PIGS CAN'T SAY PLEASE

Yesterday, I lunched at a local restaurant with a congenial group of friends. About midway through the meal, an out-of-town visitor at a table in the front of the restaurant created a ruckus. Obviously, that person was unaccustomed to the relaxed movement of life in Cajun country and voiced uncivil complaints and demands for McDonald type service. We were sorta’ discombobulated about the behavior of this person and began to talk about the times we had been in a group dining out, and a person in the group asked that perfectly good food be taken back to the kitchen because it was cold or because it had too much salt, etc. We agreed that on these occasions, we had felt discomfort and embarrassment for the chef, the server, and the restaurant because of the complainer’s actions. I might add that it’s hard to believe that anyone would complain about the food or service in Acadiana, a place where meals are celebrations.

Incidents like this and even greater uncivil acts aren’t uncommon in today’s society. Most of us feel pretty vulnerable in the face of unwarranted attacks from those uncivil people who witness to their own character with acts of bad will. It’s amazing how many books and columns are being written about the lost art of civility and how stressed people are about the lack of respect and concern that is being shown for one another in many towns across the country. Incivility seems to define the character of our postmodern culture. I’m talking about the loss of charity, humility, consideration for others, and personal responsibility for the building of civil communities. Oh well, we shrug and say, “It’s the age of The Ego,” or “we’re the ME society.”

In today’s culture, consideration and courtesy are anomalies. We don’t seem to possess the wish or will to honor one another, and if my words seem preachy, see for yourself – turn on the television set and watch it awhile, thinking about the phrase, “honor one another.” What you’ll see is a lot of bickering, name calling, and cynicism in public discourse and debate, in news reportage. As Mark DeMoss has said, “It’s virtually impossible to have constructive dialogue or to inform and educate people in an uncivil environment.” He’s talking about the prevailing climate of contempt rather than the art of civility. Christians on the right and left behave so badly that a recent statistic revealed non Christians between the ages of 16-29 think that Christians are insensitive to others (Jonathan Merritt writing in The Huffington Post). For example, again, turn on the television set and watch the diatribes of Christian evangelists.

We often ignore daily discourtesies like the woman in the restaurant, tolerating vulgarity and violence as if we were watching actions that occur on another planet. However, at least one table of ten gray- and white-haired women, who care about courtesies and consideration, had a lively discourse about restoring the art of cooperative engagement, otherwise known as the art of civility. This art has as its basis, The Golden Mean, which seems to be a bit tarnished nowadays.

“A WALK ON WATER”…Don Thornton

On my shelf of books written by Louisiana writers are several books by Don Thornton, a good friend, now deceased, who lived across the road in a neighboring subdivision. I have written several profiles of Don that appeared in regional magazines, and when I think about the time I was writing the articles, I remember the wonderful interviews I had with him. He died of cancer a few years ago and left a formidable legacy of paintings, sculptures, book illustrations, and poetry. His deepest love, perhaps, was his career in teaching gifted and talented children in St. Martin Parish. He published at least seven books showcasing the children’s talents and told me that kids were his real friends because he was inspired by their innocence and excitement about discoveries.

I met Don in the 80’s when he began saying that writing had become first in his career as an artist. He started writing poetry when he was ten years old, and by the time we met, he claimed that poetry had won out over the brush. His work appeared in 26 literary publications and four major anthologies of poetry, and he illustrated poetry for eleven publications. He produced most of his work in a geodesic dome he built himself (he was also a building contractor) in his backyard. “My poetry reflects my engagement with philosophical questions, love of scientific inquiry, and concern with the human condition,” he said.

Don called himself a “sharecropper’s son” who overcame many obstacles to become educated, receiving a Master’s degree in Art from LSU. He later exhibited his paintings and sculpture all over the world, including the Houston Contemporary Art Museum. He also designed sets for the Houston ballet. Don loved the outdoors and co-owned a fishing camp at Dulac, Louisiana, from which he would set out for Last Island to fish for Gulf catches. We always talked about making a trip to Last Island with him and his wife Suzy as I was fascinated by the devastating hurricane that leveled everything on the Island during the 1800’s. However, we couldn’t coordinate work schedules to avoid the mosquito season (which is always in Louisiana), and I still hope to make that trip.

