Aug 31, 2005
Nothing of importance: a prayer of sorts.
In Wisconsin, in January 1853, Governor Leonard Farwell began his annual message to the legislature with this statement: “Since your last session, nothing has transpired, of extraordinary importance, in the civil affairs of the state.”
Isn’t that glorious? You know immediately that the rest of the message will be of good cheer, and it is of good cheer. The weather has been fine, the land fertile, the markets good, and the “emigrants” (to use the parlance of the time) keep coming and settling and building.
Don’t you wish for times that would call for such an opening? I do.
Czeslau Milosz has a good poem, the title of which I cannot remember right now, about a fortunate man whose life falls in the dull, rich, stable seasons of a time between wars. The poem ends just after the man’s death, with rumors of war arising.
I do not reject surprises. Some of the great joys of my life have begun with the unexpected pitched at my feet. And that unexpected joy has not always seemed good, at first glance. So I try to be thankful for the unexpected.
But may I also be thankful for the seasons being what I expected, for the appearance of fresh tomatoes at the farmer’s market and for their disappearance too. Let me be thankful what I once called long ago, “the calm eye of functional routine,” when it buoys me gently, even boringly, through my days.
PS: Read more for a longer comment on the Milosz poem.
Isn’t that glorious? You know immediately that the rest of the message will be of good cheer, and it is of good cheer. The weather has been fine, the land fertile, the markets good, and the “emigrants” (to use the parlance of the time) keep coming and settling and building.
Don’t you wish for times that would call for such an opening? I do.
Czeslau Milosz has a good poem, the title of which I cannot remember right now, about a fortunate man whose life falls in the dull, rich, stable seasons of a time between wars. The poem ends just after the man’s death, with rumors of war arising.
I do not reject surprises. Some of the great joys of my life have begun with the unexpected pitched at my feet. And that unexpected joy has not always seemed good, at first glance. So I try to be thankful for the unexpected.
But may I also be thankful for the seasons being what I expected, for the appearance of fresh tomatoes at the farmer’s market and for their disappearance too. Let me be thankful what I once called long ago, “the calm eye of functional routine,” when it buoys me gently, even boringly, through my days.
PS: Read more for a longer comment on the Milosz poem.
PS The Milosz poem is called “A Felicitous Life.” My memory of it was flawed. It was the man’s old age that “fell on years of abundant harvest,” when “it seemed as if the turning of the seasons gained in constancy” and “the rational nature of man was not a subject of derision.”
A comment about his “lacerated memory” indicated that the old man remembered much worse times. Indeed, he was “ashamed of his doubt.” The nature of that doubt is not stated, but it clearly concerned the strength and continuation of such times. However, the glow of these good times was so great he was “content that his lacerated memory would perish with him.”
Two days after his death a hurricane razed the coasts.
Smoke came from volcanoes inactive for a hundred years.
Lava sprawled over forests, vineyards, and towns.
And war began with a battle on the islands.