Out by Saint’s Bay the water’s fairer

and the plums grow fat and sweet;

they say the air there is far fresher,

that vineyards stretch like rows of wheat.

 

They say the winter rains fall lightly,

and last but a week or two.

They say the summer nights will haunt you,

as true goodnights always do.

 

But I’ll admit to be less bitter,

in a Northern City fair,

though truth be told I’m far less rich there

my fine clothes turn’d homespun bare.

 

There the wind runs wildly howling,

like a drunk man out of doors.

There the plums are always souring,

and the streets turn scary dark.

 

But there my friends are waiting for me,

and there are paths yet untread.

There you’ll find me, in the autumn,

reading books yet unread.

 

Do you remember that part in The Phantom Tollbooth when Milo becomes lost in the Doldrums? He’s rescued by that talking dog, Tock, who explains that he can only leave that stagnant, miserable place if he changes the way he thinks. While I applaud the novel’s empowering suggestion of an internal locus of control as regards a person’s happiness, I am inclined to believe that situation plays a greater part than is acknowledged. I may keep myself out of the Doldrums, but if I do something every day that makes me feel unhappy and purposeless, I will continue to circle that unhappy territory like a buzzard waiting to feed.

Two weeks, and I’m off again. Back to school, and new work, and my city.

I have to confess that this summer has tired me more than most. I will not bore you with too many details, but suffice it to say that I feel as though I have been getting nowhere slowly.

I am discouraged. I am writing stories, practicing my craft, working on snippets of novels, penning the occasional good poem and many mediocre ones — “The Traveler” turned out particularly well. I still feel the need for some instruction with regard to my writing, but given my family’s current financial situation, I suspect I will have to do without the formal kind for some time. I suppose reading good books is the best education, and I am sure I can find a writing group in Boston, should I really have the time on top of four classes and twelve hours of work a week. I would love to take a beginning guitar class, too, but I am trying not to make my usual mistake of stretching myself too thin.

I still worry about what I’ll do after college. My sister has recommended two years abroad, so I will spread my net wide and look for positions teaching English, the only thing I am really qualified to do. I think I’ll enjoy it. Perhaps I will apply to the top ten English phD programs after my first year abroad, in the US and the UK, Marshall and Rhodes scholarships included, and apply again the second year. If I am not accepted, I will explore my other options. I might enjoy teaching English or ESL full-time, or become a career counselor, or a testing psychologist. Perhaps I will go to law school, and help fight for social justice with my sister — we’ll call our agency Erickson and Erickson, and offer cheap speculative fiction classes by night.

Worrying about whether I will make it now would be a waste of time, but any of these proposed positions would give me a chance to make a greater difference in a person’s life than being a literature or composition professor would. I would love to grow up to be like Theodora Goss, a published writer and professor of the Gothic and folklore, but it would be arrogant and stupid of me to think I require that life to be happy or satisfied. I need the basics: a room with a lock, clothes, good food, a washer, hot water, and the option of silence at the end of the day. I need thoughtful, loyal, verbal friends, and the opportunity to meet people who will challenge me to be more curious, compassionate, and courageous. I need to move closer to good, published writing, every day. These are the things that will make me happy, and they are things that I can have right now, or soon enough, at any rate.

In the meantime, I must try to be grateful; bitterness is  useless, ungrateful, foolish, and caustic. I have the basics and more, and friends I would not trade anything for. In the absence of a talking dog to guide me, I have the writer’s path. (Though admittedly the sign posts are considerably less well-written than I had hoped. It’s a wee bit overgrown, hereabouts, and people keep asking me to pay them for “exposure.” Seems fishy.)

I am lucky. I cannot think of a decent ending to this post — it will end truly only when I am back at school, no longer circling the doldrums like a vulture — so I will leave you with a snippet of “The Traveler” that will do just as well as my usual summation.

He is so ready to leave

That he sleeps with

His shoes on.

 

 

I tell you, I am no broken thing:

though I may cut, and I may sting

like shards of glass, fallen low.–

I am no broken thing, you know.

I have teeth and I have claws

that cut like scalpels and like saws

I am wild and I am free,

I am not broken, for you see

A dog or horse may be tamed

but lions can only be restrained:

Soon I’ll be running free,

the caged bird sings, but not

for me.

The house has been

under construction

For as long as she remembers.

She comes, she goes

And each time,

Something has changed.

One day the backyard

Is a jungle, the next

A cement playground.

The family portraits rearrange themselves

Or pose, smiling separately,

As though for a photograph.

