Merry Maunday Mourning, classh. Have we all done our homework? Yes,
Master Card? Your mouse ate it? Oh, I see, it was a cordless mouse and got away
from you. Please repeat at once to Mother Superioriosa’s Officious!
Well, with that out of the way, we shall begin to extenuate that
wonderful peon called:
No, Miss Placed, Roma was not referring to a man named Howard in
this work. I’m very shore of that!
Now, we have all seen how much Roma loves to travel on long, long
journeys, so we should not be surprised to discern another journey coming upon
us in this next piece. So please have your overnight bags ready to roll.
Our text de jour, “On Your Shore,” now us comes before (yes, I am
exerting my poetic license here, studnuts):
Roma commences:
Strange how my heart beats
Strange? Yes, indeed: if one has a cardiac arrhythmia it can be very
strange indeed -- thump, thump, thump, thump-a-bump, rather like an agitating
oracle I think, one that has lost its cycle; and that last that “thump-a-bump”
can send you right to your doctor, heart in hand! Thus I am personally quite
grateful that my heart will go on, for it makes such a titanic effort to do
that each and every day.
So, my fledglings, someone's heart is beating,
though strangely so! Our first task, then, is to identify the poetic persona!
Any ideas? Yes, Miss Ing, you are correct: the persona is the very same
"Enya" we recently met in Africa, and her heart is beating strangely
because she’s had to walk through all those warm sands to get to this shore!
The poor dear must be very retired!
And so, Master Seaman, we are once again reunited with Enya, now
suffering from cardiac arrhythmia brought on by over-desertion. But now at
least she knows where she is:
Enya has found herself! Glory be, the search for her identity is over:
she KNOWS, as she has never known before, who she is. Now, Sister Sigmunda
often says that identity is a PRIMAL necessity for us primates. We are
ever searching for who we are, lost in an ocean of night. But out of the wet
darkness comes awareness of who we are, and THAT is what Enya now achieves:
ultimate self-knowledge!
So, in these first two lines Roma gives us the THEMATIC BASIS of her
poem: the search for identity under extreme climactic conditions, out of Africa
and towards the shore. Of course, we encounter poetic contrast: the sands of
yore were WARM, indeed quite hot; but the shore of now is COOL, right, Miss
Rhine? The change from extreme heat to the cool winds of the shore has set Enya's
heart aflutter. Indeed, that happened to me once at the beach: I was just
soaking up some rays, as is my habit, when suddenly the tide rose (it was,
after all, the Bay of Fundy) and I felt myself swept into the waves!
Fortunately for me, a strong, young, virile, handsome lifeguard came to my
rescue; one look at him and my heart just went wildly off course in all
directions, but I digress.
So lettuce find our way home:
Well, of course! She cannot possibly have discovered the secrets of
cardiac arrhythmia in only one or two lines; thus she is STILL feeling very
strange. Now, she should not feel strange about feeling strange because she has
been feeling strange for a strangely long time, do I make myself clear? Good!
So we come to fathom that this verse is episodic, and does not move us
along in the poem in a linear fashion. Thus, we must proceed with rapid
heartbeat to the next line:
Oh dear, Enya is discomfortable! Why is this so, Miss Begotten? Yes,
she has indeed LOST her comforter! Now, how did this happen? Did she leave it
on the sands of Africa? On the ocean, between Peru and Cebu? On the Orinoco? On
the Dublin bus? Do you know, Master Key, how many items are left on city buses
these days. Of course you don’t.
No wonder, then, that her heart is behaving so strangely: losing one's
comforter can be very dramatic. Perhaps our Enya is actually suffering from
post dramatic synodyne here!
Now something very significant happens:
Ah yes: that bracing effect of cool water washing over you after days
in the sands of Africa. How refreshing, especially if you use waves from an
Irish Spring. But note, Miss Placed, the hidden danger here: cool waves washing
over her may drag Enya into the sea in a tsunami manner! She is a small woman,
after all, and body mass is so important in these matters.
But perhaps Roma is here digesting that Enya needs a SHOWER after all
that walking from the desert buffet to the shore. Yes, indeed, there are times
when a cold shower is most effective, such as when Brother Brad, um, I
fear I may begin to digress.
And so we come to:
No, Mr. Woof, she is NOT saying “dreams of YOU”! I am sorry to burst
your cling-on bubble.
But we do find another reason for Enya's cardiac duress: her dreams are
drifting away, away, away. Those nasty cool waves are stealing them! Someone
call the police at once, this rubbery must be stopped.
But, on the
deeper metaphysical level, where I oft dwell when in Dublin and the B&Bs
are full, Roma is saying something of great
impotence: as we lose our dreams of youth, we find ourselves standing by the
shore in a state of great undress, er, distress. Although undressing by the
shore is becoming more and more common these days, I must say. And look at our
Enya here: she has lost her comforter, and now she loses her youthful dreams!
How terribly poignant.
Thus we are now ready to receive from Roma the next lines:
So time is stolen
Enya, dear studnuts, now discovers, to her shock and
awe, that she has also lost TIME, yes, only TIME! My, my, is she on a losing
streak or what? No, Master Full, that was a rhetorical question, please put
your hand down until I need to borrow it in another lesion.
Time has been stolen from our bereft Enya! Now
who would do such a dastardly thing? Well if I should wager, which I don't of
course, but if I did, I would wager that the culprit is Tempus Vernum!
Roma never did trust that one, she always warned me about the dangers of TV, as
I recall. No, Miss Informed, I do not think the culprit is Master Card, as he
is still being swiped by Mother Superioriosa.
Now Roma must make our poetic plot extenuate: not only has TIME been
stolen from Enya, classh, but she cannot hold “YOU” long enough. But who is
YOU, we ask in our constipation. Whose shore is she standing on,
watching her earthly goods wash away like stains in a Tide commercial? We come,
then, to the heart of the poem, distressed though it may be.
