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Zero Point Zero: Next to Last Things
Well, we're almost there.
This is the next to last column of Zero Point Zero. #99 of 100.
I've been wondering what to say in these last couple of columns since I decided to hang it up. I'm one of those poets who believe in a strong ending, a capstone to the work; but I find it hard to decide what should be the capstone of the next to last column. (Next week, as you might expect, is already pretty well sewn up.)
It's always been my feeling that people in general nowadays have a hard time ending things. Think, for one odd example, of the silly finales of various television series – 'Friends'?, 'Frasier,'? Tom Brokaw signing off, etc. – and of how they tie up loose ends that could have been left undone, or offer grand sweeping retrospectives of careers and highlights of important moments.
Even if something's over – take the Who's natural career after Keith Moon's death, for instance – we tend to keep on keeping on, long after usefulness has been outlived. (That's not a reflection on the obvious skills of replacement drummer Kenny Jones, by the way – but the resulting band was not the Who.)
And hey, there are always reunion specials to look forward to. (Except for Pantera. Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Real life doesn't imitate art, though; in real life, things end quietly, fade gently, explode and dissolve. We lose the girl or guy and go on with our lives, and there's not a reunion special. We leave a job, swear we'll keep up with people, and never see them again. No one offers a retrospective of our fabulous lives when we go; we are remembered, more or less, by the few who know us, and we'll be forgotten when they're gone.
It's no wonder that we seek the grand finale in art and entertainment, when you think about it.
I wish I could tell you that this column today is the set up for a grand finale, but I don't think there is one here. I'll try next week to do some stuff that speaks to what the column's meant to me, what I think it accomplished, etc; but the real measure of whether this was a useful endeavor is not in what I tell you it is, but is really in the eyes of those of you who will recall it, think of it, refer to it, or not as you see fit.
Much as it is in slam, it's really not up to me to judge the work I've done here for posterity. I have my own sense of self worth and accomplishment, know my limitations and my skills, and will be more or less satisfied, in the sense of being comfortable that the things I did here were worthy efforts. But the long term impact is really for others to judge.
I suspect that maybe that was the overall message of Zero Point Zero – that as artists, we put a lot of faith in the opinion of the crowd and the audience, and there's good reason to think of that – we are communicators after all – but our own satisfaction at doing good work is the only thing we can really take away from that work.
Crowd acclaim, readership, even some sense of impact made by a poem – yeah, those feel great. But if you got them with cheap work, you'll know that once you're capable of better work; and it won't feel quite as good. Your own self-awareness about where you're at will make you a poet you'll be satisfied with.
Maybe I'm rambling a bit, here; I think so. I guess that I'm as human as the rest of us; looking for some way to make a sweeping statement about closure before I actually close. Foolish.
Here is a brief story to end it, then.
I grew up with a yard full of fruit trees. If you know anything about fruit trees, you know that they have a definite life cycle – they mature, bloom and bear fruit, then grow old and stop producing after many years.
I still live in the neighborhood where I grew up (in fact, in my grandmother's house) and most of the fruit trees are gone now…but there are still a couple of them around, though they're long in the tooth and past their production prime.
In my front yard is a pear tree, which every couple of seasons still manages to push out a small but sound crop of winter pears. (I love those years.)
In my back yard is one gnarled and twisted plum tree. It barely blooms; the only reason I keep it around is because orioles nest in it every year.
Every few seasons, that tree squeezes out one or two plums. Nothing special, and usually so tiny they're barely worth the picking, and never the eating. But it still does it; and every time I'm tempted to reach up and pull one off hoping it might be sound and good.
Maybe our love of grand finales is like that – the hope of picking one last perfect plum off a twisted tree.
But perhaps I should just be honoring that tree for staying alive, and offering those orioles a place. It's not as dramatic or poetic in the romantic sense; but it's real, and it lasts in ways we are barely willing to acknowledge.
Next week: The last Zero Point Zero.
Submitted by Tony on Friday, December 10, 2004 (23:40:40) (1274 reads)
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Next to Last Things
(Score: 1 )
by macmillan on Saturday, December 11, 2004 (00:56:33) |
But perhaps I should just be honoring that tree for staying alive, and offering those orioles a place. It’s not as dramatic or poetic in the romantic sense; but it’s real, and it lasts in ways we are barely willing to acknowledge.
i think that in the search for making a "big splash" we overlook the wonder & hope in just doing what we can.
to shape our hearts like that tree... to offer a safe home for others & to survive the harsh winters... that is all we can ask of this life.
i think we all forget sometimes that the strongest lessons we learn are often found in the simplest of things.
the plum is just what is left over after the miracle has already happened.
-bill
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