Striding Out

Why write about the silly and the shallow just because our childish culture has a thirst for such?If I'm to write every day let me write about things that inspire the mind or gladden the heart.Let me copy out Anne Sexton's poem Courage, for both its bravura and its pain. She was born in the city my ancestors came to as mill workers in the 1850s. She lived, she struggled. She soldiered on as we all do.I remember the day the news broke that she had taken her own life; in my teaching years it was. The head of the English Department opened my classroom door and told me. I was young but I knew who she was, I knew. And her poems thrilled and frightened me.I am not young now but they thrill and frighten me still. The slippers in the closing lines alone!! Not the self-killing but oh for that bold stepping forth...Anyway It goes like this.

It is in the small things we see it.The child's first step,as awesome as an earthquake.The first time you rode a bike,wallowing up the sidewalk.The first spanking when your heartwent on a journey all alone.When they called you crybabyor poor or fatty or crazyand made you into an alien,you drank their acidand concealed it.Later,if you faced the death of bombs and bulletsyou did not do it with a banner,you did it with only a hat tocomver your heart.You did not fondle the weakness inside youthough it was there.Your courage was a small coalthat you kept swallowing.If your buddy saved youand died himself in so doing,then his courage was not courage,it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.Later,if you have endured a great despair,then you did it alone,getting a transfusion from the fire,picking the scabs off your heart,then wringing it out like a sock.Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,you gave it a back ruband then you covered it with a blanketand after it had slept a whileit woke to the wings of the rosesand was transformed.Later,when you face old age and its natural conclusionyour courage will still be shown in the little ways,each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,those you love will live in a fever of love,and you'll bargain with the calendarand at the last momentwhen death opens the back dooryou'll put on your carpet slippersand stride out.