Closed Windows and Confused Birds
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap around a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
The problem of our age, I think, is that often:
We look for love in the wrong places.
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap around a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
The problem of our age, I think, is that often:
We look for love in the wrong places.
A strange thing happened while I was tinkering with the piano late this afternoon.
A maya bird had flown haplessly into the house through our front door left open. Trapped, it was darting around our living room, around the piano, past vases and lampshades and crystal display cases. I was afraid that, in its attempt to escape, it would end up breaking something.
In its confusion, and perhaps seeing a semblance of tree and plant and open space through the clear plate glass of our closed living room window, it flew full speed, thinking that it had found a way to escape, into the transparent surface. I heard the little bird's body thud against it, and recoiling, thrust itself again onto a different window panel, seeing the same trees and plants and open space through the same clear plate glass.
Sitting there in front of the piano, I understood something of the maya bird's confusion, and I thought, how often we find ourselves hitting our heads against the same glass-paneled windows of our lives, seeing a semblance of tree and plant and open space on the other side, again and again, hoping to get through. We struggle, sometimes breaking things in our effort, flying full speed into this window panel and then another, looking only for the same trees and plants and open space.
It was trial and error, I think, which helped the maya bird eventually escape, finding the same front door still open, from where it had flown in. But what a headache (or heartache) I imagined it had. And though I knew that I should have just opened the window, I thought, it was just too much of a hassle to close it once again.
A maya bird had flown haplessly into the house through our front door left open. Trapped, it was darting around our living room, around the piano, past vases and lampshades and crystal display cases. I was afraid that, in its attempt to escape, it would end up breaking something.
In its confusion, and perhaps seeing a semblance of tree and plant and open space through the clear plate glass of our closed living room window, it flew full speed, thinking that it had found a way to escape, into the transparent surface. I heard the little bird's body thud against it, and recoiling, thrust itself again onto a different window panel, seeing the same trees and plants and open space through the same clear plate glass.
Sitting there in front of the piano, I understood something of the maya bird's confusion, and I thought, how often we find ourselves hitting our heads against the same glass-paneled windows of our lives, seeing a semblance of tree and plant and open space on the other side, again and again, hoping to get through. We struggle, sometimes breaking things in our effort, flying full speed into this window panel and then another, looking only for the same trees and plants and open space.
It was trial and error, I think, which helped the maya bird eventually escape, finding the same front door still open, from where it had flown in. But what a headache (or heartache) I imagined it had. And though I knew that I should have just opened the window, I thought, it was just too much of a hassle to close it once again.
