Chainlink - Poetry and Wisdom
Truly there's little that I know -
no genius shall I impart;
part of me balks - this can't be so!
Sobering insights fuel my art!
Articulate, thus I relate
relationships 'twixt brain and ink;
inklings of truth in what I state -
statements profound on what I think.
Think you, perhaps, it can't be right -
writing much verse when I know not?
Nought is what spurs me on despite
spiteful disdain for knowledge taught.
Taught I have been in life's own school -
schooled in the ways of my own heart.
Heartless are those who think me fool -
foolishness is the poet's art.
Sharon Flood Kasenberg, March 21, 2011
A hefty tome on my bookshelf introduced me to a form of poetry known as Chain Verse. In this type of poetry (also known as echoing), sounds are repeated in a pattern. In the poem I wrote, the sound at the end of each line is repeated at the beginning of the next line. It might sound simplistic, but writing a poem this way, or at least one that actually makes a bit of sense, requires considerable effort.
As I re-read this poem today something clicked. I thought about how much our lives are like chain verse, especially when written in the form I chose. All of our thoughts, reactions and decisions are (almost always) built upon something that came before. Those thoughts, reactions and decisions may vary, just as the echoing sounds in my poem were sometimes built upon. Art became articulate, ink became inklings, state became statements, and at least one fool gave way to foolishness. All proof that art imitates life imitating art.
Have I lost you yet?
This poem has a very circular nature - I begin and end by stating how much I don't know. In the first stanza I'm a bit incredulous - isn't my job (as a poet) is to share my wisdom? By the second stanza I'm amending my opinion about the link between poetry and wisdom. Poetic expression is now more about articulating my thoughts and ideas than dispersing wisdom to the masses. By stanza three I'm making the bold admission that it is actually ignorance that spurs me on - I know that much of what I've learned isn't vital to my ability to communicate. The final stanza sums up my feelings toward wisdom and poetry - I feel sorry for the soulless masses who shun experiential learning in favour of formal education and a dogmatic approach to learning. Foolishness wins the day as I conclude that I respect my own art form, even though I know many will see my efforts and opinions as "foolish".
There is so much circularity in life. We begin being dependent on our parents and end by needing love and support from our children. And from where we began to where we'll finish, we'll live and grow one thought, one idea, one choice at a time - links on a chain - all based on what we just observed, thought, said, heard, did, went or wanted.
Every step of the way we will be searching - looking for new ways to define ourselves and carve out new roles in society. Each of us will exist as merely a single tiny organism living and moving on another smallish organism that is orbiting something bigger and brighter. Considering our insignificance this way can be hard on the ego, and egos by nature like to be big. We'll often need to make size adjustments on each link of our chain. Never be afraid of self-examination. It's inevitable that we'll spend much of our lives battling with ourselves, fighting to make smaller aspects of ourselves big and bigger aspects small. We will struggle to contain ego and anger and frustration. We will struggle to increase our self-worth by proving that we're smart, desirable, talented or just plain good.
Some of us will achieve a level of validation when others acknowledge something we do well. Some of us will decide to validate our own existence by ceasing to worry about what everyone else thinks. I'm hoping that eventually I'll end up in that second group.
For now, there isn't much that I possess in terms of absolute truth or intelligence. My wisdom is of the earthy, common sense variety. No plaques hang on my wall to justify my spot among the educated, honoured, venerated or elite. I am in every sense a lowly poet - a keen observer of my fellow men and my corner of the universe. I'm not brilliant, not exceptional in any particular way. But one thing I can say in my own favour is that I'm no longer terrified to share what I think or to speak my mind. Losing that fear has added another important link to my chain - something that I feel certain I'll continue to forge strong links onto.
The school of life has taught me to embrace my ignorance and foolishness. I watch, I examine and I learn as I go - building upon my experiences with a hopeful sort of faith in myself and humanity. I hope that eventually my unique combination of faith and folly will help me to think better thoughts, make wiser decisions and react with dignity to whatever challenges I face while I traverse the path of trial and error that will lead to my life's conclusion.
Someday, when I am old and needy, I hope that my sons will see me as someone who forged a strong chain - someone who kept searching when answers weren't evident, someone who continued to think and question and express my own flawed opinions until the bitter end.. I hope they'll know that I wasn't afraid to toss out my tired old maps and journey down new roads; to scrap a few old recipes and cook "from scratch." I hope they'll have heart enough to accept my foolishness and to understand how liberating it can be to admit to intellectual defeat at times; to shrug your shoulders and admit that there's a whole lot that you just don't know. I hope that they'll have learned that the strongest hearts are often filled with fear and doubt, and that ignorance is both your best friend and your worst enemy. I hope they gain an intimate knowledge of the dual nature of their own areas of ignorance.
