Memories for the Afterlife

For my both my honors and my senior theses, I spend what is probably an unhealthy amount of time thinking about death.

I'm also incredibly lazy and think watching films about death can be considered "research."

When I first heard of the Japanese film Afterlife, I was a little hesitant, unsure of what I could expect--thanks in part to the website WTF Japan, Seriously?!. There are some things about the Eastern cultures that Western minds don't quite understand, hence this website. I didn't want to watch a film that turned out to be just one giant WTF. However, the premise sounded interesting:

Over the span of a week, twenty-two souls arrive at a way station (which looks like an old junior high school) between life and death, where they are asked to choose just one memory to take into the afterlife. (Synopsis c.o. fandango.com becaused the imdb one was lame.)

I knew that I was at least interested in the idea of a liminal space--the way station--between life and death, a common theme in A LOT death scenes depicted in both literature and film , so I decided to give it a shot.

I was not disappointed. First of all, the film was visually beautiful. Obviously, a lot of attention was paid to the parallels between color palette and plot/theme. The simplicity of the sets and shots imbued a sense of humanity into this film where everyone is literally dead. The acting was subtle and restrained--the kind of restrained that bursts emotion and secrets. And even though the acting gave some secrets away, there were still at least two plot twists I wasn't expecting. And the more I thought about the premise of this film, the more I began to rethink my thesis. Of all the things I have read and watched, I think that this has perhaps had the most influence on my thesis's actual plot.

Besides the influence on my work, for weeks, I've been thinking about the premise of the film as it applies to my own life. If I could only choose one memory from this life to relive for eternity, what one would I choose? I came up with a "short list" of memories before finally choosing one. I don't personally believe that I'll only be able to have one memory in the afterlife, but if I'm wrong, at least I'll be prepared.

The list of memories included:

Three with my cousin Mcartny

One with my mother

One with my father

Two with my brothers

and one from W&L.

While making the list, true to form, I decided to use the memories as a writing exercise--recreating them in words chez my latest Sam Shepard read Day Out of Days because the style is a stretch for me, and I want my writing muscles to all be well-toned.

I understand it's a bit of a tease to talk about these things without sharing them. Most importantly, I think they prove an important point--one the movie also highlighted--The most poignant memories don't come from life's big events, but from cross-sections of everyday moments, exposing the cells wherein our existence hangs in suspension.

Therefore, I present my latest series: Memories for the Afterlife.

Memory with my Mother

I’m in grade school, and my mother is driving me into town in our green Isuzu Rodeo. At the stop sign in front of the capitol building, my stomach drops in anticipation. We turn right onto a downhill lane protected by a web of tree branches. The sun shifts past breaks in the leaves—lace reflecting off the asphalt. We cry out “Wheeeee” the whole way down, like we’re on a roller coaster.

Thoughts While Reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in English 362: American Romanticism (9-12)

9

Closer yet I approach you;

What thoughts you did not have of me, I had of you—I looked out prematurely;

I considered you before you were formed in this belly.

Who could have known what should move me?

Who knows if I’m enjoying this?

Who knows what I am doing right now, while I know what of you?

It is not us both alone;

Not a few classes, or summers, or generations;

It is that each will come and go according to its whims,

From the unidentified center of it all, and in synecdoche:

Everything signifies, the smallest things, and the largest things;

An inexorable fog encircles all, and encircles the Soul for a time.

10

Now I am curious what sight could ever be more stately and admirable to me than my white-columned university,

My river and my woods, and my scallop-edg’d mountain-hills,

The finches fluttering their bodies, the black-board in the morning, and the walnut lecturn;

Curious what Gods can exceed these who stand before me, and with voices I respect question me boldly and loudly on a poem as I straighten in my seat;

Curious what is so slight that—undetected—it connects me to those beings who surround me,

Which binds me into you as you read, and pours my feeling into you.

We understand then, do we not?

What I knew, there sitting and reading, do you not know?

What this reading could teach—if you were willing to read through experience and Whitman’s wisdom, is taught, is it not?

What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is it not?

11

Breathe on, bodies! Breathe with the body-tide, and learn with the tried-tide!

Stand tall, spiraled and scallop-edg’d mountains!

Delightful dews of the dawn! Dampen my ankles with your light, and the men and women generations after me;

Cross from building to building, countless crowds of students!

Stand fast, white columns of the institution!—stand fast, bricked buildings of Lexington!

Throb, tired and curious scholar-brain! throw out questions and answers!

Suspend from here forward, eternal grasp of possibility!

Survey, moon-rimmed but eager eyes, in the classroom, or the street, or party!

Sound out, voices of academics! loudly and energetically question me on my understanding!

Live, old life! Study that part that looks back on the learner!

Play the part, the part of consequential or trivial, as we decide!

