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5 de Septiembre 2008
vespers again
Kj asked me to speak about this little by little part of the Mary Oliver poem she chose as text for the vespers service, so i put on my train shirt, that says "Family Where?" and read this little chapter at the vespers service. (i'm getting pretty good at new student orientation stuff!)
"But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode"-from Mary Oliver's The Journey
My mother is a singer. In a most generous, professional way she used to tell me "your little voice carries" (I could match her pitch, and then some).
I knew, even at five years old, that she meant my voice was too big, that my self, was taking up too much space,-- burning through the sky like a rogue fire cracker, bleeding through the walls she built to protect me, threatening to set the forest on fire.
And try as she did to teach me to control myself, I was explosive.
I am ambivalent about my little voice carrying on, I love the way my whole body resonates when I hit the high hard A as I attempt to shout something straight to hell. I love it, until the people who love me run for cover.
So I try to sometimes, keep quiet. But when I do
I think of that little-girl-me behind big bangs and thick braids, little by little losing her way
The scratchy little voice moving slowly away, unfairly pitted against the science of the Doppler effect.
The question that darts around in my mind, the mean little thought that ricochets off one fear and then another: how will I be heard over the static of your desires?
I see now that
My hopes and fears form a constellation of fireballs looming loud and wild in the black night above the rooftops where my loved ones live. It is hard to know what to do about the way these thoughts rumble, pop and hiss.
if the Pleiades threatened to engulf you, Would I silence the strident roar of all seven fireballs,?
How would I tell a whole constellation to lower its voice? And why?
The answer came like a red star collapsing. I began to believe there had to be another way, a way toward being heard, a way to tell, without so much yelling. So I called Zach Brittle and begged to come to mars.
When I landed here I began to think the oxygen had been sucked out of the atmosphere because I heard deprived, depraved things about finding voice--but mine was not lost! I thought these people were nuts to encourage me to keep talking, keep writing, obviously they were just being nice to someone who had already said too much, and too loudly.
Turned out, here (on mars?) the atmosphere is different, the voices don't carry the old things, in the old ways. And so they said, if I kept at it, there was more to find,
to be refined.
In the heat of healing, my fearful, abrasive little voice and the ideas it carries soften like grains of sand becoming clear smooth glass.
the what and way it carries, is changed. The frantic tones that used to force their way through the violence of my childhood are little by little changing into something stronger, able to carry more than simple shame,
Little by little the voice that forced its way through chaos is more a joyful noise,
a barbaric yawp over the rooftops, crying out in holy contradictions and bearing good news of great joy for all people.
In gentle, brave tones that little voice keeps me company on the long dark days and nights of the sweeping seminary cosmos. Each little idea on the wind in my larynx, even the little bits of ideas humming around in my brain are like lightning bugs bobbing playfully, joyously.
And what is more, little by little, I am learning to capture the tiny fiery sounds before they disappear,
With the pen in my hand like a sparkler on fire, I draw them out against the dark, I quickly put to right the lines and circles, order them on the page and they look so fancy against the justified margins. (Justified!) Just in time, before the flame tires out and when it does I learn to wait a little in the dark, for another one to light.
So you have landed here on mars, up near the sun in between a few sexy stars where your desires mimic the flame and light of the sun, your bright hopes are settling in, set off against the sweet cover of night. Yes, you've landed on planet seminary, somewhere in a system held in place by the gravity of a good solid graduate education; woah. let that sink in. Hear my little voice telling you: you have landed, here, where the little voices you were once ashamed of will, little by little, stop sounding so awful, as impossible as that might seem. Soon you will reach out and turn down the volume on the editors trying to out "you" you and you needn't be afraid of their silence. Out of the quiet your own voice will rise like a comet,
and ours will rush to harmonize with it, and a song will go, lilting out over the landscape that used to confine you, your little voice, my little voice carrying light out into the dark.
and that was that thank God.
helpful | By crymytinyflood | 10:58 AM
Comments
Abigail-
This is so beautiful! You write like a poet! I wish I could have been there to hear you deliver it in person. And I'm wrestling with "exactly all of that..."
Posted by: Liz at 12 de Septiembre 2008 a las 11:24 AM
