March 1: His Greatness and His Glory, Wonder, King Kong

Santiago makes a vow to kill something greater and more glorious than himself . . . 

"I had better re-bait that little line out over the stern," he said. "If the fish decides to stay another night I will need to eat again and the water is low in the bottle. I don't think I can get anything but a dolphin here. But if I eat him fresh enough he won't be bad. I wish a flying fish would come on board tonight. But I have no light to attract them. A flying fish is excellent to eat raw and I would not have to cut him up. I must save all my strength now. Christ, I did not know he was so big."

"I'll kill him though," he said. "In all his greatness and his glory."

Although it is unjust, he thought. But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.

I think human beings have a kind of innate urge to kill or eliminate wonder.  That's what Santiago is talking about doing in this passage.  He admires the great fish.  Knows that what he is about to do is, perhaps, wrong.  Like erasing a charcoal study by Leonardo da Vinci.  

Think of all the things that used to exist that no longer exist because of humankind.  The dodo.  Atlas bear.  Laughing owl.  Caribbean monk seal.  Caspian tiger.  Western black rhinoceros.  Golden toad.  I'm not even going to get into all the places on this planet that we have maimed  and mined and mutilated.  Close to 30 years ago, I visited Hanauma Bay in Hawaii.  It was beautiful, but, even then, the coral was bleaching white because of tourism and climate change.

Humans cannot simply admire and appreciate.  They must exploit and monetize the wonders of the world.  One of my favorite movies as a kid was King Kong.  The old one, with Fay Wray, although I got into the whole striptease Jessica Lange did with Kong in the 1976 remake.  That movie, for me, sort of encapsulates what is wrong with human beings.  Rather than simply being stunned and awed by Kong, Carl Denham has to capture and drag him to New York City, where he turns Kong into a Broadway sideshow attraction.  

There it is:  a human being putting a price tag on something wondrous and, in the process, destroying it.  It's a pretty good metaphor for our world today.  

I'm a poet.  I will never make a whole lot of money as a poet, unless something miraculous happens like Joe Biden choosing me as the poet at his next inauguration.  Or I win a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize.  Other than that, nobody is looking to put a price tag on what I do.  

But here's the thing:  poetry itself is the wonder business.  The best poems, the ones that leave me breathless and changed in some way, are all about capturing (in words) that feeling of seeing Kong for the first time.  Fearful.  Frightened.  Awestruck.  Dumbstruck.  Money does not even come into the poetic equation.  I can count on two hands the number of times I have received monetary compensation for being a poet.  Most poets are thrilled with a good brownie and a nice glass of wine as payment. 

I try to believe that humans can do better.  Be better.  Yet, wars are fought over oil.  Climate change continues practically unabated.  Every hour, three species disappear from the planet.  If you do the math, that's between 18,000 and 55,000 species vanishing a year.  All because humans prefer dollars over poems.

I have been writing poems about Bigfoot for close to five or six years now.  Because Bigfoot represents, to me, everything that is wondrous and mysterious in the world.  Bigfoot is my Kong.  If everyone had some kind of Bigfoot in their lives--something miraculous and indescribable--the world would be in much better shape.

If you have a Bigfoot or Kong, Saint Marty hopes you write a poem or song about it.  Or paint its picture.  Preserve the wonder in wonderful.