Just as I'm guided by echoing wisdom from those whose lives have had positive impact on mine, I hope that some of the wiser things I've said and done will echo in the ears of my posterity. (My ego even dares to hope a line or two of my verse will sometimes come to mind.)
It is hard to keep all the endings and beginnings in life echoing harmoniously. It's challenging to keep building on what we've started to figure out in a rational, sensible way. It might be silly to believe that anyone can find a kernel of wisdom in my poetic ramblings. I can live with a little bit of silly. It really doesn't matter whether I'm hailed as an intellect. My job, as poet - and as student of life - is to observe, think and communicate. My goal is to simply encourage thought in those who take the time to read my musings.
Observe, experience, think, react and choose. Repeat this process until your chain is completed, and you reach the place where you began - needy and vulnerable. You'll probably still be ignorant too, but perhaps a little less so.
Forge the strongest, most sensible chain you can. Remember that those who rely on others to validate their accomplishments are apt to become emotional invalids, and that the biggest fools are the ones who shun all foolishness. And remember how unwise it is to think yourself too wise.
Listen for the echo.
Thursday 17 September 2015
Thursday 3 September 2015
Who What Where? (Most Don't Care) - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg
Who What Where?
(Most Don't Care)
Our hellos are guarded,
our nods terse when we meet.
Not much interaction
occurs here on this street.
I admire her flowers;
she smiles and looks away.
(If she's feeling chatty
she'll note the pleasant day.)
Talk is very tiny
here in my neighbourhood.
No one wants to visit.
No one thinks they should.
I don't know their stories
and none of them know mine.
What I find disturbing
is that they think that's fine.
Can't match names to faces,
and don't know who lives where.
I am bothered by this,
but most don't seem to care.
Don't know who has children
or owns a dog or cat -
and I am alone in
my worries about that.
Don't know who's seen sorrow,
or where a babe's been born -
this lack of connection
has given cause to mourn.
I mourn friendships not forged
and celebrations missed.
We are not connected.
We merely co-exist.
By Sharon Flood Kasenberg, August 20, 2015
At this point I'd probably settle for peaceful co-existence. It would at least be a step in the right direction. But somehow that seems like a very low standard to aim for. Surely a more community-like vibe is possible in neighbourhoods today - right?
Several weeks ago we had our old car towed away. We had to - someone had called in a bylaw complaint because it didn't have a current sticker on the plate. Apparently that's a big no no in this city, even if the car is in relatively good shape - which ours was. It was about a dozen years old, and not an eyesore. It wasn't hurting anyone, but we were told we had to park it in the garage (which is full) or get a sticker on it to leave it in the driveway. Since getting a sticker would entail making expensive repairs (so that it would pass a safety check), and since it's a tight squeeze to put a car in our garage even when it's empty (which ours certainly isn't!), we opted to have it towed. We had only hung onto it for the past few years because having a second, but unusable car gave us a financial break on our son's car insurance. Now that he's married and taking care of his own insurance costs, we would have gotten rid of the car anyway.
But darn - it really ticked us off that somebody was persnickety enough to see if the car had a current sticker and then call in a complaint.
The problem started as soon as we moved in. I had this feeling that I should push myself a bit and introduce myself to the neighbours, but I didn't. There was still this stubborn part of me that said that because I was "the new kid on the block" they should be the ones to extend themselves and make introductions. In my excitement over being new, I forgot how easily all of us miss what is a huge big event to someone down the street, and how quickly our lives can get busy enough that even the best of intentions get pushed aside. Needless to say we didn't make any friends in the neighbourhood.
We did learn the names of the fussy people over the fence. They introduced themselves the first summer we were here - mostly because they wanted someone to gripe at about another neighbour. When we failed to come up with adequate complaints to keep the conversations flowing, they started to gripe about us too. I heard him once, out in his yard, laughing with one of his paid minions (either the pool man or one of his landscaping crew) about how we must have "come into some money" to get our roof done and put in new sod and garden beds. While the landscaping was being done they had harassed our landscapers - he had complained about them parking in front of our house and "congesting traffic". She had complained to the landscapers about our tree shedding blossoms over her fence, wanting them to come into her yard and prune it free of charge. I'm sure they spent all kinds of time complaining about how bad our lawn was when the cinch bugs and drought pretty well destroyed it, but they didn't seem happy about the fact that we made improvements either. No great surprise there - I'd already realized that they were the kind of people whose only satisfaction in life comes from complaining about what others aren't "doing right".
So when our car got towed away, I could hazard a guess as to who'd made the complaint. They probably thought an older model car parked next door would bring down their property value. Or maybe making that complaint was their thrill for the week. Who knows what goes on in the minds of some people?
