The Immigrant

I pity the poor immigrant
When his gladness comes to pass.
                                 [Bob Dylan]

I don’t know much about that poor immigrant in Bob Dylan’s song—beyond what Dylan tells me, namely that he “wishes he would’ve stayed home”—but he comes to my mind every time we enter this season of Black Fridays, Cyber Mondays, and “Only X days until X-Mas.” I think of this poor immigrant as humanity in this world of ours—and when his gladness comes to pass is the time when goodies have piled up, higher and higher, so high, in fact, that for a moment gladness comes, until it passes again. And so it goes on…

The still small voice within us tells us when we’re young that life must have meaning beyond pleasure, happiness must mean something—and something more than satisfaction. But without help from all the other immigrants, it’s difficult to discover when we’ve reached equilibrium and thinking about going home again should become our real concern. The quality of a culture can be measured by the help it gives us to recognize when we’ve had enough. To turn our back on a culture that promotes consumption is neither negativity nor alienation. It’s the beginning of repatriation and leaving our immigrant status behind.

——

Here a link to the lyrics of this poem by one of our most underrated poets.

Walls of Red Wing

In a comment to yesterday’s post Brigitte mentioned another of our Joan Baez, Bob Dylan favorites. She did so unaware that just below it I’d linked to “Spanish Boots.” So herewith a link to the song. The last verse, as before:

Oh, some of us will wind up in St. Cloud prison
And some of us’ll end up to be lawyers and things
And some of us’ll stand to meet you on your crossroads
From inside the grounds of the walls of Red Wing

The photo of Baez, also from Wikipedia’s article on her, shows her at age 62. The shot, above, courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, is the actual Minnesota Correctional Facility-Red Wing. It’s address is 1079 Highway 292, Red Wing, MN 55066—in case you’d like to arrange to meet a best friend on its grounds. The walls, of wire, are also visible…if you look closely.

Spanish Boots

Joan Baez is one of the great stars for us, and here she is, singing a Bob Dylan song, one of her best. Here the last verse of the song:

So take heed, take heed of the western wind
Take heed of the stormy weather
And yes, there's something you can send back to me
Spanish boots of Spanish leather.

The photo, from Wikipedia here, shows them both. Lord, do they look young! Time passes with a swirl...

To Correct a Neglect

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
‘Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, ‘art sure no craven
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!’
Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’
     [The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe]

The bridge at midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers’ nieces seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
     [Love Minus Zero/No Limit, Bob Dylan]

Yesterday on PBS the Nature program presented a fascinating show about the intelligence of crows—A Murder of Crows. You can see an introduction to the show here. Granted, there is a certain tension, a certain distance between Science and Poetry, but writers who prepare the narrative belong to the poetic tribes. Not this time. This pleasing program featured not one mention of the raven. Herewith the answer to the question I always ask: What is the difference between the crows and ravens? The answer: Both belong to the class of birds, Aves, the order of Passeriformes, the family of Corvidae, and the genus Corvus. Then there are forty-one species and some subspecies of the genus, of which several are ravens, the most common being, well, the Common Raven, called Corvus corax. In the United States we see the American Crow; it is called Corvus brachyrhynchos. Crows are just slightly smaller in size than ravens. They also have smaller and more curved beaks. The American Crow is susceptible to West Nile virus. They used to be quite numerous here, but we’ve noted their virtual disappearance, oh, five or six years ago. When I see one or two on a walk, it is always something I note and tell Brigitte about. Maybe they’re coming back. We like crows…

We do have a few ravens in America as well. Therefore my inclusion of a raven, one with a broken wing, into Ghulf Genes (the novel) was at least technically sound—although, to tell you the truth, appearing as it did in Pennsylvania, it was a very, very great distance from where it normally flies, feeds, breeds, and nests—in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon.