{"id":23916,"date":"2021-01-08T08:53:02","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T13:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=23916"},"modified":"2021-01-08T08:53:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T13:53:06","slug":"where-have-we-been-that-has-brought-us-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/where-have-we-been-that-has-brought-us-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Have We Been That Has Brought Us Here?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5IsSpAOD6K8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: original video version of Talking Heads&#8217; &#8220;Once in a Lifetime.&#8221; This isn&#8217;t <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/the-thing-that-happened-once\/\" target=\"_blank\">the first time<\/a> I&#8217;ve accompanied a Friday post with this song, but come on &#8212; it&#8217;s been <\/em>over twelve years<em>. And with a post title like today&#8217;s, how could I <\/em>not<em> have been reminded of these lyrics?]<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From <em><a href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2020\/12\/in-blue-wind-leaves-begin-to-think-they.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong>Desperate Note from Byron&#8217;s Palace in Lerici<\/strong><\/p><p>In the blue wind the leaves begin to think they are birds.<br>This is when you lean your body against its sorrows.<br>The truth is always there with its hidden reefs.<br>Your touch still hovers over the shore. Each wave is<br>a mirror that washes in a past we wanted hidden.<br>Now our voices are roosting in the branches.<br>Everything is echo, or shadow. Your shadow<br>walking on the other side of the street, your shadow<br>sitting in a passing car, your last words casting<br>the shadow that has replaced my own. Where have<br>we been that has brought us here? The past burrows<br>into me like an insect. The tree frogs, after tonight&#8217;s<br>rain, fill the woods. They throw their voices<br>so predators can&#8217;t find them. The old truths are<br>falling from the branches. The old dreams wash up<br>on the shores of our souls. Sometimes I think<br>the soul is a shadow even gravity can&#8217;t touch,<br>and love is what passes in the mirror as we look away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(Richard Jackson [<em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/behrend.psu.edu\/school-of-humanities-social-sciences\/academic-programs-1\/creative-writing\/cw-student-organizations\/lake-effect\/lake-effect-volumes\/volume10\/jackson\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a> &#8212; apparently originally <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crpress.org\/shop\/retrievals\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, though<\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<a href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2021\/01\/ancient-maps-of-world-when-world-was.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Ancient maps of the world &#8212; when the world was flat &#8212; inform us, concerning that void where America was waiting to be discovered, HERE BE DRAGONS. Dragons may not have been here then, but they are certainly here now, breathing fire, belching smoke; or, to be less literary and biblical about it, attempting to intimidate the mores, morals, and morality of this particular and peculiar time and place. Nor, since this country is the issue of the entire globe and is also the most powerful nation currently to be found on it, are we speaking only of this time and place. And it can be said that the monumental struggles being waged in our time and not only in this place resemble, in awesome ways, the ancient struggle between those who insisted that the world was flat and those who apprehended that it was round.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(James Baldwin [<em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cusd80.com\/cms\/lib\/AZ01001175\/Centricity\/Domain\/1073\/Full%20Text%20Here-be-Dragons-James-Baldwin.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a>, originally <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=dsauteQRd7UC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong>Drycleaners<\/strong><\/p><p>At the drycleaners I stand in line, my feet<br>shuffling weight from side to side,<br>impatience all over me while the woman,<br>light brown, with her Creole story drones on.<br>In New Orleans none would notice.<br>She\u2019s exotic in Baltimore, a dawn bird<br>everything hears. Even the clerk<br>leans into her tale, clucking softly. When<br>people behind me cough, she won&#8217;t be<br>rushed. She&#8217;s got her whole story to go.<br>Soon there&#8217;s a man she never married,<br>her mother opposed, far away still, and he<br>went into a bar, wrong place, wrong color,<br>wrong words, maybe, a good man.