Be present to the moment, give yourself over to the rhythm and mystery of your own voice, lose yourself in the hum of the words, and you will find that quiet place within. – Kathleen Coskran

This past week found me at a most unexpected and achingly bittersweet task: writing the obituary for the son of our dearest friend.  Instinctively, I turned to the comfort of lyric and poetry to complement my words:

To An Athlete Dying Young, by A.E. Houseman.

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay…

My friend was touched, and asked me how did I know to use this poem.  The answer is that my mother, The English Teacher, pounded poetry in our heads from a very young age.  We were expected to memorize, and often the bedtime story would be poetry instead of children’s fiction.  Poetry frequently – a line, or if I’m lucky, a complete stanza – will course like a ribbon through my cortex during a seemingly unrelated experience.

Perhaps coincidentally, yesterday I read a charming guest editorial in our local newspaper, Dollar in Pocket Puts Poem Forever in Heart, by Kathleen Coskran.  Coskran is paying her grandchildren a dollar for each poem they memorize.  Her mother initiated the practice on a cross-country driving trip long ago, paying Kathleen a quarter for O Captain, My Captain – which, thanks to my mother, I know is Whitman’s mourn for Abraham Lincoln – and up to 35 cents for others.  No doubt it was a last-ditch way to entertain the kids, but the long term effect was a love for cadence and imagery that she is passing along to her grandchildren with a bit of de Reigniers:  “Keep a poem in your pocket/and a picture in your head/and you’ll never feel lonely/at night when you’re in bed.”

Coskran says the 5 year old, who can’t seem to get to sleep most nights, went at it with a vengeance.  He awakened his parents the very next morning with a proud rendition of Birdie with a Yellow Bill, by Robert Louis Stevenson – whose A Child’s Garden of Verses was regular reading at our house growing up.

All three of Coskran’s grandchildren weren’t so much motivated by the money as they seemed to enjoy adding to their repertoire.  The Coskran family was treated on Christmas Day to recitations of poems that I remember memorizing:  Jabberwocky (” ’twas brillig, and the slithy toves…”), Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (“whose woods these are, I think I know, his house is in the village, though”) and Tyger, Tyger (“burning bright”).

I thought of the talented ones who regularly visit PassingThru, and their brilliant poetic compositions:  Jannie Funster, whose breathtaking tribute to Sylvia Plath, a happier ending, stunned me yesterday, so that I could barely react.   Matthew Dryden, who is sharing his talent in live venues, and blogs about that, along with the rest of his amazing writing.  Writer Dad has paid eloquent tribute to his family.  And somehow, Ghosts flowed down my arm and through my pen.  I still know not how.

As I was reading Coskran’s splendid little column, Pete and I talked about poetry.  He gazed at the ceiling with a twinkle and a grin, and launched into “I’d rather be a could-be if I couldn’t be an are, for a could-be is a maybe with a chance of reaching far…”

We remembered that the most appealing part of Bill Bennett’s audio tribute to Ronald Reagan upon the late President’s passing was a poetry anecdote.  Bennett and the President ad-libbed to a group of schoolchildren while on tour for the Department of Education.  The selection?  The lengthy classic from Robert Service, the Bard of the Yukon, The Cremation of Sam McGee :  “There are strange things done in the midnight sun/by the men who moil for gold…”  Reagan knew the entire poem and Bill had to drop out after the first couple of stanzas.  Notably, Reagan also eloquently paraphrased poetry (“they slipped the surly bonds of earth”) in his tribute to the Challenger astronauts.

Pete and I used the classic poetry contained in hymns and Biblical text for our recent Christmas card series, with many in the comments section sharing how beloved they held the ones we chose in their own memory.

Poetry is universally revered.  We turn to the poetry of others when our own words fall short, as I did this week, knowing that my effort, clouded by grief and emotion, could only comfort so far.

Kathleen Coskran could be writing for me, and for us all when she says:

Like my mother, I too believe in the power of language to soothe and to heal; to inspire and to calm. Poetry is to be spoken aloud, learned by heart; a poem spoken in the music of your own voice becomes a part of you, and if you learn it when you are young, you will have it forever.

