Cheer

Nicholas Hely Hutchinson

Cheer

Like the waxwings in the juniper,

a dozen at a time, divided, paired,

passing the berries back and forth, and by

nightfall, wobbling, piping, wounded with joy.

Or a party of redwings grazing what

falls—blossom and seed, nutmeat and fruit—

made light in the head and cut by the light,

swept from the ground, carried downwind, taken....

It's called wing-rowing, the wing-burdened arms

unbending, yielding, striking a balance,

walking the white invisible line drawn

just ahead in the air, first sign the slur,

the liquid notes too liquid, the heart in

the mouth melodious, too close, which starts

the chanting, the crooning, the long lyric

silences, the song of our undoing.

It's called side-step, head-forward, raised-crown, flap-

and-glide-flight aggression, though courtship is

the object, affection the compulsion,

love the overspill—the body nodding,

still standing, ready to fly straight out of

itself—or its bill-tilt, wing-flash, topple-

over; wing-droop, bowing, tail-flick and drift;

back-ruffle, wingspread, quiver and soar.

Someone is troubled, someone is trying,

in earnest, to explain; to speak without

swallowing the tongue; to find the perfect

word among so few or the too many—

to sing like the thrush from the deepest part

of the understory, territorial,

carnal, thorn-at-the-throat, or flutelike

in order to make one sobering sound.

Sound of the breath blown over the bottle,

sound of the reveler home at dawn, light of

the sun a warbler yellow, the sun in

song-flight, lopsided-pose. Be of good-cheer,

my father says, lifting his glass to greet

a morning in which he's awake to be

with the birds: or up all night in the sleep

of the world, alive again, singing.

Stanley Plumly

“To find the perfect word among so few or the too many - to sing like a thrush from the deepest part…” To sing. To follow the birds, to choose to fling one’s self headlong into life. To face it like the Northern Cardinal does, with a “Cheer, cheer, cheer.” Is that the key to this whole poem - that first word, "like"? Like the birds? To live like the birds - ? Aren't we sometimes "wounded by joy"? Made "light in the head and cut by the light, swept from the ground, carried downwind, taken..."? Can we do it? Live wide open, with a "bill-tilt, wing-flash, topple-over; wing-droop, bowing, tail-flick and drift: back-ruffle, wingspread, quiver and soar"? What does that mean? How does a human being do that? I want to know.

Throw Yourself Like Seed

Vincent Van Gogh

Throw Yourself Like Seed

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;
sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate
that brushes your heel as it turns going by,
the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.

Now you are only giving food to that final pain
which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,
but to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts
is the work; start then, turn to the work.

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,
don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,
and do not let the past weigh down your motion.

Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself,
for life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;
from your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.

Miguel de Unamuno
Translated by Robert Bly

Only a certain amount of introspection and inward looking is beneficial. After a point it becomes as the poet says, “giving food to that final pain”, it becomes a trap, a “net”, a paralyzing agent. Here the poet calls us to move, to give, to shake off our sluggishness – to be fully alive is to openly embrace the work of living. “Throw yourself like a seed as you walk”, isn’t that the way they used to plant fields of grain? Imagine if walking though life you throw your energy and personality and imagination and love into the world around you, like the man in the painting scattering the seed onto the ground. The line, “Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself” gives me pause. What is that he’s saying? Does he mean give it all? Don’t be careful to hold something in reserve, because what you give multiplies and expands? What an amazing thought.