Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

Foundational narratives and their archetypal characters give us models to understand ourselves. The hero, the ruler, the jester, the mentor, the queen, and the outlaw reveal patterns of human behavior and inner psychology. They embed in us. They structure our worldview, what we believe, and how we respond to situations in life. They govern what we enfold and accept into the warp and woof of the story of the universe.

The constellations in the sky are an early example of our proclivity to magnify our stories. As we say, they become fixed in the stars. But what if we do not see ourselves reflected between Orion, the hunter, and Cassiopeia, the queen. What if we don’t have the privilege of our journey being cast as heroic in films? What if no poem exists that locates our place within the larger human story? What if our sacred texts and folktales fail to help us see ourselves as divine?

Sometimes it is necessary to create our own stories and poems that account for our reality, for who we are, presently, in the 21st century. Our dreams and imagination serve as a bridge in expanding conceptions of the self. One of my favorite poets once declared “The dream of every poem is to be a myth.” I like this idea, that poems can order our world, give agency and permission, cultivate, and open our collective unconscious.

Today’s poem goes one further, in warning that humankind’s supreme fictions should not eclipse the authenticity of an individual journey. We are, after all, creatures who summon reality into existence through our acts, not merely, by words alone.

To Find Stars in Another Language
by Elizabeth Bradfield

You do not have the story
yet, although its shimmer
is familiar. And the way its source
is dampened by the blanket of words
we make for it. Yes, you know
each word, but not all in constellation.

               There was once…

To see these stars you must allow
the possibility of the epic. Sail two days 
toward the white land surrounded
by a vast, cold moat. Birds
with mythic wings will assess you,
askance, with one of their pale 
eyes. Be warned. They are not
your familiars. Their needs do not
correspond with yours.

               Once, there was…

Then you arrive. And the stars, after all,
are not so unlike those that have tented
all your ordinary nights. They, too, are lonely.
They are lonely. They mutter and wrestle
in glistered conversations. You can’t know
if they’ll ever settle. Still, had you the right
time-lens, all stars would look like this, would 
refuse the stories—archer, queen, dog—
that seem timeless.

               There once was a boy who longed to become
               There once was a girl who longed to become

Look           Squint            Let every distant light
escape from story’s snare and be

“To Find Stars In Another Language” by Elizabeth Bradfield from ONCE REMOVED © 2015 Elizabeth Bradfield. Used by permission of Persea Books.