I hope, fervently, that all of society’s children revere, recite and recall poetry.  I think Coskran’s idea is a fine one.  When our grandchildren come, they’ll be subject to it.

Campaign promises made aren’t always promises kept. In the beginning days of our nation, strict Constitutionalist Thomas Jefferson called for reduced executive powers and an austere reduction in spending to reduce the leftover national debt from the Revolutionary War.  Yet, when it became time to purchase vast lands in the west from Napoleon Bonaparte (who was in the midst of financial difficulties arising in part from campaign promises, himself) in 1803, Jefferson suddenly became an imperialist. Newly devoted to Empire, Jefferson spearheaded the Louisiana Purchase.

Photo by Pete Wuebker

Woodrow Wilson promised that the United States wouldn’t become involved in the conflict of World War I, but five years later, in his second term, we did.  LBJ told us no American soldiers would set foot in Vietnam in 1965.  The previous year he vowed we would win the War on Poverty.  George H.W. Bush famously told us, “Read my lips.  No new taxes.”  Yet, tax us he did.

It seems as though campaign promises are tacitly understood to be flexible in their execution and interpretation.  While campaigns are active, it’s journalistic sport to tally the cost of what is promised.  Recently, news outlets reported that the nation couldn’t afford either of the 2008 Presidential candidates proposals, even before we were officially declared in a recession.  Where were the billions in spending proposals going to come from?  Certainly not entirely from cuts in government bureaucracy, although it may frequently seem the government is bloated enough to provide that amount.

Candidates routinely excoriate the proposals of the other, and bat the financials across the net while we sit as spectators, wagging our heads back and forth, eyes glazing over.  Finally, we pull the lever in the hopes that some benefit would emerge in the list of issues and solutions, which generally require more spending rather than less.

Once the verdict is tallied, the real fun begins.  The period between election and inauguration is filled with breathless speculation and review.  Already we are told that Obama has backtracked on certain promises, citing change in conditions (the windfall profits tax on oil companies – kaput), pragmatism (former lobbyists are now seen to have the necessary experience to get things done in Washington, instead of vilified), and, arguably, change itself (lots of familiar faces are returning to D.C. after an 8 year absence).

Do people really vote for a candidate based upon what (s)he promises? This Presidential election demonstrated that they do, despite that promises are distorted, fabricated, and assigned by others to the candidates.  While it’s difficult to assert anything other than candidates will say what they need to in order to get elected, it’s equally difficult to predict what they actually will do when they take office.

While campaigns are high theatre with grandiosity and largesse, suddenly the new President is thrust into circumstances that require difficult decisions. Bill Bennett recently said Obama could be one of two things:  in it for the country or in it for himself, and Bill hoped for the latter.  Why?  Bill thinks that if Obama is in it for himself, i.e. looking forward to a second term – and all indications are he is aiming for precisely that, then he will make centrist choices instead of returning to his leftist roots.  Could be.  Who knows?

The cynical practice of knowingly promising what can’t be delivered is disturbing, we can all agree.  What about under-promising? It’s fairly certain great businesses were built upon under-promising and over-delivering.  Does keeping the message deliberately vague assist in this strategy?  Consider the Obama plan to “create or save 2.5 million jobs by 2011.”  Sounds good at first.  But, doesn’t that mean he wouldn’t really have to provide any new jobs as long as they weren’t being lost?

What about abandoning a promise? Ronald Reagan famously branded Russia an “Evil Empire,” yet moved to reduce nuclear weapons.  In Canada, Prime Minister Harper ignored his own commitment to fixed election dates, and called for an election outside of those parameters.  Douglas Waller, in Time Magazine, is of the opinion that political promises built upon “the shifting sands of the economy” should be broken, and is “nervous when a politician makes an ironclad promise.”

Sometimes abandoned promises are described as revisions in position.  Mitt Romney famously revised his position on abortion, as I recall.  The risk is being labeled a “flip-flopper,” where the change of heart is interpreted as merely politically expedient.  Is there room in politics for a thoughtful conversion?

We think the fulfilled campaign promise is endangered, on a quick road to total extinction. Certainly it’s rare when promises are kept and results are delivered.  Is this so rare that when it does occur the novelty propels a politician to greatness?