“Drummer Hodge”

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined – just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew –
Fresh from his Wessex home –
The meaning of the broad Karoo
The bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.

(Thomas Hardy)

Poetry

When I was younger, I memorized a lot of poetry. I liked to read it, and when I came across something which I particularly enjoyed, my hippocampus would leap into action and sponge it all up without missing a beat. I maintained vast stores of everything from Shel Silverstein and Lewis Carroll to Shakespeare, Eliot, and Keats, seasoned liberally with Hafiz and Rumi as I got older.

Between sheer laziness and a bevy of head injuries ranging from the genuinely accidental to the recklessly acquired, I have lost many things since then – including most of my favorite poems. It recently occurred to me, though, that I miss this little quirk of mine. In much the same way that I can burst into a song centered around any given word, I miss the opportunity to revive a lagging conversation or to brighten someone’s day with whatever colorful and unexpected verse should decide to step forward and demand its repeating.

Valentine’s Day has come and gone for the year, and with it, I continued a favorite tradition of memorizing a Shakespearean sonnet and delivering it to anyone (who suffered the grave misfortune of) calling my cell phone. This year’s sonnet was number twenty-six:

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage
To witness duty; not to show my wit.
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare in wanting words to show it;
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul’s thought, all naked, will bestow it;
‘Til whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously, with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my totter’d loving
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
     Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
     ’Til then, not show my head where thou may’st prove me. 

The process of committing it to memory was slower and slightly more arduous than it used to be, but even though my grown-up brain has given away some of those really amazing tricks our minds are capable of when we are children, it took only half an hour of rote repetition to cement it.

After several minutes of celebratory dancing, I decided to begin rebuilding my internal poetry database from the bottom up.  I get a lot of blank journals for Christmases and birthdays, but they mostly languish on my bookshelf, unopened, as my Desire to Write has been broken for a long time, now.  I’ve selected one to sit stubbornly at my bedside and await the inscription of one poem per week, which will then be read and repeated until it is as familiar to me as, say, my Facebook page – or any of the million things which distract me daily with not even a fraction of the worth.

I have already chosen next week’s poem.  ”Sonnet XVII” by Pablo Neruda is held dearly to my heart as one of the most beautiful I have ever read – and what better endeavour than to fill my life with love and beauty?

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved:
In secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms,
But carries in itself the light of hidden flowers.
Thanks to your love, a certain solid fragrance
Risen from the earth lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

Than this: where I does not exist, nor you;
So close that your hand on my chest is my hand;
So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.