Author: stevekuusisto

The poem with this title is of course John Donne’s, the 16th century British poet whose faith in the redemptive power of Christ made him one of the greatest religious poets of the English language. Donne believed in life everlasting. In turn he could write of death’s abandonment: Our two souls therefore, which are one,/Though I must go, endure not yet/A breach, but an expansion/Like gold to airy thinness beat.

According to Christianity life eternal leaves no one behind. And yet, and yet, oh how the pain of separation haunts us all. How I miss my friends and my parents. And how I miss my guide dogs who have gone to their graves. Would that I could feel all the losses as an expansion–a wider soul and not a breach.

You too, eh?

And walking this morning all disheveled in the fine autumn sun I found I was grieving for the loss of our black Labrador Roscoe who has been gone now for a year and some months. It was his ardor for the spectacle of life, his soul really, that I was grieving over. I’d give anything to hear his hilarious big Lab bark.  And how silly this must sound in a time of terrible losses; in a time of war and poverty. 

Silly man. Silly old grieving dog owner lamenting his poor estate.     

When I worked for Guiding Eyes for the Blind in New York I used to lead grieving sessions for blind people whose guide dogs had died.  What did I know? I would ask myself this question over and over again. “How can I console anyone?” “What is the true shape of suffering?” We would sit in a circle, five or six blind people with our boxes of tissues and we’d talk about anything at all. Talking is the first order of business–that is, just get started. Even though your heart is broken, even though the grief is fresh and green, start talking. And talk we did.

Our guide dogs had saved our lives. They had been present for us in our every moment of waking, working, loving, traveling, heck, “being” and now we were alone and bereft of all that heartfelt steadiness of canine companionship. There we were, sitting in a circle among the untrustworthy bipeds. Forget that we all had blindness in common. We’re human and half crazy because of it, unlike our good dogs, oh those good dogs.

I remember one night a woman said: “God only gives us the burdens we can carry.” Some nodded ascent. (Yes, blind people know when other people are nodding.)

Just then I found I couldn’t nod. In fact I couldn’t say a thing.       

Being a poet and all, I remembered lines by Robert Herrick, another 16th century British poet: Bid me to weep, and I will weep/While I have eyes to see:/And, having none, yet I will keep/A heart to weep for thee.

I suppose that was my way of agreeing with the woman. My job is to weep. My job right now is to weep for thee. My job is to weep for the dog I have loved. To weep with all my heart. For the heart and soul are eternal only in love. And God Almighty love is hard. But who would not have love command every part of her life?

Isn’t that what our dogs teach us?

These dogs who transfuse our doubts into joys?

Didn’t we after all learn a thing or two from these dogs?

And so today I am sad, still missing old Roscoe, old Corky, Dear Old Vidal.

But the dogs say, rise and put on your foliage and sing.

That’s what they say. These dogs.

S.K.

Some days I have the wrong invisible hat on; takes half the day or more to feel its presence; then to know I’m under the darkling influence or giddy spree of wrong hat–like a man under a spell, the wrong hat. Corporation tee shirt; politico fabric softener; fulsome and hopeless William Tell idealist hat with feather; stupid Sherlock Holmes. So many wrong hats. Today’s was too hopeful. Some kind of Dickensian hat. Thought maybe the world was perfectible with the right stories. Wrong hat. Need something more Toistoi-ish–revenant, tight, obscuring far vision, Russian pessimism in its sweat band, the hat of all 7 brothers; that’s probably the correct hat on a day of dumb meetings where zilch gets accomplished and you feel the resources of inner life dripping away like–well never mind. Enough to say I’d started the day with a big fat goofy hat stitched from William Blake and Louis Armstrong and mid-day the hat was garish as the hind quarters of a baboon. That’s the way it is, Mr. Cronkite. I wonder if Walter Cronkite ever felt the wrong hat blues, mid day, rushing in or out of CBS? All those years ago when news was still news…Nowadays all the tv people have the wrong hats and they don’t give a rat’s ass. They’d wear a toilet seat if it got them in front of the camera. Suspect that’s a film test over at Fox…This world of ours, its fleeting sorrows, its hats, the shores of the heart and soul; please try on a hat; try on a new hat…Hat for moonrise; for the coming day…tomorrow’s electricity, hat like a wave in sleep; hat of the sustained mind…      

S.K.

