Grace-Notes #2,  January 14, 2007

Natalie Costanza-Chavez

Grace Notes

grace-notes@comcast.net

Arise and Go

   You know those people who can recite a poem or passage from a famous book at the mere mention of the author? Well, I’m not one of them.

     So, it surprised me this week to find a poem-line belonging to William Butler Yeats marching through my head.

     The first time was when my 12 year old, again, began with “why can’t I have a cell phone?” I found myself mumbling Yeats’ line “I will arise and go now….I will arise and go now…. I will arise and go now….”  

     The next time, I was stuck in snow-slog traffic, when a train whistle blared its way into my car cab. I glanced to the right, saw the train, and knew I’d be at a stop for 15 minutes. The line began running through my head again: “I will arise and go now…...”

     When I got home, I found the book, and read the poem:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

     We all have such a place tucked away I our heads. We think it would be different if we were there. We think we’d be focused, happy, calmer, thinner, funnier. Away.

     We think we’d read more, eat less, walk daily, save money, and grow smarter.

     If only we were there.

     My Innisfree exists at the top of a cliff, high above the Pacific Ocean, on the northern California coast. Two slightly crumbling brick pillars mark the top of a precarious staircase almost hidden by steep and leaning pines and overgrown Birds of Paradise. There is a foliage tunnel – and a sandy path that moves through it – into deep shade, almost darkness. Green and wild squash-like vines with moonish yellow flowers grow large.   

     The thin trail winds itself down the cliff-side haphazardly as if a ribbon has blown in the wind and come to rest twining and switch-backing between trunks of redwoods. You can’t see a hundred steps in front of you until the path opens up, between two broken, wind-thrashed, storm busted ancient trees: the ocean.

     Now, in actuality when I stand at the top of this staircase, I have four metal beach chairs squashed tightly under my arm, two coolers slung over my shoulder, the dog nosing the poison ivy that nestles under the vines, and two boys with boogie boards running far far in front of me, leaving me, as it were, in their dust. My sweet husband has gone around the long way with towels and the fishing poles.

     Ahh, but when I think, “I will arise and go now….” I am alone and unencumbered; the only sound is the wind, the water, the dragonflies, the gulls.

     I will arise and go now…

     “If only I could,” we think.

     But, we’re here. It’s January. And I-25 is still a hard commute, in-town right-turn lanes are still an icy-slide ride, the day is still an hour too short and, in the morning, the night feels two hours too short.

     We are here.

     Yeats knew it didn’t matter if he was actually on his beloved shelly shore of the Island of Innisfree. To close his eyes and touch an image of it was enough.

     Our lives are fleeting, flitty, fly-by-fast. 

     We don’t fully understand this thing we long for – but we know it like we know our own voice. Call it peace, or God, or light, or Spirit. When our fingers graze the edge of it, our hand startles closed.

     Grab it.

     Listen. Hear it in the deep heart’s core.