in blackwater woods

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
—Mary Oliver









Love is the reason of life. At least this is what this poem is saying to me. The only way to fulfill your life is if you learn to use it. If you can learn to love and learn when to let it go, and continue to love even after letting it go, then you have achieved the meaning of love and of life.
Recently after dealing with the news of the death of Lucious, I have thought about the meaning of love. Lucious never said he was coming to teach the Yankees how to feed the poor. Mr. Webster made that up. He said, “I am going to teach those Yankees how to love.” Completely different I know, right?
Whether you have religious beliefs or not Lucious would reprimand those who came to ‘serve the poor.’ You came to ‘serve Jesus.’ But love, that was his main point in the same talk he gave every week.
He would explain to all the kids, that they had the best parents in the world. He would give reasons why we were in debt to our parents. Of course if you had never heard this speech before you start to feel pretty badly about yourself. But then, he says that you can get out of your parents. You say to your mom while giving her a hug, ‘I love you thank you for being my mom. For cooking for cleaning for raising me.’ And to your dad, “I love you thank you for being my dad. For working, for paying the bills for paying for my education.” And you were not welcome back if you did not do this.
I never know which kids actually go home and do this. I know that I never did. I tell my parents I love and appreciate them all the time, why would I have to do it this way?
After the funeral when I came home I went to my mother and said “I love you. You are the best mom in the world. Thank you for being my mom.” And to my dad when he walked in the door, “I love you. Thank you for being my dad.”

loveless life overcome

I Stand Here Ironing is the story of a young girl, Emily, as she grows up, through the eyes of her mother.

Who is Emily?
Why is it that her mother thinks about her while she is ironing?
Does the environment a child grows up in effect their lives once they grow older?

I really liked the story I Stand Here Ironing. I feel the underlying theme is the depression of Emily. Emily didn’t grow up with her mother around to show her that she loved her, so she grew up stiff. When she was sent away to school, where she ‘wasn’t allowed to love’ she began to shut out emotion. When her mother tried to show her compassion, she would pull away. Because her mother was never able to be there to show her what love was, she was never able to experience it or reciprocate it. Her depression affects her life and she begins to lose weight and is always put off to the side. Once she was finally able to be home with her mother, her mother needed her to grow up quickly and be another mother. She was never given the opportunity to know the love from her mother or to be a child. When she finds that she is good at impressions and stories, and finds her place, she finally experiences happiness. She was able to overcome everything that she went through as a child to become a happy human being who is able to communicate her feelings. Because of this she is able to understand that her mother never wanted to hurt her, and can forgive her. Her mother is upset that she had to put her daughter through all of it, but is happy in the end when Emily finds her place.

wow... im learning a lot

The Lesson is a story about impoverished children taking a trip to an FAO Schwarz and coming to a realization that there is a class divide in America.

Who is Sugar?
Does the girl telling the story realize what is happening in America?
Is the only way to eliminate or change the class system for the lower class to rise up and demand change?

The kids have some idea that there is a class system in America. They know that they are poor and that the don’t come from a great neighborhood, but they don’t really know what that means in the context of things. When they see that there are people who buy toys that cost more than all the food their families can eat in a year. Sugar spews out what Miss Moore wants to hear, but then does not really think about what she has just said. She doesn’t act on it. The girl telling the story doesn’t tell Miss Moore what she wants to hear because she thinks that if she verbalizes it than it exists. As long as it isn’t verbalized it doesn’t exist in her mind. She does know what is going on, she just doesn’t want to give Moore the satisfaction of her knowing and acting on it.

realizations aren't quite so grand as you planned

Joe realizes at the end of the novel that democracy is not worth fighting for because democracy is not a concrete idea and democracy is what is making him fight. He hates that they are makign him fight. He is fighting and fighting for something that he doesnt believe in and when he realizes this he turns the gun that they gave him to fight on them. He turns the gun on the people who are making him fight. These people aren't even fighting for themselves, they are making people fight for them. THis is why Joe turns the gun on them.

and we'll keep on fighting to the end?

Joe just wants to get out of the hospital and get back to America. He wants to show people the horrors of the war and he wants to show people that they shouldn’t fight a war if they don’t know what they are fighting for, if the people who are telling you want to fight for aren’t even fighting, what is the point of fighting. He wants you to fight for the right not to fight.
If I were in this position I really don’t know what I would actually do. I’m not a fan of saying ‘I would do this’ because I have no idea if I would really do that. That may be the ideal. It could be what I would want to do, what I would hope to do. But I have no idea if that’s what I would really do. I would hope that I would be wanting to fight for my right to fight. Like Joe, I do think you need a concrete thing to be fighting for and not an abstract idea. Although life is not a concrete idea, if I was lying in a hospital bed, perhaps in Britain, with no arms, no legs, no face, I would fight for my life. I would not let myself die. I would not want my spirit to die. Joe does this too by deciding that he would turn the gun on those making him fight. I would like to think I would turn the gun on those telling me I wasn’t supposed to survive.

oh hey buddy, we dont give two shits about you

He wants to be an exhibit to show the horrors of war so that he can make money for himself so he can be sent back to America. It’s against regulation because they don’t want people to see the horrors of war. Its not really against regulation but the hospital just doesn’t want to deal with him. They want him out of sight out of mind. He doesn’t matter to anyone and this bothers him. It is even worse because they listen to his wants once they figure out his Morse code communication and then when they say no, they don’t just say no and crush his thought, but they sedate him so they don’t have to deal with him. He then realizes that he really does wish he was dead.

hey guess what. youre screwed

Joe is basically screwed. He has no arms, no legs, no face, and he is deaf. He has no way to communicate, at all. No one knows what he wants or his thoughts or feelings. He doesn’t know what day it is, what time of year or what to do. He is basically dead. It is hard for him because he is trapped in his own mind. He knows he is going to go crazy if he can’t figure out the difference between when he is sleeping and dreaming and when he is awake and conscious of his thoughts. He figures out a way to tell what time of day it is by listening for the nurses. He decides to teach himself something new every chance he can. This helps him from going insane, but he still can’t communicate which is the most difficult thing for him.