but I'd seen him many times, because this is a tiny town. But many people I love and do know...did know Brian Redman and are grieving and so so sad...
Thinking of how hard death can be for the young to know....
and how music releases....
that art always soothes...and excites...and forgives....
This poem came to mind...I find it comforting....composed by a transplant who graced the Northwest as a poet...
Theodore Roethke...himself an iconoclast...supremely talented.....
wrote
The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
2 comments:
I'm in the sorta-recognize-but-didn't-know camp with Brian, too, so pass along similar sentiments to those that were close to him.
"The Waking" is a great poem...features in Slaughterhouse 5 and also provided the title for Tacoma-native Harold Simonson's memoirs, "Going Where I Have to Go", which I highly suggest checking out. Some great vignettes about life in Tacoma.
RIP Brian.
yes...we are all connected by small and large threads...we need to go where we have to go...I shall put Simonson's memoirs on my list to re-read...after more Vonnegut, after I finish the novel about NOLA! aahhh. Literature.
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