ah
My parents’ have a vacuum cleaner that might as well be a boulder. It’s made of stone, metal, and cement. I picked it up, bending at the knees, lifting up carefully, and carried it down the stairs.
It took a poem to get me to write this.
I carried this sweeper down the stairs and unleashed the long cord, plugged it into the wall, turned the lights on so I could see the messy carpet, littered with cracker crumbs, feathers, play doh pieces, etc. I pushed the power switch to the on position (even that takes some effort) and the terrible machine roared to life.
The poem is called For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet.
I pushed the thing forward and back, stepping as if in a dance because there is quite a lot of floor in this house. Lines appeared on the carpet, evidence of productivity, absence of crackers. I began to sweat.
The poem is by Joy Harjo.
I pushed and pulled and tried not to ram the edges of the sweeper into the wood moulding or the stone fireplace or the coffee table’s legs. I kept sweating. While I pushed and pulled and whipped the cord, I could hear the children yelling every now and again, but I didn’t stop my work. I let Grammy take care of it. All the while I listened to a podcast in which the poet being interviewed (Marilyn Nelson) shared a part of one of her poems about dust. I will share it with you now.
Dusting
Marilyn Nelson
Thank you for these tiny
particles of ocean salt,
pearl-necklace viruses,
winged protozoans:
for the infinite,
intricate shapes
of submicroscopic
living things.
For algae spores
and fungus spores,
bonded by vital
mutual genetic cooperation,
spreading their
inseparable lives
from equator to pole.
My hand, my arm,
make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore,
for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.
I like poems that are a thank you.
This made me smile in the midst of my sweating, my bending down to get under, my lifting the machine up to each step to suck up the pearls and salt with the flat attachment, all while holding it upright using my left knee and not letting it fall down the stairs. All this effort to clean what is already clean (dust actually enables precipitation, the poet reminded the audience).
Marilyn says: “…that’s why reading poetry, reading it alone silently takes us someplace where we can’t get ordinarily. Poetry opens us to this otherness that exists within us. In any case, I think poetry and the silence of the inner life are related, are connected and that — don’t you think? You read a poem, and you say, “Ah.” And then you listen to what it brings out inside of you. And what it is is not words; it’s silence.”
I kept on vacuuming through these words about silence, knowing and hoping it would be waiting for me later today once the children ceased their yelling, once I was finally finished sucking up the “intricate shapes of submicroscopic living things,” once I switched off the blaring vacuum cleaner.
Here is the other poem that made me smile.
For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.
Open the door, then close it behind you.
Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.
Give it back with gratitude.
If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.
Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.
Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.
Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.
Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.
Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.
The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.
Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.
Do not hold regrets.
When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.
You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.
Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.
Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.
Ask for forgiveness.
Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.
Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.
You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.
Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.
Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.
Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.
Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.
Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.
I like poems that tell me what to do. This poem told me to write this.
Can you hear the silence?
