Wishes
We had, each of us, a set of wishes.
The number changed. And what we wished -
that changed also. Because
we had, all of us, such different dreams.
The wishes were different, the hopes all different.
And the disasters and catastrophes, always different.
In great waves they left the earth,
even the one that is always wasted.
- from "Fable," Louise Gluck
The idea of this poem in its full context is that all wishes differ but one - the wish to live, or to re-live what is done. And how we know in our bodies the unlikely truth of such a wish. It is never granted. And in our hunger for endless life, as the poet writes, the dark nights grow sweet. And once the wish is released, silent. I visit this poem by Louise Gluck often, finding in the tender way she describes human prayers - wild with heartache, urgent and detailed, fantastical, occasionally selfless - this essential, shared final utterance: To live.
That Gluck titled her poem "Fable," is open to many interpretations. Does she speak to the archetypal power of the Other whom our words are directed? Mock the nature of prayers, or wishes? Evoke myth, drawn from our hearts, or the childish innocence from which we wish? I do not know. But without question there is tenderness and compassion in the poet's voice. For you and me. For humans who without proof or reason, wish through difficult nights.
I have of late been consumed with an incessant prayer. A wish, as Gluck might say. One topic, one need, one prayer, one hope. It rises in my thoughts first thing each morning, and is the last ebb of my tired consciousness. I have fallen asleep in the midst of this prayer. Taken up the thread the following dawn. I am a mother caught in fear. Unable to shape the universe, I ask for a greater power to do so. Mine is a prayer of intervention. A wish. And as certain I am that I cannot not pray, I am equally uncertain prayer has a point. Why? Why do our wishes, as the poet says, arise from us, "in great waves they left the earth"?
Perhaps this is just who we are - humans living fables of our own conjecture. Perhaps this exposes the paradigm of our vulnerability. Or perhaps wishing is the answer to our psychological need for story, for a meaning to the end, for a rhyme to the tale. I don't know. But I woke up this morning, in prayer.
The number changed. And what we wished -
that changed also. Because
we had, all of us, such different dreams.
The wishes were different, the hopes all different.
And the disasters and catastrophes, always different.
In great waves they left the earth,
even the one that is always wasted.
- from "Fable," Louise Gluck
The idea of this poem in its full context is that all wishes differ but one - the wish to live, or to re-live what is done. And how we know in our bodies the unlikely truth of such a wish. It is never granted. And in our hunger for endless life, as the poet writes, the dark nights grow sweet. And once the wish is released, silent. I visit this poem by Louise Gluck often, finding in the tender way she describes human prayers - wild with heartache, urgent and detailed, fantastical, occasionally selfless - this essential, shared final utterance: To live.
That Gluck titled her poem "Fable," is open to many interpretations. Does she speak to the archetypal power of the Other whom our words are directed? Mock the nature of prayers, or wishes? Evoke myth, drawn from our hearts, or the childish innocence from which we wish? I do not know. But without question there is tenderness and compassion in the poet's voice. For you and me. For humans who without proof or reason, wish through difficult nights.
I have of late been consumed with an incessant prayer. A wish, as Gluck might say. One topic, one need, one prayer, one hope. It rises in my thoughts first thing each morning, and is the last ebb of my tired consciousness. I have fallen asleep in the midst of this prayer. Taken up the thread the following dawn. I am a mother caught in fear. Unable to shape the universe, I ask for a greater power to do so. Mine is a prayer of intervention. A wish. And as certain I am that I cannot not pray, I am equally uncertain prayer has a point. Why? Why do our wishes, as the poet says, arise from us, "in great waves they left the earth"?
Perhaps this is just who we are - humans living fables of our own conjecture. Perhaps this exposes the paradigm of our vulnerability. Or perhaps wishing is the answer to our psychological need for story, for a meaning to the end, for a rhyme to the tale. I don't know. But I woke up this morning, in prayer.
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