From The Inclusion Daily Express:

Consultant Suggested Institution Stop Reporting So Many Of Its Problems
(Des Moines Register)
November 3, 2009
DES MOINES, IOWA– [Excerpt] A consultant at a state-run home for the disabled recently proposed that the facility limit reporting resident-care problems to state and federal regulators.

Records obtained by The Des Moines Register show that consultant Judith Johnston also suggested workers at Glenwood Resource Center stop placing detailed reports in residents’ files, since doing so increased “the opportunity for discovery” by the agencies that oversee the home.

“It seems as if the whole thrust of this effort was to cover up these incidents so that the agencies authorized to provide oversight would be kept at arm’s length,” said Sylvia Piper, executive director of Iowa Protection and Advocacy. “That is a huge concern.”

In her weekly reports to DHS administrators, Johnston repeatedly expressed concern that Glenwood employees were going beyond what the law required in reporting “incidents” – a word used to describe real and perceived problems with resident care – to state inspectors.

Another problem, she wrote, was that copies of the home’s detailed incident reports were being included in the individual residents’ case files where other agencies could see them.

Entire article:
Glenwood urged to limit reports
http://www.InclusionDaily.com/news/2009/red/1103b.htm
Related:
Deaths in Iowa’s Institutions (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/ia/iowa.htm

Excerpt from The Inclusion Daily Express:

People With Autism Speak Out Against Autism Speaks
(The HillTop)
November 2, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC– [Excerpt] Detached from the sea of walkers at the annual Walk Now for Autism Speaks fundraiser in D.C., was a group of about 15 autistic individuals who stood protesting.

Against the backdrop of the Washington monument, they chanted “Autism Speaks doesn’t speak for us,” and “Autistic people speak. Are you listening?”

Ari Ne’eman, founder and president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), led the protestors. Contrary to the mission of Autism Speaks, Ne’eman and members of ASAN allege that the organization is actually exploiting the autistic community instead of helping it.

“I saw that all too often, autistic people are kept out of the public policy discussion about us and decisions are put forward that don’t fit with our needs and don’t relate to what we want,” said Ne’eman, who, along with the other members of ASAN, is autistic.

Entire article:
Autistic Plea Less Pity
http://www.thehilltoponline.com/autistic-plea-less-pity-1.2046862
Related:
Autism Walk on National Mall Stirs Controversy (WJLA)
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1009/674094.html

Once while visiting the Chicago zoo I saw a very old man who was blind for he had a white cane and he was leaning close to the plate glass at the lion’s display. He was making faces at the lions, grand faces, grotesque faces like someone who could hide his appearance behind a Venetian mask. The lions for their part saw the man’s evident incomprehensibility as just another form of light. Don’t underestimate the power of a wall. That was one of my earliest lessons in art.

S.K.  

Iowa City

The University of Iowa ’s football team had an inexplicable turnaround on Saturday in their game against Indiana. Despite lackluster play and numerous mistakes, Iowa had a supernatural comeback against the Hoosiers, all after an instant replay ruling overturned an obvious Indiana  touchdown late in the 3^rd quarter. Fans at Kinnick Stadium watched as Iowa picked off a pass that actually hung in the air like a piñata, then saw hyper reality take over as the Hawkeyes scored 28  points in the game’s final 15 minutes. “Something happened,” said Ernest Dumpster, a honey dipper from Dubuque . “That was some weird shit, and believe me, I know shit.”

The explanation has to do with Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz who, according to insiders who asked to remain unnamed, sold his soul to the Devil during a television timeout late in the 3^rd quarter. Ferentz was unavailable for comment but a team insider said that a cloven hooved, humpbacked and be-horned goat-like creature with a face like former U.S. President Bill Clinton was seen escorting Ferentz into a gray van with just minutes remaining in the timeout.

Dag Darkling, a professor at Union Theological Seminary says that the game’s final score, Iowa 42 and Indiana 24 is the proof of Satanic forces being involved. “42” can be added into six, and so can 24, so that’s 66 and Iowa had five interceptions and a fumble so that’s another 6. And everybody knows what that means.”

“It’s the Devil’s odor that’s a real giveaway, he smells like burning glee,” said Darkling.

