nostalgia
Our seniors graduate today, and I'm a little sentimental as I tend to get at times like these. I think of the year we've spent together - smiling at the good times, disappointed about things that didn't go well, and pensive about what more I could have done to reach out to them. I wonder about what the future holds for them, and I pray that God will guide them.
During our last class, one of our activities was to listen to and read the following poem together. (If you have the option, I recommend listening to it over reading it. The author lends far more humor to it than what comes out of the text alone.) The poem, Nostalgia, was written by Billy Collins - one of America's former poet laureates. I won't give my commentary on it (mostly 'cause poetry critiquing is not a strength of mine) except to say that I like it, and it was fun to share with my students.
***********************************************
(click on the title for a link to the audio - the audio file is at the bottom of that web page - slightly complicated but totally worth it)
During our last class, one of our activities was to listen to and read the following poem together. (If you have the option, I recommend listening to it over reading it. The author lends far more humor to it than what comes out of the text alone.) The poem, Nostalgia, was written by Billy Collins - one of America's former poet laureates. I won't give my commentary on it (mostly 'cause poetry critiquing is not a strength of mine) except to say that I like it, and it was fun to share with my students.
***********************************************
(click on the title for a link to the audio - the audio file is at the bottom of that web page - slightly complicated but totally worth it)
Nostalgia by Billy Collins
Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult. You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade, and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular, the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework. Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon, and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow." Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.
Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone. Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room. We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang. These days language seems transparent, a badly broken code.
The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big. People would take walks to the very tops of hillsand write down what they saw in their journals without speaking. Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft. We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs. It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.
I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821. Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits. And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment, time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps, or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me recapture the serenity of last month when we picked berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.
Even this morning would be an improvement over the present. I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks. As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past, letting my memory rush over them like water rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream. I was even thinking a little about the future, that place where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine, a dance whose name we can only guess.
***********************************************
Please pray that God directs the steps of our graduates in whatever dance they have to/get to dance.
Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult. You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade, and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular, the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework. Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon, and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow." Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.
Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone. Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room. We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang. These days language seems transparent, a badly broken code.
The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big. People would take walks to the very tops of hillsand write down what they saw in their journals without speaking. Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft. We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs. It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.
I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821. Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits. And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment, time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps, or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me recapture the serenity of last month when we picked berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.
Even this morning would be an improvement over the present. I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks. As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past, letting my memory rush over them like water rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream. I was even thinking a little about the future, that place where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine, a dance whose name we can only guess.
***********************************************
Please pray that God directs the steps of our graduates in whatever dance they have to/get to dance.
posted by Polish Pioneers @ 7:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home