Sometimes they look

Frightened, their eyes fixed

On something just behind her.

One day she comes home

And her father is gone.

“He fell into a crack

On the wall,”

Her mother tells the policemen.

“There are no cracks

On the walls,” they say.

“Just wait,” she says,

Runs her hand over the walls’

New smoothness.

“They were here

Just yesterday.”

The policemen leave,

Murmuring about

Crazy women, crazy girls.

The three sigh

Together. Under construction,

her mother promises,

Just a little while longer.

Picture the traveler,

Hermes even,

Not old, now,

Not ever old,

Sitting awake in his bed

Or perhaps not a bed,

But a cradle

In a cave

In the single day

When he was one of us.

I see him now, don’t you?

Dark curls, bright eyes

Already full of mischief

And — something like

Bitterness,

That Hope will not let

Harden.

He is so ready to leave

That he sleeps with

His shoes on.

His first words were

Real estate advertisements:

One cave, large enough for two,

Well-furnished,

Available by

The end of the week,

No cosigner required,

Will trade

For furs and food.

I wander by her shop near midnight,

watch as she sweeps and feeds the black cat

she insists is a stray.

She comes outside to blow out the candles,

runs her fingers over the flame. I try it, too,

and she cackles. “Closer, darling.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” I ask, though she is right:

there is no heat, so close our fingers

pass to the wick.

“Real witches never burn, of course,”

she says, her voice as distant as

a memory.

 

 

I asked my father once,

What is the most dangerous animal in the world?

And he replied

With the thoughtfulness of a scientist,

A tiger,

Or perhaps a wild boar —

And which would win in a fight?

I asked, so I would know

For certain

The more fearsome.

A boar, he decided,

For it could hide better.

And that was that — a boar,

The most dangerous animal in the world.

 

But think! An alligator can run,

Can climb, can snap its teeth, 

Can walk on land and swim in water.

Couldn’t an alligator kill

A boar? And a hippopotamus

An alligator, to be sure,

With one snap of its teeth.

And what about

Killer whales? Great whites?

The squids deep down under

The ocean, that feast on passing

Humpbacks? Are they not dangerous?

 

I ask my mother, the doctor:

Are we the most dangerous animal

In the world? We, who destroy 

Only by living?

She shakes her head,

Dismissive, endless in her practicality.

And tells me no. 

 

She says, Nothing spreads disease

Faster than a mosquito.

Across countries, continents, oceans.

And that is that. 

A mosquito

is the most dangerous animal

in the world.

A man sees Artemis bathing,

a mountain pool at midnight, her place of power.

Her hair is the black river’s glass,

her skin bone-white and moonlit,

her eyes the great twinkling dark of the night sky

and her smile filled

with baying hounds and

a child-like simplicity

a man might mistake

for harmlessness.

In this, our chosen reading

of the myth, he only pauses too long;

in others,

he will try to

force himself upon her.

 

No matter: the insult

remains the same.

The goddess sees him

his mouth open, catching flies,

his eyes glazed;

and Actaeon becomes prey,

a stag, devoured

by his own hounds. How

awful, how evil, I had thought,

when once I read this story. All that

for looking? How could anyone

fault him that?

But I am older now.

I understand.

 

I think sometimes

Of the uselessness of art.

A poem cannot

Feed the hungry —

Or make love

Where there is none,

Or raise the dead,

Or save the dying.

A poem cannot

Save your soul, 

(Can it?)

Though here, God

Or something like God

Will say,

Try not to raise

The dead, my dear,

But raise instead the living.

 

 

Can’t follow your own advice, can you?

But if you could, you wouldn’t need

A spell or books or

Castles in the air.

Very well, then —

A second spell

I’ll make for you

For which you cannot fail

To follow through:

A spell for growing up.

 

First stretch towards the stars;

Drink water and eat well.

Don’t worry if things ache or leak,

It is a growing spell.

Then say goodbye to childish things,

The things you’d wished to have

And leave behind all that you loved

Like lakes and lily pads.

The schedule’s quite important,

To becoming grown I hear,

You’ll have to wake up every day

With an alarm in your ear

Then go straight to work,

And never play

And finally return.

There are few new things,

In a grown up’s life, you’ll learn.

 

What’s that? You’d like to

opt out? Ha.

Then do what grownups do:

Deal with your mistakes

As you make them;

There’s no magic spell

For you.

Make your choices wisely, well,

and follow —

Follow through.

That’s how to be a grownup

And it’s a hard, hard, thing

To do.