Earlier this spring I'd noticed that he never seemed to be around. Usually, as soon as the weather got nicer, he'd be out in his yard, talking loudly on the phone or barking orders at one of the people he employed to work in his yard. But this year, as I readied my garden there was silence over the fence. At first I didn't really notice - I was largely preoccupied with my own thoughts. My younger son was getting married in a few months and we were throwing a reception for the happy couple. But as I thought about Dan getting married, it occurred to me (and not for the first time) that there was something wrong with our neighbour situation...
I grew up in a working class neighbourhood in Sault Ste. Marie. Most of the people who lived on our street were Italian, and a whole lot of them were related to each other. They mostly associated with each other, but we all knew everyone else's names and we all knew when big events were happening within families on the street. We heard rumours about who was getting married or having a baby. We smiled when we saw Mrs So and So out pushing the new bundle in her baby carriage, and maybe stopped to admire the baby. When the neighbourhood had trouble with flooding we all helped bail out each other's basements. And when someone on the street died, a neighbour would go door to door taking up a collection for a floral arrangement "from the neighbours."
It really began to bother me that my son was graduating and getting married within an eight day span, and not one single neighbour knew or cared. It bothered me even more when I began to consciously make note of the grumbling that I wasn't hearing from over the fence. My conscience was terribly bothered by the fact that I didn't know if my neighbour was dead or alive. Sure - we'd never really hit it off, but that didn't mean I wished any ill on him or his family. I still felt that something was wrong with a scenario where there could be so much excitement and misery going completely unacknowledged by the neighbourhood as a whole.
That's when I finally acknowledged just how dysfunctional my neighbourhood is.
Oh, we acknowledge each other with nods and perfunctory hellos when we pass each other, but that's as far as it goes. We don't know each other's names, recognize each other's children or pets, or have any idea what happens behind each other's doors. I'm convinced that most of them are very comfortable with the way things are. And I think that's exactly what makes us dysfunctional.
Is it right to grow comfortable with apathy? Is it right to not want to care about your neighbours?
When did we become so desirous of privacy that we started barring the doors to our hearts?
When did society adopt such a scarcity mentality that we couldn't acknowledge any beauty on the other side of the fence?
What happened to the sense of community that I knew as a child?
We don't need to be best friends with our neighbours, but we should know who they are. We should know their names and recognize the people in their households. We should be able to manage being kind to our neighbours - or at the very least manage to refrain from being small-minded and unkind. We should care enough to discuss reasonable complaints face to face and in a mature, rational manner.
We shouldn't ever be in a position to wonder for months whether a neighbour is dead or alive. I got my answer finally when I read his obituary in the newspaper. Needless to say, nobody on the street took up a collection for flowers. Maybe I should have, but a part of me said the effort would've been too little, and far too late.
Next time we move, I'll follow my gut instinct and make more effort to introduce myself and get to know the neighbours. It might not ensure friendships, but it will make hostility more difficult.
And maybe, just maybe, it will help my next neighbourhood become a more functional and friendly community to live in.
(Most Don't Care)
Our hellos are guarded,
our nods terse when we meet.
Not much interaction
occurs here on this street.
I admire her flowers;
she smiles and looks away.
(If she's feeling chatty
she'll note the pleasant day.)
Talk is very tiny
here in my neighbourhood.
No one wants to visit.
No one thinks they should.
I don't know their stories
and none of them know mine.
What I find disturbing
is that they think that's fine.
Can't match names to faces,
and don't know who lives where.
I am bothered by this,
but most don't seem to care.
Don't know who has children
or owns a dog or cat -
and I am alone in
my worries about that.
Don't know who's seen sorrow,
or where a babe's been born -
this lack of connection
has given cause to mourn.
I mourn friendships not forged
and celebrations missed.
We are not connected.
We merely co-exist.
By Sharon Flood Kasenberg, August 20, 2015
At this point I'd probably settle for peaceful co-existence. It would at least be a step in the right direction. But somehow that seems like a very low standard to aim for. Surely a more community-like vibe is possible in neighbourhoods today - right?
Several weeks ago we had our old car towed away. We had to - someone had called in a bylaw complaint because it didn't have a current sticker on the plate. Apparently that's a big no no in this city, even if the car is in relatively good shape - which ours was. It was about a dozen years old, and not an eyesore. It wasn't hurting anyone, but we were told we had to park it in the garage (which is full) or get a sticker on it to leave it in the driveway. Since getting a sticker would entail making expensive repairs (so that it would pass a safety check), and since it's a tight squeeze to put a car in our garage even when it's empty (which ours certainly isn't!), we opted to have it towed. We had only hung onto it for the past few years because having a second, but unusable car gave us a financial break on our son's car insurance. Now that he's married and taking care of his own insurance costs, we would have gotten rid of the car anyway.
