Sunday, August 1, 2010
This is Your Life
"Geography is key, the accident of birth."
Annie Dillard, "Life on the Rocks: The Galápagos"
from Teaching a Stone to Talk, p.124)
It happens this way: you become
who you were going be all the while.
There are hundreds of possibilities,
most are out of your control,
but the details are in your hands—
like the network of crisscrossing
lines & curves etched into your palms
year by year. You may add scars &
decoration, but the body is determined
by time & by place: geography, genetics.
There is no such thing as the unexamined
life, but honesty is as rare as selflessness.
Though neither are recipes for happiness,
they are the control you have day by day.
Be careful not to confuse humility & pride,
these twins will catch you off guard just
when you think you've figured them out.
Minute by minute, choice defines you,
but it is difficult to avoid the accident of birth.
As the universe continues to expand,
we buzz around a shrinking globe
unable to escape who we were born to be.
Take heart, no matter what parallel holds you,
that it might always have been worse:
you might have thought all the time
that you were supposed to be someone else.
_________________________________________
This hasn't turned out to be what I intended yet. I've been reading a bit of Annie Dillard every day lately and the above sentence hit me hard because it brought together several thoughts that keep coming back to me: 1) the idea that a life has a trajectory that begins out of one's control and although a person makes a life out of the choices that she/he makes there is still so much that cannot be controlled, 2) because of those choices, a person's life might have been so much different than it ends up (by the way, though I think about those other possible live sometimes, I am quite happy with the one I have!), 3) I get so angry when people do not understand that by "accident of birth" inequalities abound; therefore, those of greater geographical birth-luck should calm down a bit, curb the fear, and tone down the political anger! I wish that latter thought could have made it into the poem.
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Interesting that as you begin preparing for school, you return to the old Fate/God(s)/Man argument... ;) I like this one, although there are some slight changes I'd make. For example - lose or change the "but" in front of "the details are in your hands," because it conflicts with the bigger "but" (teehee) later on in that stanza. I love the overall idea(s) though, and I wholly agree with your #3.
ReplyDeleteThough I'm sure we disagree on some things, none of them are in this poem/post. It doesn't take much research into the international news front to see how lucky we are. As a woman, I feel even more fortunate that I was born here, and not in a place that views me as property or worse. And yet, I do imagine those other lives, even the other me's that made different choices in my own past. It tends to make my head ache. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to make of it, though. Others don't seem to share that thankfulness, and the chant "I want" is determined to drown out the blessings.
My favorite part:
There is no such thing as the unexamined
life, but honesty is as rare as selflessness.