What does Enya say about all this LOSS in her life:
Ah! The MASSAGE of the poem: ACCEPTANCE of one's situation in life.
Enya accepts her losses, like a mature adult, and despite the sad fact that she
has no insurance.
But, says Roma, exasperating upon the plot:
My goodness, on top of all her misfortunes Enya now has to deal with
days and nights falling very close to her, like Chicken Little, only much more
lovely. I expect that she wishes she had bought that insurance policy!
Now, this point is SO important that Roma emphasizes it again:
thus making it crystal clear that we are indeed hearing the voice of
Enya ipsa (“me”).
And what a sad scene Roma has painted here: Enya is
a veritable picture of resignation. I once thought of resignation too, but then
I had all those bills to pay and Brother Brad ….. but I digress.
Our poor, loss-full Enya stands on the shore, lamenting her losses but
accepting her fate. Even being bombarded by temporal constructs cannot shake
her soul! No wonder she sings to us next:
But what dream is this, we must ask, but not of you, Miss
Filed. Does she dream of her comforter? Yes, classh, but perhaps that comforter
is “YOU.” Yes, Enya wishes to visit Roma Ryan’s High and give you all great big
hugs – that is her dream! But, before she can pack her bags (which will
also, no doubt, be LOST), we read, in sorrow:
Days and nights falling by
Enya has a sense of deja vu all over again: more days and more nights
are falling like autumn leaves all around her - only time is rushing by her,
not without crashing upon her head. But we know, don't we, studnuts, that Roma
would NEVER leave Enya in such a state of disrepute, and so Roma gives Enya
(and us) a comforter again:
Ah, the respite after the storm, or is it in the middle of the storm,
the eye of the hurricane, the funnel of the tornado? I just love chicken
tornados, don't you, Miss Cooked?
Anyway, SOFT horizons enter our scene: after all that crashing down,
something soft is most welcome I am sure. But note: the horizons are BLUE, maybe even a Caribbean Blue or perhaps a
Midnight Blue! A soft blue colour: I once painted my bedroom in a soft blue
colour, it was so soothing, well, until Brother Brad…….but I shall not digress.
Roma then elaborates as follows:
Aha! The horizons are active, not passive, and they are reaching into
the past, into the childhood of Enya herself. You see, classh, her deep sense
of loss stretches back to her earliest days, when she had to share ONE bathroom
with 8 siblings! And I bet it wasn't painted blue either! Mick Jagger would
have it painted black, you know.
In any event, Enya is waxing and waning nostalgic, perhaps like unto a
Blue Moon.
But then Roma throws her infamous curve ball at us:
Who or what is RISING? In other words, WHO is YOU? Is it you, my dear
students? Is it only that annoying OperaKait? Is it the Walrus? Is it Brother
Brad? Is it the HORIZON that is rising? Is Enya sea-sick? Well, I am sure she
has enough Pepto-Brennan ™ with her to take care of that! Yet, what is rising
does indeed remain a bit of a mystery at this point.
So, someone or something is now rising – but WHY?
Oh dear, now she has lost her ways! It's always something, isn't
it: her comforter, her dreams of youth, her baggage, and now she's lost her
ways! Or at least, forgotten them. Maybe she’s forgotten where she lost them?
Like Ryan Air.
Or perhaps Roma gives us a riddle here, and “you” refers to someone or
something about to restore all Enya’s repressed memories of her childhood? So
many questions, so little thyme!
Well, we come now to the precluding verses, the Final Four, as Roma
might say. Will she bring us closure, perchance a zipper or two? What will
become of dear Enya?
To begin the end, Roma, in this final stanza, will engage in “RING
COMPOSITION”: that is, the end of the poem will remind us of the beginning, and
the circle will be closed, never having GONE anywhere at all! Sounds like me on
Saturday night, but I digress.
Let us listen to the first two lines of the final stanza:
Strange how I falter
To find I'm standing in deep water
Oh my, Enya is feeling strange AGAIN! Well, of course she feels
STRANGE: she is standing up to her neck in deep water! And she falters: have
you ever tried to walk in deep water, Master Piece? Well, it takes a great deal
of effort, and poor Enya is already weak from walking across Africa and
struggling to this shore. Why, she must have the airconditioning of an Olympic
athlete. Maybe she eats steel cut oats? (A brief commercial brought to us by
Donegal Oats, Inc. ™)
Now, listen to
what comes next, and weep:
To find I'm standing on your shore
This is indeed “Ring Composition” (no, Miss Guided, this has nothing to
do with Wagner, sorry), leading us right back to the front, where the poem
began on a similar note (C, more or less sharp). Enya has gone full circle,
and, as a result, is very dizzy. And thus feeling very strange as she takes her
pulse.
Well, classh, what ARE we to make of all this? What is our beloved Roma
saying to all of us, Master Corporal? Yes, I agree that you haven't got a clue,
so let us recapitulate this poem as a whole now:
In this immortal lyric, Roma presents us with a strange poetic persona
whose life has been full of LOSS. Yet this brave person ACCEPTS her losses and
struggles on, to the shore that is her destination! You know, when I feel at a
loss I also go down to the shore: I love walking along the shore, gazing at the
plastic floating in the harbour, at the boats leaking gas, at the gulls being
relieved of themselves, but I regress.
Thus, says Roma, no matter how far we are in the journey of our lives,
no matter how many days and nights have fallen almost on top of us, with all
their weighty happenings, the child we were is always within us, remembering
things forgotten. We must all nurture our inner child – that annoying creature
much like OperaKait but less obvious. Only then will we regain our composture,
and finally stop feeling strange. And our hearts will go on, beating at
last in perfect time.
Ta!