“I have none to give,” the Ghost replied. “It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house—mark me!—in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!”
Marley’s Ghost hints at the mysteries of Heaven and Hell, of the divine, in this exchange with Scrooge. There are other ministers who convey comfort and compassion to humankind. Marley and company lift the veil to the spirit world a little to let us see both the redeemed and damned. The afterlife, Marley seems to hint, can be blessing or curse, eternal torment or eternal joy.
Last night, for P.O.E.T.S. Day, I gave you, my disciples, a poem from Carl Dennis’s book Practical Gods, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. It is a collection of poems that, like Marley’s Ghost, touches upon both the sacred and profane. Dennis draws from myth and religion, the pagan and the Biblical, to probe the mysteries of life in this universe.
Shortly after Dennis won the Pulitzer, I had the opportunity to hear him read from his book. He was a soft-spoken man, difficult to hear from where I was sitting, even though he used a microphone. At points, I remember straining to listen to his words. Several people around me kept whispering, “What did he say?”
After reading Practical Gods, I realized that his performance was in keeping with his poems. They are not showy. Dennis doesn’t use the verbal pyrotechnics so in vogue in modern poetry. His poems are quiet, sneaking up on the reader like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Dennis doesn’t deal with answers. He deals with questions.
In the poem below, Dennis touches upon the question of selfishness versus selflessness:
To A Pagan
It’s sad to see you offer your prayers to the sun god
And then, when you really need him, discover too late
That though he’s willing to help, other gods more potent
Decide against him. It’s too late then to regret
You didn’t invest your trust where we’ve invested.
Join us, and if help doesn’t arrive at once,
May hear your groans in the wind and track them
Down to your attic apartment in the outskirts
And mark the coordinates on her map.
Then she’s off on the long trek through the voids
To report the crisis. Imagine the vault of the stars
As a tundra stretching away for a million miles
Without so much as a hut for shelter,
Without a tree or a bush for a windbreak.
Imagine how lonely she is as she builds a fire
Of tundra grass in the mouth of a cave,
A fire that proves too small and smoky
To warm her icy plumage. Then add her voice
As she quakes a psalm to keep up her spirits.
Dwelling on her, your heart will fill with compassion
And you’ll want to cry out, “Great friend, I’m thankful
For all you suffer for my sake, but I’m past help.
Help someone more likely to benefit,” the prayer
Of a real convert, which is swiftly answered.
Yes, Carl Dennis asks questions with his poems in Practical Gods, but he doesn’t provide many answers. He provides conclusions that are rife with more questions. There are no easy solutions in life, he seems to be saying. As the pagan learns in the above poem, it is through our struggle and need that we learn where real salvation lies: in human connection, in the impulse to reach out a Samaritan hand and heal a wounded traveler.
Saint Marty hopes he can live up to that challenge.
