Warble for Crocus-Time

So already, as some of you know, I often walk the trails around the salt marshes near my home in Quincy, Massachusetts. Everywhere in Quincy, timeless nature, urban sprawl, and suburban order are juxtaposed, so I experience them all on my trips to the marshes. 

Usually, I revel in springtime. Daily walks invariably reveal new indications of rebirth: crocuses cropping up on lawns and in not-yet-tended gardens; thorn bushes' slim, tangled branches greening along the marsh trails; birdsong proliferating along sidewalks and trails; leaf blowers noisily ridding envisioned flower beds of fall and winter detritus; front doors sporting wreaths that weave forsythia and marsh grass.

But this year, I've been simultaneously loving the evidence of returning life and feeling saddened by it, no doubt because this is the first spring in my life that my father has not been alive--he who relished the annual return of warmth and light. I'm finding myself caught in an inverse proportionality situation: the more I feel elated by spring "firsts" and customary evolutions, the more I feel sad because I can't pick up the phone to call my dad to report them to him. The last line of Louise Glück's "Vita Nova" is what's getting me through my mixed emotions: when Glück says, "it is still spring; it is still meant tenderly," I can feel her sharing my sadness (2).*

But really, I've known all along I'm not alone in this. If it's one thing I'm aware of this spring, it's how many other people--people I know well--are also grieving. In some ways, that nature of winter itself made it easier for those of us grieving simply to hide in darkness, to hunker down, to feel and stay separate, as if all that separateness was required by COVID-19 safety protocols. But spring is pushing all of us out of our front doors, practically requiring us to reconnect cheerfully with our now-vaccinated friends, many of whom we weren't in very much touch with when our grief was new and even breathing felt difficult.

As I've been walking near the marshes in the last couple of weeks, I've been reminded of three people in particular, in addition to my father. Two are grieving colleague-friends, both of whom lost children in late 2020. The other is the poet Walt Whitman, whose"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," one of the ultimate poems about the power of springtime to evoke remembrance, I so often taught.

In one of the late sections of  the poem, the poet/speaker links arms with two companions--"knowledge of death" and "thought of death"--in whose company he listens to the hermit thrush's "carol of death" before he has his transformative vision of the dead in several later sections of the poem**:

Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,

And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,

And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions,

I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,

Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,

To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.

"Attendants" by Scott Ketcham

Whitman's description of that walking trio has had me imagining walking arm-in-arm with my two friends, even though they are grieving as parents of young children and I'm grieving as the adult daughter of an elderly parent who lived a wonderfully happy, long life. I might not have felt that I deserved to walk with them in grief had each of them not invited me to: in the case of one of them, the invitation came in the form of a simple text message she sent upon her learning of my dad's death from my blog: "we are both missing people right now."  Neither of my two friends who've suffered truly tragic losses has ever minimized my loss as compared to their own, and both continue to walk with me in mourning fellowship.

Whitman's also been on my mind for the much more superficial reason that I'm so regularly in a swampy place where birdsong is the only sound I hear. I'm hearing cardinals, robins, and a few other kinds of birds rather than Whitman's hermit thrush offering carols of death. But their singing constantly reminds me of the critical role the song of the "the gray-brown bird" plays in the transformation of the poet's relationship with death. Please note that I said "relationship," not "understanding." The change is more embodied, more fundamental, than that.

"Embodied," you ask? I'm a little bit surprised to be using that word, too. But yesterday, at the encouragement of an old college friend and fellow English major, I listened to an EconTalk* called Dana Gioia on Learning, Poetry, and Studying with Miss Bishop.**** A few times, he used the word "embody" in conjunction with literature, and I began to contemplate the implications of thinking about the connection of literature and visceral experience.***** 

That got me thinking back to how my students and I initially made our ways through "Lilacs"--by walking alongside the speaker through the story told by the poem. Reading closely, we journeyed section by section through the poem, keeping track of where he was; what he was doing, seeing, hearing, and paying attention to; how he seemed to be feeling. We didn't worry about what the poem meant, though we couldn't help but notice the repetition of certain images, which made us wonder whether they might be symbols; we simply immersed ourselves in the physical and sometimes fantastic world created by Whitman's language and images. Essentially, we embodied the speaker.

It's weeks from lilac time in Quincy, and not even the forsythias are out screaming yellow along the chain link fences, but that teaching memory combined with my long history with "Lilacs" sent me back to Whitman's poetry in search of another experience of comfort and inspiration through embodiment. 