But darn - it really ticked us off that somebody was persnickety enough to see if the car had a current sticker and then call in a complaint.
The problem started as soon as we moved in. I had this feeling that I should push myself a bit and introduce myself to the neighbours, but I didn't. There was still this stubborn part of me that said that because I was "the new kid on the block" they should be the ones to extend themselves and make introductions. In my excitement over being new, I forgot how easily all of us miss what is a huge big event to someone down the street, and how quickly our lives can get busy enough that even the best of intentions get pushed aside. Needless to say we didn't make any friends in the neighbourhood.
We did learn the names of the fussy people over the fence. They introduced themselves the first summer we were here - mostly because they wanted someone to gripe at about another neighbour. When we failed to come up with adequate complaints to keep the conversations flowing, they started to gripe about us too. I heard him once, out in his yard, laughing with one of his paid minions (either the pool man or one of his landscaping crew) about how we must have "come into some money" to get our roof done and put in new sod and garden beds. While the landscaping was being done they had harassed our landscapers - he had complained about them parking in front of our house and "congesting traffic". She had complained to the landscapers about our tree shedding blossoms over her fence, wanting them to come into her yard and prune it free of charge. I'm sure they spent all kinds of time complaining about how bad our lawn was when the cinch bugs and drought pretty well destroyed it, but they didn't seem happy about the fact that we made improvements either. No great surprise there - I'd already realized that they were the kind of people whose only satisfaction in life comes from complaining about what others aren't "doing right".
So when our car got towed away, I could hazard a guess as to who'd made the complaint. They probably thought an older model car parked next door would bring down their property value. Or maybe making that complaint was their thrill for the week. Who knows what goes on in the minds of some people?
Earlier this spring I'd noticed that he never seemed to be around. Usually, as soon as the weather got nicer, he'd be out in his yard, talking loudly on the phone or barking orders at one of the people he employed to work in his yard. But this year, as I readied my garden there was silence over the fence. At first I didn't really notice - I was largely preoccupied with my own thoughts. My younger son was getting married in a few months and we were throwing a reception for the happy couple. But as I thought about Dan getting married, it occurred to me (and not for the first time) that there was something wrong with our neighbour situation...
I grew up in a working class neighbourhood in Sault Ste. Marie. Most of the people who lived on our street were Italian, and a whole lot of them were related to each other. They mostly associated with each other, but we all knew everyone else's names and we all knew when big events were happening within families on the street. We heard rumours about who was getting married or having a baby. We smiled when we saw Mrs So and So out pushing the new bundle in her baby carriage, and maybe stopped to admire the baby. When the neighbourhood had trouble with flooding we all helped bail out each other's basements. And when someone on the street died, a neighbour would go door to door taking up a collection for a floral arrangement "from the neighbours."
It really began to bother me that my son was graduating and getting married within an eight day span, and not one single neighbour knew or cared. It bothered me even more when I began to consciously make note of the grumbling that I wasn't hearing from over the fence. My conscience was terribly bothered by the fact that I didn't know if my neighbour was dead or alive. Sure - we'd never really hit it off, but that didn't mean I wished any ill on him or his family. I still felt that something was wrong with a scenario where there could be so much excitement and misery going completely unacknowledged by the neighbourhood as a whole.
That's when I finally acknowledged just how dysfunctional my neighbourhood is.
Oh, we acknowledge each other with nods and perfunctory hellos when we pass each other, but that's as far as it goes. We don't know each other's names, recognize each other's children or pets, or have any idea what happens behind each other's doors. I'm convinced that most of them are very comfortable with the way things are. And I think that's exactly what makes us dysfunctional.
Is it right to grow comfortable with apathy? Is it right to not want to care about your neighbours?
When did we become so desirous of privacy that we started barring the doors to our hearts?
When did society adopt such a scarcity mentality that we couldn't acknowledge any beauty on the other side of the fence?
What happened to the sense of community that I knew as a child?
We don't need to be best friends with our neighbours, but we should know who they are. We should know their names and recognize the people in their households. We should be able to manage being kind to our neighbours - or at the very least manage to refrain from being small-minded and unkind. We should care enough to discuss reasonable complaints face to face and in a mature, rational manner.
We shouldn't ever be in a position to wonder for months whether a neighbour is dead or alive. I got my answer finally when I read his obituary in the newspaper. Needless to say, nobody on the street took up a collection for flowers. Maybe I should have, but a part of me said the effort would've been too little, and far too late.
Next time we move, I'll follow my gut instinct and make more effort to introduce myself and get to know the neighbours. It might not ensure friendships, but it will make hostility more difficult.
And maybe, just maybe, it will help my next neighbourhood become a more functional and friendly community to live in.
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