Notes:

Poetry is best when taken in doses of 2—read twice, preferably aloud, and then discussed with a friend.

 

Here are quotes by Flannery O’Connor (packed with a mouthful of “meaning”) that point to the heart of what we’re after when engaging a poem or a work of art.

 

Meaning is what keeps the short story from being short…not abstract meaning but experienced meaning, and the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience that meaning more fully.

 

The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery.

 

~ Flannery O’Connor

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This month’s selections are from William Wordsworth and Robert Earl Keen.   Sure, this is another unlikely pair.  These artists, their works and here, their song’s narrators are striking contrasts: a sensitive English gentleman poet, his imagination nourished by a vast array of classical works, meandering and musing across English countryside, and a young dreamy Texas singer songwriter, clad in Levis maybe Wranglers and dusty boots, up for the adventure of crossing the Rio Grande in irregular ways, including rowboats and donkeys, and fixin’ to enjoy a honeymoon on the other side.  Yet, each of these narrators, while dressed differently and crossing different countryside, journey to similar experiences.  Each wanders to a moment and to an unexpected gift, a gift that brings high (if not the highest) pleasure and a gift that seems to be given and received in moments of heart stirring contemplative silence.

 

The wandering narrator in Wordsworth’s poem speaks of experiences touching the “inward eye” and the “heart” while beholding wild daffodils and when recalled in a pensive mood on a couch.  The young honeymooner, led to the “town’s best bar” by a fugitive from the DEA, sings of a high light moment given by a “crusty caballero” who “sang like Marty Robbins could” and “played like no one I’ve known.”  In that time out of time, and in a moment of solitude and communion, the young couple “knew that life was good,” and it was their gift to keep and “to take back home.”  (That seems to be the prime gift and memory they take back with them from their honeymoon!  And, as the change in the last chorus shows, it leaves them singing.)

 

With no more ado…

 

 

 

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

by William Wordsworth

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

 

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

 

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

 

 

 

 

 

Gringo Honeymoon

by Robert Earl Keen

 

We were standin' on a mountain top

Where the cactus flowers grow

I was wishin' that the world would stop

When you said we'd better go

 

We took a rowboat 'cross the Rio Grande

Captain Pablo was our guide

For two dollars in a weathered hand

He rowed us to the other side

 

And we were dreamin' like the end was not in sight

And we dreamed all afternoon

We asked the world to wait so we could celebrate

A gringo honeymoon

 

We stepped out onto the golden sand

The sun was high and burning down

Rented donkeys from an old blind man

Saddled up and rode to town

 

Tied our donkeys to an ironwood tree

By the street where the children play

We walked in the first place we could see

Servin' cold beer in the shade

 

We were drinkin' like the end was not in sight

And we drank all afternoon

We asked the world to wait so we could celebrate

A gringo honeymoon

 

Met a cowboy who said that he

Was running from the DEA

He left a home, a wife, a family

When he made his getaway

 

We followed him on down a street of dust

To his one room run-down shack

He blew a smoke ring and he smiled at us

I ain't never goin' back

 

We were flyin' like the end was not in sight

And we soared all afternoon

We asked the world to wait so we could celebrate

A gringo honeymoon

 

He said there's one last place that you should go

He took us to the town's best bar

He knew a crusty caballero

Who played an old gut string guitar

 

And he sang like Marty Robbins could

Played like no one I've known

For a while we knew that life was good

It was ours to take back home

 

We were singin' like the end was not in sight

And we sang all afternoon

We asked the world to wait so we could celebrate

A gringo honeymoon

 

We were standin' on a mountain top

Where the cactus flowers grow

I was wishin' that the world would stop

When you said we'd better go

 

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