I decided to turn my attention to "Warble for Lilac-Time"--in part because its title mentioned lilacs. And also because two springs ago, when the women of the Broad Cove Chorale and Unicorn Singers--I sing in both groups--were learning Elliott Carter's "The Harmony of Morning," I often listened to Carter's "Warble for Lilac-Time" because it was the first track of my Carter CD.

It's turned out to be a good choice thus far. And since all of Whitman's poetry is in the public domain, here's the full text of it. I suggest that you simply welcome its abundant images to cascade over you if you're reading it for the first time.

Warble for Lilac-Time*

WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time,
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake—and
      death’s the same as life’s,
Souvenirs of earliest summer—birds’ eggs, and the first berries;
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;)
Put in April and May—the hylas croaking in the ponds—the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Blue-bird, and darting swallow—nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,
Shimmer of waters, with fish in them—the cerulean above;
All that is jocund and sparkling—the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;
The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;
The melted snow of March—the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts;
—For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?
Thou, Soul, unloosen’d—the restlessness after I know not what;
Come! let us lag here no longer—let us be up and away!
O for another world! O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape—to sail forth, as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O Soul, o’er all, in all, as a ship o’er the waters!
—Gathering these hints, these preludes—the blue sky, the grass, the morning
drops of dew;
(With additional songs—every spring will I now strike up additional songs,
Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life;)
The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
To tally, drench’d with them, tested by them,
Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes,
My mind henceforth, and all its meditations—my recitatives,
My land, my age, my race, for once to serve in songs,
(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)
To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of Lilac-time.

So what is it about this poem that is making it speak or sing to me at this moment? A few things.

1. I love that the poem's images and aspirations remind me of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." So it gives me an experience of literary reminiscence.
   
2. I love that the poem unites sadness, delight, and yearning--and that it begins and ends with direct references to reminiscence. In general, I love that there's so much joy and sadness in this poem--but the poet's aspiration is joy.
   
3. I love that the poet is asking his lips and tongue to make the accommodations that will enable him to warble, to embody bird-ness and birdsong. This desire to transcend humanness is made particularly explicit in the middle third of the poem. I believe the poet aims to transcend his humanness for the sake of humans.
   
4. I love that the poet's springtime contains winter ("the crisp February days and the sugar-making") and summer ("souvenirs of earliest summer")--that all time, all seasons, become one. I also love that the poem's natural setting becomes joined to "Cities and artificial life"--all places join to become one place in the poet's soul and imagination.
   
5. I love that the poet's own imaginings re-invigorate his desire "to serve in songs" the love he will re-experience in every season of lilac-inspired human reminiscence.
   

I don't understand every line of this poem, but I feel its energy and its conflicts, its moods and its hopes. They suit me right now. It's an emotionally zigzagging, energetic, messy yet positive collection of images, ideas, and feelings--which is often the way I experience myself these days.

I know that in the weeks ahead, I'll keep walking around the salt marshes with their soundtrack of birdsong. And I'll also keep reading "Warble for Lilac Time"; I already feel the embodying process beginning, and it's liberating me, connecting me, and enlarging me. A couple of weeks ago, for the first time since my father died, I sang something. Before then, I hadn't felt like I could sing. Maybe by the time crocus-time has become lilac-time, I'll be ready to warble. And whether I warble or not, I will not feel alone in the marshes or at home.

* Glück, L. (1999). "Vita Nova". In Vita nova (pp. 1-2). New York, NY: Ecco Press.

**  Whitman's poem is both existential and historical; he's wrestling with the reality and nature of death generally. The wasteful, violent deaths of Abraham Lincoln and so many Civil War soldiers have catapulted him into this wrestling match and the deep sadness that accompanies it.

***  Kristen Baraniak O'Brien recommended I listen to the talk: The Library of Economics and Liberty. (2021, February 15). Dana Gioia on Learning, Poetry, and Studying with Miss Bishop. Econlib. https://www.econtalk.org/dana-gioia-on-learning-poetry-and-studying-with-miss-bishop/. 

**** Frankly, I haven't read Gioia's poetry, and sometimes I found Gioia and his interviewer, Russ Roberts, too certain about whose and what kinds of lives matter. But what Gioia had to say about poetry really intrigued me.

*****  Gioia, who helped initiate a National Poetry Recitation Contest for high school students, explained that students in Russian schools are required to memorize poetic masterpieces so that they have "the opportunity to embody the greatest language available." He also said that myths embody truths.