I have one of Don’s paintings of the chenier country that I love, but I also treasure his books of poetry. In 1986, when he was working on A WALK ON WATER, Don called me to come over to share a catfish meal with him and Suzy so we could preview the book. I took along my grandson Martin who was seven at the time. While Don fried the fish, he noticed Martin getting restless and stopped mid-fry to unearth a large sheet of white newsprint, a set of poster paints, and a brush for Martin to entertain himself, then returned to his cooking. He was like that – very caring about children and fierce about them living up to their potential. That fierceness and passion for children’s education inspired respect for him in the teaching world. He was beloved by children and teen-agers who attended public schools in several Louisiana parishes.

Don once touted New Iberia as a place steamy with ideas. He appreciated the richness of coastal history and the Cajun character. I’m including a few of his wry, short poems from A WALK ON WATER, his poetry book in which he wrote about “the little things made precious.” Of them, he wrote “the poems articulate a willingness to share this planet with all other life forms….observations of a tree frog or a roach are given due respect in a non-hierarchical account.” A visit with Don always inspired me to keep writing, and I miss him.

PELICAN

Sit there full bellied

with your face hanging down,

a tired old Shriner

waiting out God.

PORPOISE

You unzipped the sea

to expose yourself

in your leap for joy.

ARMADILLO

Grubbing accordion,

hairy little tank with ears,

you uproot buried memories.

PALMETTO

Oh, you know

the palmetto,

a cabbage palm,

a sharecropper’s fan.

THE CLAIM OF CRITTERS

I must have called up some critters yesterday.  I was reminiscing about the abundant wildlife in the yard of House #2 at Sewanee, Tennessee and lamenting the absence of animal life and my favorite bird, the loud-mouthed crow.  I began sweeping the patio and pushing back the ubiquitous oak leaves that fall in the backyard year-round, feeling  as though I should clean up the place so that the yard would be inviting for critters, preferably the crows.

Well, the preparation worked. When I went outdoors to check the temperature and the direction of the wind this morning, I heard crows squawking as they flew above the coulee bordering the backyard. About midmorning, a fat armadillo appeared, foraging near the patio, blindly swaying back and forth across the yard within a few feet of the house. 

Every time I see an armadillo, I think about my eldest daughter Stephanie.  At three years old, she had begun to love animals, particularly Beatrix Potter’s illustrations of critters. We took her for a drive to a Texaco lease site near Graham, Texas where my former spouse worked, and she spotted this huge armadillo running to and fro near a cluster of mesquite trees.  The critter halted in front of our Valiant, and Stephanie got out to “pet it,” she said.  Her favorite illustration by Beatrix Potter was that of Appley Dapply, the mouse, and she took one look at the armadillo, exclaiming, “Mama look at the big rat.”

Big rats they are, and fascinating to observe after they’ve been foraging all night, reeling across the yard as if they’ve been in the bars dancing to chanky-chank music and drinking beer until daylight.  As for this big rat, I admit that there are very few of them at Sewanee, and I’ll endure a few armadillos in lieu of Suzy Skunk who visited our garage on The Mountain this past Fall, leaving her aroma behind.  We drove around in a pungently-scented car for a week or so.

Crows?  Before this morning when the crows finally showed up, I had begun to wonder if my observation about them in my book of poetry, RISING WATER, wasn’t a bit inaccurate in that I had described them as “being everywhere.”  The poem:

THERE ARE NO PLACES TO HIDE FROM CROWS,

every place I’ve lived

they’ve taunted me,

“my territory,” they caw,

zooming back and forth

from front yard to back,

landing in the hemlock,

screaming like jealous women

finding their lovers in new nests.

Hunching their shoulders, spreading wing

to inflate their size,

they dare me to take over

the landlocked woods of oak and poplar,

indignant trees I really don’t wish to claim,

my deepest longing for river, lake, ocean,

any rushing stream.

Every time I step outdoors

they start up,

thinking they’ve frightened me,

caused me to depart The Mountain,

not knowing how much

they comfort me with their raucous cries,

their sheen of confidence,

bringing messages

about life in the other world,

death in this world,

consoling or terrifying news,

take your pick: they’re only messengers.

How many poems I’ve written for crows

and yet they never stop to read them,

so careless of my admiration

for the way they speak back to the world,

all of which is their base territory,

their global claim.

Sometimes I see them attacking raptors

like that one, the black marauder diving now

into outstretched branches of the hemlock,

such a suspect creature, ruthlessly gurgling

to its prey, an owl lost in daylight.

And yet I love their dissonance,

remorseless sounds echoing through treetops,

know they aren’t wholly unkind or dishonorable,

bring food to their feeble, aged parents,

their blood-soaked beaks

speaking loudly of filial piety.