The
Next First Time
A
milestone, in Roman speech,
is
what one would encounter each
and
every mile in the reach
of
Roman roads,
and
not, as we prefer to say,
a
great event, a single day
that
instantly will pass away
beyond
our reach.
So
at some annual event
there
always must be some present,
the
new initiates, who spent
it
overwhelmed,
while
all the others sigh at them
remembering
that past age when
they
thought that world beyond their ken
and
not routine
and
for a moment they resent
that
froth of gay embarrassment
that
held them when they underwent
that
death sublime,
But
even if it hadn’t been,
we
might forbear to scoff at them,
for
time will roll us down again
the
next First Time.
I wrote this on the train home from my
first APA (that is, SCS) conference. Having spent this past week on the road at
a different conference, I was planning to post this poem last Sunday, since the
theme seemed apt. As you can see, in the end I decided not to do so, mostly
because this poem has never said what I wanted it to say. This happens,
sometimes: I start at the beginning of a poem with a particular image or
emotion that I want to examine, and the thing spins out of control until I’m
talking about something completely different. For example, when I was in high
school, I had a very intense experience the morning I was going to take the
SAT. I was so nervous about the ordeal that I woke up before dawn and sat in
bed, staring out a window that faced out over my backyard, that gave way to a
picturesque wood (a drainage ditch in disguise), that climbed up a steep hill
before you reached the next row of houses. The whole experience seemed terribly
fateful, as I faced down anxieties about how this one day might determine my
future and watched dawn gradually illuminate the landscape, watched a line of
windows at the top of the hill light up one by one as my neighbors came down to
their kitchens for coffee. After that morning I spent a year beating my brains
out, trying to capture the experience in poetry, before giving up. About a year
after that, I tried again to write a different poem about how I viewed those
high school anxieties from the vantage point of being halfway through
college--also a flop. I did finally use some of the ideas I had gleaned from
that morning to write a poem that I deemed worthwhile, but the poem turned out
to be about a persona who felt rejected and unloved by the entire world,
particularly her mother (?), and not at all about anxieties about intellectual
tests as determining factors of worldly success from the perspective of someone
on the cusp of adulthood.
So anyway, one of the hazards of writing
poetry is that the poem might not turn out to say what you want it to say.
Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it never does. On the train back from my
first APA conference, I was thinking about what it’s like to attend an event
for the first time, or for the fifth time, or for the fiftieth time. There are
plenty of big annual events that every year draw in a complement of first-time
attendees, and meanwhile have a reliable gang of old hands who can each be
counted on to attend maybe 80% of the time. If you’re a newcomer, the entire
experience can be pleasantly overwhelming, between all the people you’ve never
met and all the things you’ve never had the chance to do. Then again, if you’re
an old hand, you might see the experience as rather tedious and unnecessary,
another rehash of the same stuff you see every year. I wanted to call attention
to how the old hands were once first-timers themselves, and would do better to
remind themselves of their previous excitement in the event rather than scorn
the excitement they observe in newer attendees, in particular because, no
matter how seasoned and world-weary these old hands may be, they no doubt still
have some first times still lurking in their future, even if they anticipate no
first times except arriving on Saint Peter’s doorstep. There will be for
everyone a Next First Time, when they might be overawed by some new
experience--to their benefit.
No matter how long I squint at it, I don’t
think that’s what this poem says. It doesn’t necessarily need to arrive at my
predetermined objective; some poetry is well served by taking off in its own
direction--even so, when they do, I find it a little unsatisfying, because I
still want to reach my original goal. But here we are; I’ve polished this poem
up as well as I can for the time being, and I after all that work I wanted to
give a small window into my compositional processes. If I’d had my way, this
poem would have been something different, but it’s not. I hope you nonetheless
enjoy it.
