{"id":2207,"date":"2020-07-05T19:29:42","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T19:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=2207"},"modified":"2020-07-05T19:29:54","modified_gmt":"2020-07-05T19:29:54","slug":"of-oysters-the-4th-and-the-surreality-of-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=2207","title":{"rendered":"Of Oysters, the 4th and the Surreality of it all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Prompt: Tie together the Fourth of July, garbage day and a sense of the possibility of renewal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make it spontaneous, so it doesn\u2019t seem that the images preceded the prompt.  Don\u2019t dwell too deeply on recent observations that  came while practicing poet\u2019s observation, though you might want to show off that you\u2019ve been able to look again.  (The fluff of airborne dust drifts, stops and starts, halting, as an indie band, as a shiny bubble that a child has blown through a plastic hoop, until you realize the fluff has a moth\u2019s indelible wings and is flying freely, for fun).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independence Day (or Interdependence Day, as I\u2019ve heard it called): The country has been thrust back on me.   I\u2019d left it countless times, then straddled between two countries, then made a life of motion.  But circumstances being what they are, I am simply facing it, America…  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

posthumous, finished, junked, done — or part of the process of rising and passing that covid-19 has made us so aware of?   A \u201cFinale for America\u201d as clever wits have referred to rogue fireworks that have been exploding nightly?  In recent weeks and months I have agreed.  But the 4th gave me \u2014 what \u2014 freedom of stuckness.  I looked kindly on things; it wasn\u2019t forced, it just happened.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought about the Declaration of Independence and read, along with many, Frederick Douglass\u2019 bracing famous 4th of July address: \u201cYou may rejoice.  I must mourn.\u201d  The polyvocalism of these declarations of values – that we are living in the polyvocalism – unstuck me from singularity.  The truth and reconciliation process we’ve so long needed might be here.  I listened to the very best of American song \u2014 the sinuous pairing of elegant contrast, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald duets.  In a flight from nihilism, there are ways to combine the large and small. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look how beautiful the day after – peony petals against a pile of oyster shells. They are dissociated from their meaning \u2014 yet in this time of appreciating passage, the wisdom songs of covid as well as garbage day, here they are.\u00a0 The flowers had been flush and full, the oysters a marvel. The energy of passage keeps us from getting stuck.\u00a0 The poet Alice Oswald talks about this in her new Oxford lecture, “An Interview with Water.” Poetry, dance, rhythm and water all keep us moving. Then there’s the leaping between odd things – country, trash and renewal – that keeps the mind buzzing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To listen to Oswald’s lecture, go to the home page, english.ox.ac.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prompt: Tie together the Fourth of July, garbage day and a sense of the possibility of renewal.   Make it spontaneous, so it doesn\u2019t seem that the images preceded the prompt.  Don\u2019t dwell too deeply on recent observations that  came … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[916,985,591,988,987,986],"class_list":["post-2207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alice-oswald","tag-america","tag-fourth-of-july","tag-frederick-douglass","tag-interview-with-water","tag-oxford"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-zB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2210,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions\/2210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}