Robert Frost said, "Happiness makes up in height for what
it lacks in length." I'm thankful for happiness wherever and however I may find
it: curled up with a good book; eating a satisfying meal; resting comfortably
after having eaten a good meal; nodding off to sleep with a contentedly full
belly; watching my son play in a world entirely of his own making (and
remembering when I did the same, not so very long ago: perhaps only yesterday);
hearing an inspiring song and finding myself capable of being inspired; writing
a poem that 99.9% of extant editors wouldn't dare publish but knowing many
common folk will like it regardless; working on this piece and believing that
someone somewhere will benefit from it.
"We call it the 'I'm still alive' party," said Nye, 34, who lost an eye in a
suicide bombing two months after Olson was wounded. "We wish he'd just come back
and we'd all be together."
A cord of three strands is not easily broken.
— Ecclesiastes 4:16
He who holds me by a thread is not strong; the thread is strong.
— Antonio Porchia
Life has not been the same for these men since the late October day in 2003 when
the convoy in which Olson was riding was ambushed in the northern Iraqi city of
Talafar . . . The rocket blast took Olson's leg at the hip, which is higher than
most amputees' injuries and makes it more challenging to fit an artificial limb.
Olson has spent 11 months at Walter Reed, enduring frustrating additional
operations because of abnormal bone growth at the hip that complicated the
prosthetic fitting.
The steps to Parnassus are steep and terribly arduous. —
John Jay Chapman
Dr. Jeffrey Guiliani, an orthopedic resident at the hospital, said that despite
the hardships, Olson was always focused on the other amputees with him in Ward
57. "He took it in perspective and realized he wasn't the only one dealing with
the issues," Guiliani said.
Never mind. The self is the least of it. Let our scars fall in love.
— Galway Kinnell
Olson was at Walter Reed in December 2003 when he found out that his former
compound in Iraq had been struck by a suicide bomber and that Nye had been
wounded with about 60 others. "That was really hard for me," Olson said. A few
days later, Nye was transferred to Walter Reed. Nye came out of the bathroom,
and Olson was there waiting for him. It was the first time the two had been
together since the night Nye rescued Olson. "There he was," Nye said. "It was
emotional — extremely emotional."
And so it was I entered the broken world / to trace the visionary company of
love. — Hart Crane
Stewart, 29, of Convoy, Ohio, called Olson almost weekly from Iraq to check on
him. In one call, Olson promised him that he would be at the Fort Campbell
airfield when the unit returned from Iraq, and he would be standing. Nobody
believed him, Olson said. In January, though, Olson flew from Washington to Fort
Campbell. When he did embrace Stewart and the other men at the airfield, he was
bleeding where he wore the prosthetic and was in a lot of pain. But he was
standing. The men cried. "It wasn't a sad cry. It was a happy cry, like, 'I'm
happy to be here, you guys are home safe,'" Olson said. Within minutes, they
were laughing and telling stories.
All that we know is nothing, we are merely crammed waste-paper baskets,
unless we are in touch with that which laughs at all our knowing. —
D. H. Lawrence
Joseph Miller, lead clinical and research prothesist at Walter Reed, said
a lot of amputees talk of visiting their fellow soldiers a year after being
wounded to mark their "Alive Day," and want to be there when their comrades
return from Iraq. "They want to go back because it helps the unit more than it
helps themselves." Miller said. "They want to go back and say, 'I'm OK.'"
You can owe nothing, if you give back its light to the sun.
— Antonio Porchia
II.
Nancy Gibbs, writing for Time magazine, ably delves into the "autumnal
paradox" of Thanksgiving: "Thanksgiving has always been a feast day for the gods
of paradox. It's an ordeal to travel and yet we do; family reunions can be
wildly stressful and yet painful to miss. It was invented by a bunch of Puritans
who celebrated freedom by throwing a party, and so bequeathed to us a holiday
both secular and sacred, with parades and prayers that dare us to reckon with
all that has changed, and recognize all that has not. This is the kind of
holiday we need right now, an intrinsically complicated one that comes at the
end of a bittersweet harvest and yet still finds something sweet to celebrate.
Everyone is a pilgrim now, stripped down to bare essentials and a single
carry-on bag to sustain us in a strange new world . . . "
I'm thankful for a bunch of straight-laced Puritans who had the courage of their convictions but also the wonderful good sense to celebrate freedom and abundance by throwing a party!
Frost is also good on the "autumnal paradox" thing: "A
poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a
lovesickness." Then he shows us just what he means . . .
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
I'm also reminded of lines Emily Dickinson wrote about the light of spring:
lines that seem to apply just as well to the light of fall . . .
A color stands abroad
On solitary fields
That science cannot overtake
But human nature feels.
It waits upon the lawn,
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.
But there are many ways of looking at light, some of which lead to great
darkness, or to sparring with shadows. Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton
. . .
Alas! must it ever be so?
Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
And fight our own shadows forever?
In the interplay of light and shadow, there are flickerings that come to men as
intimations. But intimations of what? Who can explain Beltane or Halloween or
the scarecrow in the clearing with his arms raised? Frost again . . .
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Percy Bysshe Shelly captures something of autumn's perfumes and odors (and
intimations of death and life) in these lovely lines . . .
Music When Soft Voices Die (To —)
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
Of course, there is a timeless aspect to autumn, to harvest, and perhaps even to Thanksgiving that predates man. Didn't squirrels scampering along nut-bent tree limbs celebrate thanksgiving, long before Abraham Lincoln thought to capitalize the "T" and create a new national holiday? Rhina P. Espaillat, a THT featured poet, helps us