Consider, you who peruse this, and Whitman together, whether we are not now looking upon you;

Fly-on, morning birds. fly backwards, or carve ripples in the clouds with your wings;

Seize even November, you hills. and earnestly hold it, till skyward eyes embrace and share it with you;

Radiate, cold morning light, from my waking face, or anyone’s face, in the reflecting windows;

Come on, newly-wakened students. Do not just pass by the blackboard, the walnut lectern.

Bustle away, you books of all disciplines. material or experiential;

Light dormant chimneys, you sun! Cast your flicker of marigold! Cast white and mellow blue over the tops of trees;

Appearances, now and hereafter, indicate what you are;

You inexorable fog, continue to encircle the soul;

In my body for me, and your body for you, be resting our sweetest liquors,

Thrive, classrooms! bring your students, bring your lectures, ample and scholarly musings;

Expand, being that which none else is perhaps more intangible;

Keep your places, objects than which none other is more steadfast.

12.

We descend upon you and all things—we capture you all;

We realize the soul only through you, you constant tangibles;

Through you color, form, presence, transcendency, identity;

Through you every picture, likeness, and all the indications and resolutions of ourselves.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful tutors! you neophytes!

We receive you with open minds at last, and are keen henceforward;

Not you anymore shall be a mystery to us, or resign yourselves from us;

We use you, and do not ignore you in us—we plant you permanently within us;

We measure you not—we love you—there is perfection in you;

You are a four-year eternity;

Consequential or trivial, you form these parts of our soul.

Thoughts While Reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in English 362: American Romanticism (5-8)

5

What is it, then, between us?

What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.

6

I too lived—Lexington, of ample hills, was mine;

I too walk’d the paths of this university, and strolled in the woods around it;

I too felt the uncertain sharp questionings stir within me,

In the day, among throngs of students, sometimes they overcame me,

In my walks to classes, or as I study in my carrel, they overcame me.

I too had been struck from the day forever held in motion;

I too had receiv’d a self by my Body;

That I was, I felt in my body—and what I would be I knew I would be of my body.

7

It is not upon you alone the frantic deadline falls,

The deadlines have fallen—too soon—upon me also;

The best I had done seem’d to me unfinished and doubtful;

My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality mediocre? Would not professors dock me?

You alone do not know what it is to be afraid;

I am she who knew what it is to be afraid;

I too danced in time to uncertainty,

Stress’d, blanch’d, worried, cheated, envied, frustrat’d,

Had spite, anger, menacing, vain wishes I dared not think,

Was disgusted, selfish, desolate, suspicious, shy, dissatisfied, powerless,

The hyena, the doe, the sloth, not lacking in me,

The brooding expression, the sharp word, the sinful wish, not lacking,

Objections, disappointments, failings, eagerness, sympathy, none of these lacking.

8

But I was studently, naïve and proud!

I was question’d on a poem I didn’t understand by the menacing voice of an aging academic as he saw me cowering as I was sitting,

Felt the eyes of others’ on my neck as I answered, or the indifference of their attention on me as I sputtered,

Saw many I knew in their seats, or outside, or in the hall, yet to whom I’d never spoken,

Lived the same life with the rest, the same old studying, sleeping, eating,

Act’d the part that still looks back on that learner,

The same common role, the role we make our own, as consequential as we like,

Or as trivial as we like, or both consequential and trivial.

Thoughts While Reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in English 362: American Romanticism (1-4)

1.

Body-tide surround me! I step in time with you;

Trees in the east! Sun there near and hour high! I step in time with you also.

Herds of young students accoutered in the usual fashions! how strange you seem to me!

In the wood desks, the ten and ten and five that sit, beginning class, are more foreign to me than you might suppose;

And you that cross through this door years away are less to me, and less in my contemplations, than others right now.

2.

The unidentifiable substance of me from somewhere, in all seconds and hours of day;

The modest, cut, well-planned design--myself a piece, but everyone also a part of the design;

The countenance of the past and whisper of the future;

The acheivements hung like string-lights beyond my line of sight but luminous--on the clean

chalkboard, and the paper notebooks open to a fresh page;

The bodies "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" with me, taking me away;

The ones who follow me, these words between me and them;

The certainty of these words--the sight, the sound, the meaning of them.

Others will sit in these chairs, and cross through that door;

Others will write upon that blackboard;

Others will open their notebooks to fresh pages, ready to be filled with someone else's thoughts;

Others will read this poem attentively or no;

Twenty years away, others will teach them as they read, the sun almost an hour high;

Fifty years away, or perhaps even a hundred years away, others will teach them,

Will enjoy the morning, will enjoy the body-tide, the reading of the poem confusing the now-

still body-tide.

3.

It means nothing, this room, this hour--place means nothing;

I am here, you students of a graduating class, and all your class after;

I read myself into your lecture, and return again and again as I read--with you.