<br>He&#8217;ll never come away of there, not comin&#8217;<br>home, geraniums on the back porch,<br>and not replace the bad tire her Honda has,<br>who could always be telling her what time<br>does in the kitchen if she stand half<br>naked letting his dog go on out. So<br>let me pay you for him, give you money<br>because you is nice and I remember,<br>her nearly singing voice sighs. The sleeved<br>pants, two shirts hang on the brass ring, all<br>finished, unclaimed, the stiffened<br>stains gone away. The perfectly starched<br>cloth a redemption so beautiful<br>it might be the linen of royalty, but small<br>for a man two of us will think of as<br>sleep scuffs house walls like tide under a boat.<br>How nice they are, these women doing<br>the little one person can for another<br>which is, in the end, a wash<br>of memorable words that leave you standing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(Dave Smith [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=y_VvDwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA94#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong>Say Grace<\/strong><\/p><p>In my country our shamans were women<br>and our gods multiple until white people brought<br>an ecstasy of rosaries and our cities today<br>glow with crosses like graveyards. As a child<br>in Sunday school I was told I&#8217;d go to hell<br>if I didn&#8217;t believe in God. Our teacher was a woman<br>whose daughters wanted to be nuns and I asked<br><em>What about babies and what about Buddha<\/em>, and she said<br><em>They&#8217;re in hell too<\/em>&nbsp;and so I memorized prayers<br>and recited them in front of women<br>I did not believe in.&nbsp;<em>Deliver us from evil.<br>O sweet Virgin Mary, amen<\/em>. O sweet. O sweet.<br>In this country, which calls itself Christian,<br>what is sweeter than hearing&nbsp;<em>Have mercy<\/em><br><em>on us<\/em>. From those who serve different gods. O<br>clement, O loving, O God, O God, amidst ruins,<br>amidst waters, fleeing, fleeing.&nbsp;<em>Deliver us from evil<\/em>.<br>O sweet, O sweet. In this country,<br>point at the moon, at the stars, point at the way the lake lies,<br>with a hand full of feathers,<br>and they will look at the feathers. And kill you for it.<br>If a word for religion they don&#8217;t believe in is magic<br>so be it, let us have magic. Let us have<br>our own mothers and scarves, our spirits,<br>our shamans and our sacred books. Let us keep<br>our stars to ourselves and we shall pray<br>to no one. Let us eat<br>what makes us holy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(Emily Jungmin Yoon [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poetrymagazine\/poems\/144625\/say-grace\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong>Gitanjali 35<\/strong><\/p><p>Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;<br>Where knowledge is free;<br>Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;<br>Where words come out from the depth of truth;<br>Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;<br>Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;<br>Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action<br>Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(Rabindranath Tagore [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gitanjali-song-offerings-Rabindranath-Tagore-ebook\/dp\/B08S49LPSZ\/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&amp;keywords=gitanjali&amp;qid=1610045743&amp;s=digital-text&amp;sr=1-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: original video version of Talking Heads&#8217; &#8220;Once in a Lifetime.&#8221; This isn&#8217;t the first time I&#8217;ve accompanied a Friday post with this song, but come on &#8212; it&#8217;s been over twelve years. And with a post title like today&#8217;s, how could I not have been reminded of these lyrics?] From whiskey river: Desperate Note [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"James Baldwin, Emily Jungmin Yoon, Talking Heads, et al: 'Where Have We Been That Has Brought Us Here?'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,94,74,5,251,4159],"tags":[505,3261,3927,3932,4639,5278,5279,5280,5281],"class_list":{"0":"post-23916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-02_in-the-news","10":"category-music","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-talking-heads","15":"tag-james-baldwin","16":"tag-rabindranath-tagore","17":"tag-richard-jackson","18":"tag-dave-smith","19":"tag-emily-jungmin-yoon","20":"tag-origins-and-destinations","21":"tag-arrivals-and-departures","22":"tag-lifes-mysteries","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6dK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23916"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23930,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23916\/revisions\/23930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}