassure ourselves of success and to feel “grounded” in our accomplishments when in reality, we are in denial of our own faults and of the inevitability of failure.
I also love the juxtaposition between land and the sea as well as the idea of humanity’s feebleness in comparison to the formidable power of the ocean. Rather than celebrate humans’ ability to overcome obstacles, the speaker provides a humbling perspective, contrasting humanity’s hubris in thinking humans are the most capable and superior of all beings. When you were writing this poem, did you want the waves to represent a specific idea? Or does it represent nature in general?
Ocean Waves, here, are standing in as synecdochal representatives of ALL the external forces in life that come in violently or embarrassingly to humble us, over time.
DeleteIt might just as well have been a heartbreak (see the book line for VaMtD), or a dog's tooth (see "The second cut...") or a bout of cowardice (see "Delay of idiocy...").
The process of self-humbling is a recurrent theme in this crop of poems -- subsumed as a necessary element of a larger molecule of self-development called CONFIDENCE (see "No matter what...", "Too young...", "Impatience...", "Sun-chaser...", etc.).