{"id":2854,"date":"2023-09-04T06:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T13:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=2854"},"modified":"2023-09-04T06:52:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T13:52:02","slug":"the-language-of-the-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2023\/09\/04\/the-language-of-the-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"The Language of the Heart (Bonus Blog)"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I said that this blog was about poetry, those of you who were forced to recite the Ode to a Grecian Urn<\/em> in sophomore English would probably have already hung up by now. Please don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I grew up with poetry in my life. To this day my most cherished book is my father\u2019s copy of the Treasury of the Familiar<\/em>, given to him by his brother, Elmer, for Christmas 1945. The first poem in the book is called The Way of the World<\/em> by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. It goes like this:<\/p>\n

Laugh and the world laughs with you
\nWeep and you weep alone,
\nThe brave old earth must borrow it\u2019s mirth
\nBut has trouble enough of its own.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sing and the hills will answer<\/em>
\nSigh is it lost in the air<\/em>
\nThe echoes rebound to a joyful sound<\/em>
\nBut shrink from voicing care.<\/em><\/p>\n

My father and his two brothers grew up in a terribly dysfunctional family. For ten years their parents didn\u2019t speak to one another, and the three boys had to pass messages back and forth between them. I know my father, and most likely Elmer, too, drew a good deal of comfort from that poem. It was one my father read to us often. But that wasn\u2019t the only one.<\/p>\n

During the fifties, before television signals made it over the Mule Mountains and down into Bisbee, Arizona, our father spent evenings reading to us from that now tattered book, and I can recite some of my favorites to this day.<\/p>\n

There were fun poems like The Blind Men and the Elephant<\/em>. One feels a knee and pronounces the elephant a tree, one feels an ear and says it\u2019s a fan, one touches the elephant\u2019s side and says it\u2019s a wall, and the one with the trunk says it\u2019s a snake.<\/p>\n

And so these men of Indostan
\nDisputed loud and long,
\nEach in his own opinion
\nExceeding loud and strong
\nThough each was partly in the right
\nAnd all were in the wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n

So oft in theologic wars
\nThe disputants I wean
\nRail on in utter ignorance
\nOf what each other means
\nAnd prate about an elephant
\nNot one of them has seen.<\/em><\/p>\n

In I Had but Fifty Cents<\/em>, a young man takes his girl out on the town where she eats and drinks everything in sight.<\/p>\n

When she hollered for more,
\nI fell on the floor.
\nFor I had but fifty cents.<\/em><\/p>\n

And then there were the heroic ones. I loved Horatius at the Bridge<\/em>. As a huge army bears down on Rome, the flooded Tiber River is between the enemy and the city. The only way across is over a single bridge. As the enemy comes nearer one man springs into action:<\/p>\n

Then up spake brave Horatius,
\nThe Captain of the gate.
\n\u201cTo every man upon this earth
\nDeath cometh soon or late.
\nAnd how can man die better
\nThan facing fearful odds
\nFor the ashes of his father
\nAnd the temples of his gods.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,<\/em>
\nWith all the speed ye may.<\/em>
\nI with two more to help me<\/em>
\nWill hold the foe at bay.<\/em>
\nIn yon strait path a thousand<\/em>
\nMay well be stopped by three,<\/em>
\nSo who will stand on either hand<\/em>
\nAnd keep the bridge with me.<\/em><\/p>\n

I loved that poem as a child. I love it still.<\/p>\n

In my twenties, when I realized that marriage to my first husband was going to be a bumpy ride rather than a happily ever after, I turned to writing poetry in the dark of night when my husband was passed out cold in his recliner. We were living on the hill with the nearest neighbor and or telephone seven miles away, and that\u2019s how I whiled away those long, lonely evenings.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, I knew my husband was a drinker, but he told me he\u2019d stop drinking once we had kids. Turns out he didn\u2019t keep that promise and lots of other promises as well. At the University of Arizona, I was barred from the Creative Writing program because I was a girl. He had the correct plumbing, so he got in and passed the course although he never published anything. Nevertheless, shortly after we married, he told me, \u201cThere\u2019s only going to be one writer in our family, and I\u2019m it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I never showed him the poetry. I hid it away in the strongbox\u2014a place where I knew he would never venture. And it turns out, that although I continued to write the poems for some time, I never looked at them either. Years passed. My husband didn\u2019t stop drinking when we had kids. And when I finally told him he had to choose between me or booze, he didn\u2019t choose me. So I divorced him. He died of chronic alcoholism at age 42, a year and a half after our divorce.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when I saw the poetry again\u2014when I went to the strongbox to retrieve all the documents that must be presented when someone dies\u2014birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees. They\u2019re among the documents I found all those scraps of poetry. Reading through it was like seeing my life in instant replay.<\/p>\n

I was shocked to discover how early on in the marriage my creative self obviously understood that the relationship was doomed while my conscious self was still deep in denial. I showed it to a friend, and she said, \u201cThis needs to be a book.\u201d Now it is, with each poem accompanied by an essay saying what was going on when I wrote it is. This is the title poem.<\/p>\n

After the Fire<\/p>\n

I have touched the fire.
\nIt burned me but I knew I lived.
\nIt seared me but it made me whole.<\/em><\/p>\n

He called me.<\/em>
\nI went gladly thought I saw the rocks,<\/em>
\nFell laughing through the singeing air.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have known the fire.<\/em>
\nI\u2019ll live with nothing rather than with less.<\/em>
\nThe flame is out, there\u2019s nothing left but ash.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> After the Fire<\/figure>\n

People who have come to live events have heard me talk about this book, and they\u2019re always surprised to learn than when they come to a mystery event they end up getting a poetry reading, too. Because in every audience, there\u2019s always someone who needs to have this book in his or her hands.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re caught up in an addictive relationship, it\u2019s easy to feel completely isolated\u2014to believe that you\u2019re the only person on the planet dumb enough to fall for all those lies. You gradually come to believe that the relationship you have is what you deserve and the best you can ever hope for. And then, if you do make it out, months or years later, when that former love of your life ends up dying, you\u2019re astonished by the amount of grief that comes flooding back to smack you in the face.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s why I\u2019m writing about After the Fire today. It\u2019s not a new book. It was first published in 1984, and it was by doing my first very first poetry reading at a widowed retreat in 1985 where I met Bill, my husband of 37.7 years, but who\u2019s counting? He says my first husband was so bad that it\u2019s made his life perfect.<\/p>\n

But the thing about being married to my first husband is this. Living through those tough times and coming to terms with it are what made me who I am today. And as you read through the poems, if you\u2019ve read my books, you\u2019ll spot the origins of many of my characters and storylines.<\/p>\n

But more than that, as you read through the poems you\u2019ll also come to realize that there\u2019s at least one person in your circle of influence who needs to have that book in their hands\u2014someone who needs to feel less isolated and alone. Someone who needs to know that you can come out on the far side of all that bad stuff and have a wonderful new life.<\/p>\n

And once you know who needs a copy, please send it to them or hand it to them. It\u2019s a beautiful little book. I call it my \u201call occasion greeting card for bad occasions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because that\u2019s what poetry is, after all, the language of the heart\u2014even for broken ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I said that this blog was about poetry, those of you who were forced to recite the Ode to a Grecian Urn in sophomore English would probably have already hung up by now. Please don\u2019t. I grew up with poetry in my life. To this day my most cherished book is my father\u2019s copy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-the-fire"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-K2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2854"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2863,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854\/revisions\/2863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}