Pádraig Ó Tuama offered up a lovely poem a few weeks back on Poetry Unbound, “The Cave” by Paul Tran, which touched the heart of the moment we find ourselves in right now. Everywhere we turn we face another precipice. Health. Climate. The economy. Truth itself has become a slippery slope as it careens across platforms, refracted like a broken funhouse mirror.
Tran’s poem begins “Someone standing at the mouth had the idea to enter.” In negating gender, and for that matter race and creed, reading Tran’s words I was struck with how little we actually know about these first humans, as individuals. One can imagine them looking up at the heavens to see which way the clouds were blowing, but they come down to us through history with no formal construct of God or country. We don’t know much about what defined their belief systems, what we do know is that struggling together, slowly growing their numbers, they survived, and ultimately thrived. Everyone alive today should be thankful that enough of them had a prevailing curiosity, a determination to continue discovering what lay before them in the dark, to keep the human race alive.
The poem describes “objects that couldn’t have found their way there alone: ocre-stained shelves, bird bones, grounded hematite.” And deeper still, “paintings on the walls of cows, bulls, bison, deer, horses, some pregnant, some slaughtered.” Though the word “bravery” is never mentioned it’s inconceivable their progress forward could have been made without it. And, crucially, another attribute all but a few of us seem to have lost: curiosity. “We need to continue to go into new caves, or caves we think are new,” Padraig concludes, “in order to mine the possibility of what it means to be human, together.”
What lies embedded in that last but essential word “together” is what we’re having so much trouble with now. As the pandemic and climate change make clear - whatever you think caused them - in order to survive ‘our’ existential threats we need to get beyond the noise and ask ourselves why it is so hard to get along. It does not reduce the meaning of our solitary journey through life or the choices we make as individuals to acknowledge (and honor) that all our explorations, our achievements, our sorrows and joys have more resonance when shared. Therein lies the urge to create tribe, family, community. And yes, party affiliation.
Americans think of themselves as brave; it’s something that’s drilled into us, decade after decade. We’re taught that “we” marched across a beautiful but perilous country and claimed it, planted it, and civilized it, all to the good.
What a beautiful country it was, yet how messy civilizing it has been, how cruel it continues to be when you honestly chart the journey. As we grouped, and then more formally segregated ourselves to protect what we had, we let those differences define us. When we raise our voices in choir, when it comes to breaking bread and celebrating family accomplishments and life’s milestones, tradition is thankfully what binds us to our sweetest moments. But when those differences divide us we are driven to protect… what? Whose truth? Whose status quo?
How can we create forums for conversation now that are not tainted with prejudice and the cruelty that flows from it? As a much older person to the child who once dutifully pledged allegiance “to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands” before the start of every school day, I’m not convinced cruelty is endemic to the American experience, much less a necessary corollary to achievement. We are all vulnerable to resorting to angers fed by generational prejudices when frustration and hardship get the best of us. Perhaps it is human nature that seemingly insurmountable problems seem easier to grasp when there is someone to blame for our woes. But the corrosive emotions being deployed right now across our beautiful country in order to command our attention and allegiances may be drawing us into conflicts that do not serve us well.
As we sit in our caves now day after day watching flickering light from various media platforms, we are incurious they cast no shadow. What we do paint on our internet walls in posts and tweets is ephemeral, less than breadcrumbs, far from enlightening, infrequently uplifting, almost never poetic. These messages, our personal stories, compete and are increasingly overwhelmed by the images and words of strangers, inundating us, claiming our attention with the sole intent of trying to sell us something. A new dress, an energy drink, a mattress. A point of view.
Our ancestors built their fires for warmth and to cook food. When they came to paint what they knew of life, their shadows were alive on the walls of their caves; they were fully in command of the stories they told.
Which brings me back to curiosity. The problems we face may not be fundamentally all of our doing, but they will surely be our undoing if we do not resolve them, and soon. To be curious right now is the opposite of being certain. It’s also the opposite of being angry. We need to wonder who is selling us what, and why. Need to wonder how things might turn out if we are fully present right now and responsible, both to ourselves and our neighbors. To remember our actions define us more than our opinions.
In wishing you a joyful, if quieter Thanksgiving this year all of us here at Barndiva and the farm, and the farms and purveyor kitchens we rely upon express our gratitude for your custom and your continued support. When we are finally able to gather together again inside, a bit closer to the warmth of our kitchens, it will no doubt be a different world in hospitality. We’re curious how that might not be a bad thing. In every way we can we are imagining and working toward that future as we would construct a dish of many intriguing ingredients - looking for the most flavor, the truest return.
To keep working here, to protect what we love about this particular landscape, to work alongside people who respect that landscape as well is our goal. Hopefully, we can share that with you when we meet again.
Stay curious. Stay well.
A link to Pádraig reciting and talking about Paul Tran’s The Cave, on @onbeing.org & @poetryunbound.org, can be found here. Eat the View’s banner image this week of Lou’s walnuts drying was photographed in the Preston farmshop (@prestonfarmandwinery) . Use this link to their farm shop to order the walnuts or wine or the many other beautiful products Preston produces.
“The Cave”
Written by Paul Tran
Read by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Someone standing at the mouth had
the idea to enter. To go further
than light or language could
go. As they followed
the idea, light and language followed
like two wolves—panting, hearing themselves
panting. A shapeless scent
in the damp air …
Keep going, the idea said.
Someone kept going. Deeper and deeper, they saw
others had been there. Others had left
objects that couldn’t have found their way
there alone. Ocher-stained shells. Bird bones. Grounded
hematite. On the walls,
as if stepping into history, someone saw
their purpose: cows. Bulls. Bison. Deer. Horses—
some pregnant, some slaughtered.
The wild-
life seemed wild and alive, moving
when someone moved, casting their shadows
on the shadows stretching
in every direction. Keep going,
the idea said again. Go …
Someone continued. They followed the idea so far inside that
outside was another idea.”