If you are the kind of guy who has been all wrapped up in politics these past few months, I hope for your mental health that you stop it! But, despite my warning, if you still can’t resist, you may have noticed a thing or two about those of us who call ourselves AMERICANS.
It probably shocked you to discover that we – of all ages and persuasions – don’t always PAY ATTENTION to each other and, for that matter, don’t always pay attention to what is going on around us.
We make decisions and base beliefs on PARTS of what is being said and done…and boy, to we think we are right!
I live in “The City” and I take daily walks around different sections of the general area in which I live. Every day, I notice that people are walking blindly….sometimes approaching me on the sidewalk in groups while being completely oblivious to the fact that yours truly is currently occupying a space which they are blindly attempting to fill! And, everyone in the crowd has a cell phone up in his or he face!
Unlike Ratzo Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman in “Midnight Cowboy”), I don’t blurt out, “HEY, I’M WALKING HERE!”
Yet, since I am a certifiable Codger, seldom in a mood where I am wont to step aside for idiots, I usually stop, brace myself, turn a somewhat skinny shoulder into the
Sometimes the culprit catches himself (usually a man) and stops in the nick of time…..but seldom apologizes.
Often, and this is the fun part, he walks right into the fully prepared me….and I have braced, and it becomes a teaching moment…..NOT!
And then, with no sign of embarrassment, he usually walks on with his IPhone returned to its position up close to his face.
Worse, and this is really dangerous, are those on our sidewalks who are in charge of small children, sometimes their own and sometimes those being cared for by Nannies. More than once I have seen Mothers and minders pushing their precious infants around the sidewalks and in crosswalks while engrossed completely in cell phones held close to faces.
The adults usually give the appearance of care, but I can see every day that they are not being careful enough, and cannot possibly be COMPLETELY alert to dangers to themselves and their precious ones.
So, we humans have returned to complacency, we have generational habits that endanger us, but we are unaware of the habits and thus we cannot begin to correct this general defect!
But, take heart! I am going to use a couple of short poems to show you that you are not (Far from it) paying attention even when asked to, and then tell you how to start paying attention.
Now, you have to do your part! It is easy and takes just a few moments. Here is a poem about remembering the love and care of a father. Take as much time as you like and then answer a couple of questions for me:
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
– Robert Hayden
QUESTION 1: (Without looking up) How often did the father get up and build the fires?
I hope you noticed that the answer is in the first line. If you had been ready to read the poem, it would have been simple…..Was it?
(Congratulations if you knew the answer; About EIGHTY percent of people who took my writing classes could not answer this, despite my warnings.)
A more difficult answer for most is, WHO IS THE SPEAKER (“Speaker” in poetry is NOT the poet! It could be a person or a thing. NEVER think of the speaker as the poet…or you cannot do it justice) in the poem? And WHAT DO YOU THINK CAUSED HIM or HER to speak? You cannot know for sure, but if you just think about this and similar poems, AN answer will come to you. It does not matter, since if you cannot possibly know, there is NO WRONG ANSWER.
Perhaps it is like this:
The speaker is certainly a child of the man, and PROBABLY something has recently jogged his memory. Possibly he had just found that he had been doing the same things – doing everyday things for his own children…and doing them from love with no expectation of thanks….And then the sudden realization that nobody could know until later exactly what and why and how, love and care are expressed.
See, I told you I would show you how to avoid death and influence people!
SECOND POEM:
This poem is a doozy. I tell you in advance that I just want you to notice that there is more than one speaker in the poem and the speakers change back and forth.
Your assignment, to help you remember to PAY ATTENTION: Just mark the poem where there is a change in speakers.
Not Waving But Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drownin
– Stevie Smith
See? When you pay attention, you can do things like amaze your friends by saying, “Did you know that Stevie Smith was a woman and that her poem, ‘Not Waving But Drowning’ suggests more about life than just that people drown.”
Then, in the physical world, when you see some fellow out in the water of daily life – maybe in the office where you work – and you watch him falter…going down one, two, three times and he seems to be thrashing about and needing attention, you can either offer him a helping hand or you can turn to someone and say, ‘That fellow is not waving, he’s drowning!”