Now Halloween is over I think of autumn itself. “La Belle Dame sans Merci”–the season of language strange. Autumn who speaks the patois of the dead, who learned it from discarded long playing records, who waits for customers to depart the used clothing shops. Now she begins in earnest. Leaves fall during the night. In the morning the trees are bare. The sky settles for winter with a fast withering of fast clouds of fast grayness. Autumn with her wild eyes…

O Autumn will get you. She’ll make you hear old songs. You’ll hear them again as you fall asleep. The same songs you heard as a child when the old folks turned out the lamp. Autumn does these things though she doesn’t speak.

O the old familiar faces go.

I had been laughing. Autumn knocked.

The season is bound to traverse us.

S.K.

(with apologies to Samuel Johnson)

When first the blogging-rolls received his name,

The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame;

Through all his nerves the promise of renown

Sparks with glory–he’ll have a place in town;

O’er Huffington’s or Beast’s his labor’s spread,

And Cyber’s mansion trembles o’er his head.

Are these thy views? Proceed, industrious youth,

And Labor guide thee to the throne of Truth!

Yet should thy soul indulge the spurious heat,

As evidence replies with long retreat;

Should Ardor steal thee with brightest ray,

And pour on misty doubt resistless day;

Should no false Readers lure to loose delight,

Nor Praise relax, nor Difficulty fright;

Should tempting novelty thy cell refrain,

And Sloth effuse her opiate fumes in vain;

Should Beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart,

Nor claim the triumph of a lettered heart;

Should no Disease thy torpid veins invade,

Nor Melancholy’s phantoms haunt thy shade;

Yet hope not life from grief or danger free,

Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee:

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,

And pause awhile from blogging, to be wise;

There mark what ills the blogger’s life assails,

Toil, envy, want, the linkings, and the wails.

See readers slowly wise, and meanly just,

To buried merit raise the tardy bust.

If dreams yet flatter, or again attend,

Hear sordid life, and Nobility’s end.

S.K.

Shelley: “Teach me half the gladness

   That thy brain must know…”

I thought today for the good of us all let us be Romantic poets–even if you live in Brooklyn;

Perhaps you live in Baghdad. God Almighty may you stay Romantic. Brother & Sister. May you hope that the birds have joys to share.

Surely flight is a harmonious madness.

& these last few weeks, autumn coming, I’ve been walking under the alder trees

Seeing birds for the first time in my life–seeing them risen, updraft, sincerest laughter, sincerest laughers…

Against them, and thinking of Shelley

One sees the jarring and inexplicable frame

Of this wrong world…

God Almighty may you stay Romantic. Brother & Sister.     

S.K.

A friend writes that my post about going out on Halloween dressed as a normal person is really funny, then adds: I was a normal person once. That got me to thinking about having a normative identity for though I’ve never been a normal person, what would I have been like had fate been otherwise? I’m forced to conclude that I would have been a real jerk. I know exactly what kind of jerk I’d have been. Yep. The fantasma-normal version of me would have been a grade A asshole.

Flashback: junior year of high school. Partially sighted. A friend tells me I should try out for the track team. The coach sez I’m too blind. Let’s me practice for a week. Gives me a uniform and sweat suit. Then, one day as I’m walking home a car pulls up at the curb. The coach is driving. Its a “Driver Ed” vehicle. He has four of my classmates in the car with him. The coach leans out the window and tells me I have to give back my uniform; announces I’m too blind to be on the team, etc. And the four guys snicker. And yes, I went home and cried alone in my curtained attic cloister. I still remember how alone I felt. God, how lonely I was.

If I could have been a sighted teenager I’d have been a thug. A kind of Robin Hood thug. I’d have let the air out of the coaches tires. I’d have pulled fire alarms and run like hell for the sheer glory of it. I’d have climbed a flag pole and refused to come down, like Jonathan Winters. I’d have driven around in a car with chicken wire for a windshield delivering stolen pies to the elderly. In short I’d have been me but sighted. And I’d still have been lonely. There’s nothing you can do about loneliness except keep moving. So I’d have moved faster perhaps. I’d have been a cross between Groucho and Speedy Gonzales. I’d have stolen and run but always on behalf of the lonely and the shut ins.

I know for a fact I’d never have been a back seat snickerer in a car driven by a smug high school track coach.  

S.K.