The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Tue 7/17/07)

[RetroLounge]

Sea of Faith

Once when I was teaching "Dover Beach"
to a class of freshmen, a young woman
raised her hand and said, "I'm confused
about this 'Sea of Faith.'" "Well," I said,
"let's talk about it. We probably need
to talk a bit about figurative language.
What confuses you about it?"
"I mean, is it a real sea?" she asked.
"You mean, is it a real body of water
that you could point to on a map
or visit on a vacation?"
"Yes," she said. "Is it a real sea?"
Oh Christ, I thought, is this where we are?
Next year I'll be teaching them the alphabet
and how to sound words out.
I'll have to teach them geography, apparently,
before we can move on to poetry.
I'll have to teach them history, too-
a few weeks on the Dark Ages might be instructive.
"Yes," I wanted to say, "it is.
It is a real sea. In fact it flows
right into the Sea of Ignorance
IN WHICH YOU ARE DROWNING
Let me throw you a Rope of Salvation
before the Sharks of Desire gobble you up.
Let me hoist you back up onto this Ship of Fools
so that we might continue our search
for the Fountain of Youth. Here, take a drink
of this. It's fresh from the River of Forgetfulness."
But of course I didn't say any of that.
I tried to explain in such a way
as to protect her from humiliation,
tried to explain that poets
often speak of things that don't exist.
It was only much later that I wished
I could have answered differently,
only after I'd betrayed myself
and been betrayed that I wished
it was true, wished there really was a Sea of Faith
that you could wade out into,
dive under its blue and magic waters,
hold your breath, swim like a fish
down to the bottom, and then emerge again
able to believe in everything, faithful
and unafraid to ask even the simplest of questions,
happy to have them simply answered.

John Brehm

****************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[Inchworm]

1. I could have answered differently...

"Yes," I wanted to say, "it is.
It is a real sea. In fact it flows
right into the Sea of Ignorance
IN WHICH YOU ARE DROWNING
Let me throw you a Rope of Salvation
before the Sharks of Desire gobble you up.
Let me hoist you back up onto this Ship of Fools
so that we might continue our search
for the Fountain of Youth. Here, take a drink
of this. It's fresh from the River of Forgetfulness."

Nice that he came around in the end to jump in his own painting :)

:thumbsup:

[wildhorses]

2. i bet she is good at math --

and i bet she never stares out the window when they go over the test...

:donut::hi:

[Inchworm]

3. hehe

:donut: :D

[xchrom]

4. baptism. n/t

[wildhorses]

5. a metaphor for baptism --

i wonder if he used that word 'metaphor' in his answer:shrug:

[xchrom]

7. i don't know -- interesting question?

and is he more interested in her -- or his own loss at being able to get to this sea?

or is it a loss of one human being able to connect with another?

all i know is that baptism is a rebirth -- and the sea is -- in this case is -- once dipped in it -- able to make us new -- reborn.


and why is the younger person unable to get to this sea -- but the older person able to -- at least -- know where it is?

[wildhorses]

8. damn, that is a deep sea!!

:wow:

:rofl:

:thumbsup:

:pals:

[xchrom]

9. lol -- it gets worse -- i start thinking about this -- and i can't stop --

i began thinking of botticelli's venus rising from the sea --

maybe she is a denial of venus?

sigh -- i'm hopeless.

:crazy:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. Good morning, my dear Retro!

So this is how professors think!

I'll have to be more careful in the future..........

NOT!

But still this is lovely and instructive...

Thank you...:hug: