Monday, November 18, 2024

November 18: "Lesson for the Day," Orange Pancake, Laughter and Beauty

So, it was a long day, and I needed a laugh tonight.

Billy Collins made me laugh with this poem . . .

Lesson for the Day

by: Billy Collins

I didn't know Marianne Moore
had written a little ode to a steam roller
until this morning.  She has it walking
back and forth over the particles it has crushed.
She must have watched a lot of cartoons.
She also compares it to a butterfly unflatteringly.

I like it better when she speaks to a snail.
It's pleasurable to picture her in a garden
bending forward in her dated black clothes
and her tilted black triangle of a hate,
as she seriously addresses the fellow curled in its shell.

But when I see her standing before the big drum
of a steam roller and saying not very nice things,
only one eventuality every comes to mind,
for I, too, am a serious student of cartoons.

And no one wants to avoid seeing
a flattened Marianne Moore hanging out to dry
on a clothesline or propped up
as a display in a store window more than I.



It's a surreal image, right out of a Road Runner cartoon--Wile E. Coyote falling victim to one of his traps and being flattened by a boulder or anvil.  It happens over and over.  I used to watch those Looney Tunes religiously every Saturday morning with a bowl of Lucky Charms in my lap.

So a flattened Marianne Moore hanging on a clothesline is pretty dang funny to me.  Sure, I know those cartoons are incredibly violent and have fallen out of parental favor, but I literally grew up with them.  They defined my childhood.  

Tonight, upon reading the above poem, I thought about other people I'd like to see flattened by a steam roller.  Of course, the top of that list is the Felon in Chief.  I'd love to see him reduced to a two-dimensional orange pancake.  (Don't misinterpret what I'm saying.  I am not advocating violence against the man.  I just find pleasure in picturing him as a crepe.)  

Sometimes, I have to embrace the absurd in order to cope with a world that seems to be falling apart.  I also embrace beauty, and, now that the holiday season is fast approaching, all I have to do is go for a walk to find it.  Tonight I noticed a beautiful light display across from my daughter's apartment, and it was a blessing.

Laughter and beauty.  That's all Saint Marty has to offer tonight.



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