Some Thoughts about Frederick Turner & Life

       

First, something small that Turner talked about in his lecture on Friday was a small reference to "the God of Whitman" and this is just a little poem that I have been working on (for a couple months now(it's a slow process)) that is along these same lines.  It isn't quite finished yet, but who knows when it will be finally done?  I don't usually put something out there until I'm finished with it, but this is basically my 'rough draft.'

        The Language of the Mountains

I want to learn the language of the mountains

So I can hear their stories, and tell them mine

And share their wisdom with the world.

I want to understand the cascade of water

And of stones and the rustling of the trees.

This is the stage of the greatest stories.

I want to understand the fleeing animal,

The thinning air, and the ability to touch the clouds.

These crags could be my temporary home for days

Or even weeks, but still, all I hear is the hum.

The monotone hum of mountains chanting back and forth.

Years have passed and here I sit and listen

To the stories of the mountains.

I have become a stone; I have become a tree:

I can remain still for hours; the animals no longer flee;

I touch the clouds and breathe the thin air                               

And finally, I understand the language of the mountains.

They have told me their stories and I have told mine;

And now, I have become the mountains;

My roots have grown deep; their stories are my stories.

This leads me into the main thing about which I wanted to talk.  While Fred was talking, it seemed that no matter what the topic was, everything that was discussed was all related.  Even details as small as "Whitman's god" or "standing on the border of the known and unknown" relates directly to my final paper I am writing for Ben's French Lit class.  Turner does seem to be one of the few remaining Renaissance Men in the world today.  Being able to connect literature to the sciences seemed so simple as he stood there and talked, but it helped to demonstrate how interconnected this world is.  The fibers of every single thing seem to be intertwined with the fibers of everything else.  Literature is really the study of everything, and that is the very reason I find myself so much at home in the department.  Everything falls into the circle of the arts and humanities that was drawn on the board.