Just as you looked when you looked out the window onto grass and brick, so I felt;

Just as you were one of a class, I was one of a clas;

Just as you were waking in the too-early morning, so was I waking,

Just as you filled your notebooks with things you did not think or say, so I filled mine with comments equally unthought;

Just as you read these free-verse words about humanity's shared flow and ebb, I read.

I too, and numerous times came to campus, the sun less than an hour high;

I watched the finch tottering in the trees, say them flapping and hopping, fitting his wings through branches and over still-dewy soil,

I saw their umber colors and their flashes of color shimmer in the morning sun,

I saw them rousing about, gradually opening with us the day.

I saw the reflection of the room in the cool window,

my image faint against the background of the glass, but bright,

looked at the hovering film of sun sheening there and turning a pale scene in the clear mirror,

look'd at the dark bricks and trees beyond to the north and northwest,

look'd on the fog as the rising heat dispelled it to only dew,

look'd toward the box room to notice the arriving students,

Saw them waking up, saw those who sat near me,

Saw their gray slate of the board--saw bodies anchored to chairs,

The students at writing in their notebooks, or listening with varied attentiveness,

The indigo-cupped eyes, the linear motions of pens in hand, the metal coils binding paper,

The shift and shuffle of uncomfortable seats, the students in their desk-houses,

The white dust left by chalk, the quick scribble to catch axioms of knowledge,

The bustle of pages turning, the surrendered open of bindings,

The distant scallop-edg'd hills through the window, the open books, the militant ink and matte,

The stretch of desks in rows of cherry-varnish shimmer, the painted cinderblock lining of exterior walls,

In the room the lighted group, the long scholar-rows flanked on each side by another--the b blackboard, the walnut lectern,

On a neighboring hall, the sun lights dormant chimneys burning high and full into the morning,

Casting its flicker of marigold, contrasted with lively white and mellow blue light, over the tops of trees, and down into the clefts of hills.

4.

These, and all else, were the same to me as they are to you;

I project myself a moment to tell you--also I return.

I loved well these halls;

I loved well the stately and abiding columns;

The professors and students I saw were all near to me;

Others the same--others who think back on me, because I thought forward to them;

(The time will come, though I stop here this morning and night.)

Pulled Apart by Daisies

How dulcet and downy these pure white blooms,

and bright with honeysuckle heart.

Halos in a meadow verdant

on a casual afternoon.

With their button eyes, they bewitch--invite--

to guard our unwary repose,

hamocked in a grassy nimbus,

while plucking their petals alate.

But to icy fingers their petals transform,

and with cold fervor into "nots"

our peachy love-flesh is torn--

an unrequited holocaust.

You say with harsh finality:

We were pulled apart by daisies.

When Poems Procreate

I love it when my poems get procreative.

While I loved a lot of things about my May 13th poem, I liked it in pieces. There were some lines I loved too much to discard. Instead of "murdering my darlings," I gave them their own poems.

The first grew out of a revision exercise where I began by writing the poem backwards. It's a revision technique I particularly like, because it opens my work up to a lot of new meanings. I call this one "Worry Habit."

I used to know
what unquiet thoughts
would make you
put down the guitar,
loved in calloused hands,
and make you pick at your nails
instead of the soothing strings,
unable to distract you,
even now.



The next is "Missed Communication"

When words neglect emotion
you speak in notes
plucked with frenzied fingers
saying better and faster than your mouth can move.

Against the guitar your torso lies still
and says nothing of what is in your head
but the song you play
again, again, again.

You sing in strings with a vibrato
I do not understand
and a tone I cannot touch.

You beg me to hear your tune,
and I do,
I just wish these were words I knew.



The final poem I titled "Homeless."

You are the place I once called "home,"
the scent of May and
a southern sun on the back porch,
the tree outside my window
whose branches hum me to sleep.

I felt it in my body
lying still
to experience the senses of awake
and lying there
I fall asleep.

You are still "home,"
but now you are twenty-four-hundred miles away
and I walk through you in memories
smelling of dreams
where the scent of May has dissolved,
and the sun never sets behind the house and,
cut down, the trees don't sing.

I remember what it was like
to feel you,
but memories are too insubstantial
to touch and be touched.

Unicorn Meat

Somewhere a virgin is traumatized.

We used her as bait for our feast-hunt,

and shot the unicorn who pillowed

his head in her chaste lap.

A  fine meal for our fete,

we lusted after the innocent, 

tender flesh in our mouths,

and sucked the juice from the

insides of our cheeks.

We fattened our lungs with its mystical spice,

clinging to our ribs. 

We ate the sweet body

for forgiveness from our sins,

the manna taste of immortality,

divinity on our breath--

the immaculate animal bringing us 

closer to heaven. 

A bloodied skirt banners our thirst for unicorn meat.