Summer Reflections

July 4th, a rather strange holiday given our times, has passed. Here's the neighborhood annual fireworks seen from our deck. The show was short and spectacular, as was the full moon. I have been told that a small group of neighbors fund and carry out the firework. I was glad to again witness the show..

Summer heat with high humidity is converging with spiking of COVID-19 while racial justice protests continue. Tending Prospect Gardens has provided some solace while my birthday is on the horizon. Some of my feelings to all of this is captured by poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran's (1883-1931) poem "On Joy and Sorrow."  Here's one stanza that summarizes the poem's message.

"Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.” But I say unto you, they are inseparable.  Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed."   https://poets.org/poem/joy-and-sorrow  for complete poem.

An example of me experiencing the inseparability of joy and sorrow involved these three high school students practicing under the nearby Spooner Street bridge. On June 26th, I was on the return loop of my daily walk. Unlike today's searing 90 degrees, it was a perfect Wisconsin summer day: mild temperatures, blue skies, and a gentle breeze. As I approached the bridge the young men were tuning their trombones. I stopped and listened. They began playing and I recognized Simon and Art Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence." 

A palpable wave of joy washed through my body. Written in 1964, the song hit its popularity in early 1966. It's now a classic folk song added in 2012 to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important".  My favorite memory of the song is associated with teaching high school social studies at West Bend West High School in 1970.  A student included "The Sound of Silence" in an oral report on music and American culture in a course entitled "American Studies."  

Those were exciting and joyful days in my long education career. I was part of an educational reform that included modular scheduling, team teaching, what is now called project based learning, and a social studies curriculum based on historical themes. For example "The Rise of  American Industrialism" which concluded with a community open house showcasing student displays and projects.

When the three finished playing, and after I thanked them and told them to "Keep on playing your entire lives" a wave of sorrow followed my joy.  I teared up as I walked toward home. I  can't attribute any one reason why I felt so sad. Time certainly has marched on.  Perhaps the sad lyrics themselves were a contributing factor, now experienced through the lenses of multiple crises impacting health, the economy and questions of morality swirling around the "Black Lives Matter" movement.  For lyrics see  https://genius.com/Simon-and-garfunkel-the-sound-of-silence-lyrics  

 

Joy and sorrow intermingled could be the theme of this summer and for the foreseeable future. Here's the first of two poems on the joy side of the pendulum. 

Flowers: Imran Will Suleyman, Architect, Vocalist, Pianist and poet from Kenya. 

"They have no mouth, but seem to speak

A thousand words so mild and meek.

They have no eyes , but seem to see

And bury thoughts into me.

They have no ears, but seem to hear

All my cries, my every tear.

They have no arms, but seem to pat

When with worries my heart is fat.

They have no feet, but seem to walk

Along with me in my dreams and talk.

They, I know, are the flowers so nice

That spread their fragrance a million miles.

Grow a few and then you'll know

How your life is fresh and new.

With a smile so broad, I thank my God,

Whose work to imagine is really too hard."

These blooming Prospect Gardens' plants confirm the poem's message of "Grow a few and then you'll know how your life is fresh and new."  I would add growing flowers is a joyful act. Here's a few for your enjoyment. Thanks to the volunteers who so far this summer have helped tend these Gardens. 

Bee Balm 

False Sunflower

Hosta 

Hydrangea

Native Bee Balm

Purple Cone Flower 

Sun Drop

 

Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day, the second poem, reminds us that summer is also a time of reflection.

"Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper I mean------
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-----
who is gazing around with enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
Into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your own wild and precious life?"

  I never really had a plan with detailed goals that I followed, except for knowing deep down that I did not want to remain on the family farm. I was born in this house on a hot July 22nd day, 1944 while my father was shingling a roof on a farm building. This picture is from 1977 and 15 years after the farm was sold in 1962. According to my older brother Leo, I was born in the bedroom behind the windows on the left side of the house. Dr. Shippy delivered me with my Grandma Julia assisting. Leo says he carried the hot water for my first bath in a tin tub. 

Here’s my father and mother, Anton and Anna, shortly after being married. I love this picture. It shows their youth and suggests their optimism. My father was an only child of Leo Blasczyk and Julia Rudnick. After marrying in 1922, the couple moved to the farm owned by Leo and Julia. My paternal grandparents lived with us throughout their lives.  

Grandpa Leo purchased the original 40 acres shortly after marrying Julia on May 16, 1899 from his father-in-law and nine years after Leo came to this country.  Grandfather Leo retired at the age of 50 saying that Americans worked too hard. 

Anton was more ambitious than his father. My father, with a 5th grade education, purchased the farm from his father in 1922. Pa, as we called him, expanded the farm to 120 acres, had the latest farm equipment, electrified the farm and bought the latest household appliances, including a radio. 

According to my brother,Tony my father wanted all his sons to own farms. My father died in 1949 at the age of 49 from complications of alcoholism and when I was four years old. I sometimes wonder how my life would be different if he had lived to a ripe age and free of alcoholism. Would he have accomplished his dream and how would that have affected me ?  

Yet historical forces at the time of his death foretold the demise of the family farm. Farm boys were leaving for factory jobs starting as early as 1920.  My older brothers, as they reached adulthood, joined this historical wave.  According to my brother Leo, he was "Attracted by the big city lights."  Meanwhile the family farms throughout our country were replaced with an agribusiness model. Mega-farms with as many as 8,000 milking cows and employing many immigrants is now the norm. How these industrialized, mega-farms contribute to the climate change crisis is now being understood.   

As I approach my birthday, I have intentions instead of a goal-based plan. I also don't have a "bucket list" that I must accomplish. Being supportive of Ann, my wife and Emily, my daughter is an important intention. I hope to tend Prospect Gardens until this aging body says otherwise because the Gardens are one of my sources of joy. This year I'm feeling more aches compared to the past. The aches fade away after a shower and rest. Appreciating the flow of my aging life with it joys and sorrows, and learning from this flow is yet another intention along with deepening the spiritual side of life. 

Perhaps intentionally noticing and savoring joy in the midst of all the world's suffering seems illogical or an act of denial.  Jack Gilbert maintains otherwise in this somewhat provocative poem. 

A Brief for the Defense: Jack Gilbert 

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies   

are not starving someplace, they are starving

somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.

But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.

Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not

be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not

be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women

at the fountain are laughing together between

the suffering they have known and the awfulness

in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody

in the village is very sick. There is laughter

every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,

and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.

If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,

we lessen the importance of their deprivation.

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,

but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have

the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless

furnace of this world. To make injustice the only

measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,

we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.

We must admit there will be music despite everything.

We stand at the prow again of a small ship

anchored late at night in the tiny port

looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront

is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.

To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat

comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth

all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Our times sure are marked with sorrow. Yet in the midst of it all, I give praise and thanks for the Queen of the Prairie. The splendid blooms have returned again radiating joy and hope while providing nectar for the bees. Blessed it be.

May you experience joy as the summer and 2020 unfolds while also keeping in mind Kahlil Gibran's message that joy and sorrow are inseparable. Peace and good health to you and your loved ones.