Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
~ David Wagoner
What Mr. Wagoner suggests in this little fable is that no matter how sure you are that you’ve lost your way, you haven’t--not really, because the world around knows very well where it is and what it is and even where you are. The world may feel entirely out of whack, but your dislocation is quite personal, he says. You may indeed be lost, but rest assured the trees around you aren’t.
And if you listen, you’ll hear as much. After all, those birds know very well which of a thousand branches is theirs. The forest knows where it is and what it is, Wagoner says, so you must stay tuned. Listen. Watch. Observe until you get it because “If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,/you are surely lost.”
Isn’t that a great line? Confused? Wagoner says. Then “stand still” because surely the real world around you knows where it is and where you are.
The only thing I understood about landscape difference when, 40 years ago, I moved to Siouxland, was that there was an east here. I’d grown up a mile or so west of Lake Michigan, which meant there was no east. “Go east ‘till your hat floats,” people used to say, a quip that had this faint hint of nothing less than death.
Siouxland had an east, which, at first, seemed strange. It also had no trees—well, what was here came in bundles, leafy smudges on a long yawning landscape like nothing I’d ever seen. I remember reading, once upon a time, that the literature of the Great Plains was frequented by mad women, wives and mothers who, in the days of sod houses, sometimes went crazy in the endless openness with no place to hide, no place to nest. On the Great Plains in those early treeless days, some felt continually exposed, forever naked.
I grew up on Wisconsin’s lakeshore. The richest moments of my childhood probably happened in and around woods, trees, like the ones that stand so knowingly in David Wagoner’s poem. Above my desk at school hangs a painting of those very woods, a painting that’ll get thrown out soon because I’m the one in my family who knows what grace is in the lakeshore.
But if I’d waited for trees to tell me where I was when I got here to Siouxland, I’d have been lost. Five minutes in any direction from where I live and I’m a wanderer in a treeless world. I’ve got to drive about a half hour west to take a walk in a woods, and what’s there doesn’t sprawl far enough to allow me or anyone else, for that matter, to get lost.
But Wagoner’s poem isn’t about trees really, even cartoon trees who give directions when you’ve lost yours. It’s about finding a place. About listening to the sounds of the place you’re in, hearing the wind, being still and small enough to let the place find you.
In my life, I honestly think that may have happened; but I also know that, as Wagoner says, it’s something one has to work. One has to listen, to see, to hear. With regards to the world around me, I think I’ve become, in a way, as much of a native as I ever will. I found myself and found my way, not without help.
Last night that very acculturation got itself celebrated in a retirement dinner. I don’t know the numbers exactly, but the commemorative medal I was given says 36 years, plus four more as a student--a long time for a place with few trees.
A person should have only one retirement dinner because it feels precariously close to what one might expect at a funeral—your own.
But then, maybe that’s not all bad. I’m no longer a stranger here. I’ve become, landscape-wise, a native. Maybe it’s time for a death, because maybe it’s time for me to get lost again in some different trees, in another landscape, a place to become curious and hopeful enough to let it find me.
And if you listen, you’ll hear as much. After all, those birds know very well which of a thousand branches is theirs. The forest knows where it is and what it is, Wagoner says, so you must stay tuned. Listen. Watch. Observe until you get it because “If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,/you are surely lost.”
Isn’t that a great line? Confused? Wagoner says. Then “stand still” because surely the real world around you knows where it is and where you are.
The only thing I understood about landscape difference when, 40 years ago, I moved to Siouxland, was that there was an east here. I’d grown up a mile or so west of Lake Michigan, which meant there was no east. “Go east ‘till your hat floats,” people used to say, a quip that had this faint hint of nothing less than death.
Siouxland had an east, which, at first, seemed strange. It also had no trees—well, what was here came in bundles, leafy smudges on a long yawning landscape like nothing I’d ever seen. I remember reading, once upon a time, that the literature of the Great Plains was frequented by mad women, wives and mothers who, in the days of sod houses, sometimes went crazy in the endless openness with no place to hide, no place to nest. On the Great Plains in those early treeless days, some felt continually exposed, forever naked.
I grew up on Wisconsin’s lakeshore. The richest moments of my childhood probably happened in and around woods, trees, like the ones that stand so knowingly in David Wagoner’s poem. Above my desk at school hangs a painting of those very woods, a painting that’ll get thrown out soon because I’m the one in my family who knows what grace is in the lakeshore.
But if I’d waited for trees to tell me where I was when I got here to Siouxland, I’d have been lost. Five minutes in any direction from where I live and I’m a wanderer in a treeless world. I’ve got to drive about a half hour west to take a walk in a woods, and what’s there doesn’t sprawl far enough to allow me or anyone else, for that matter, to get lost.
But Wagoner’s poem isn’t about trees really, even cartoon trees who give directions when you’ve lost yours. It’s about finding a place. About listening to the sounds of the place you’re in, hearing the wind, being still and small enough to let the place find you.
In my life, I honestly think that may have happened; but I also know that, as Wagoner says, it’s something one has to work. One has to listen, to see, to hear. With regards to the world around me, I think I’ve become, in a way, as much of a native as I ever will. I found myself and found my way, not without help.
Last night that very acculturation got itself celebrated in a retirement dinner. I don’t know the numbers exactly, but the commemorative medal I was given says 36 years, plus four more as a student--a long time for a place with few trees.
A person should have only one retirement dinner because it feels precariously close to what one might expect at a funeral—your own.
But then, maybe that’s not all bad. I’m no longer a stranger here. I’ve become, landscape-wise, a native. Maybe it’s time for a death, because maybe it’s time for me to get lost again in some different trees, in another landscape, a place to become curious and hopeful enough to let it find me.
4 comments:
Some would say you are at "the beginning of the end," perhaps...but all good Calvinists already know that at the beginning; I prefer to think "the end" that soon approaches is but a beginning...but then a good Calvinist must know that too.
Blessings Jim as you end this week- only to begin another next week which will not be the end... only the beginning of a new more wonderful adventure.
The Glory of the Lord speaks loud and clear in General Revelation to all people of all cultures. What we as Native people have learned. "Take time to smell the roses. Or, tulips". Think of the fragrance of the new "beginning".
Thank you brother! You are walking in Beauty, just as the Din'e meditate and pray. I am looking north, out my kitchen window past the trucks on I-40 to Pyramid Rock and the red cliffs. A few miles to the South the earth is covered by Poderosa pine forests and gentle spring creeks of melted snow. That's a blessing for a big boy who grew up near the rivers, lakes and oak tree forests in Eau Claire Wisconsin, as a badger. God did it.
Great poem, wonderful reflection. Congratulations and blessings on the next "Here."
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