elegy on a sunday morning
I wrote this in October 2017 for my high school english teacher, Jon Miller. I recently judged an writing competition held in his memorial, and remembered that I wrote this two years ago, and dug it out again today. sunday morning by wallace stevens was one of my favorite poems from his class.
after wallace stevens
sunday morning, I was out of coffee and oranges. there were no bright green wings or sunny chairs in this part of Brooklyn — instead, construction dust and white confetti, a plastic bag blowing in the branches outside my window. was this, at all, like the Brooklyn you knew, decades before? I could barely imagine you here, speaking, in that old fashioned, Southern way, to urban youth - did you walk into city classrooms the same way you walked into ours, crossing the doorway as if pleasantly surprised to find adolescents waiting; a hardbound book of literature tucked under your arm - the poetry you recited to us with the booming voice of an English god?
and how your voice rolled over our desks like thunder; how the whole day seemed to pass in this way, with only the buzzing of an occasional lawnmower outside; time like wide water, without sound, the room vibrating with your voice, weighing words with the gravity of life, love, and death, and I thought to myself: one day, I, too, will have poems inscribed inside of me, to pull out like birds from my heart chamber, to offer back to you.
except instead, I left for the city, and disappeared. I disappeared into crowded buildings and university lecture rooms; your book of pre-1950s American and British poetry lay unread on my shelf for years while I struggled to understand what it meant to be an adult, a woman, an Asian-American, a human being of this world.
and for many years, my sunday morning complacency of urban living was writing in the corner of my favorite cafe, which now I realize felt like sitting in the warm glow of your windowless basement office, perched on your yellow armchair, talking to you. years later, you would say what a treat it was for me to visit you out of the blue. years later, you told me you were going to retire soon; to retreat to your accumulation of books, and maybe next time I visit, I could come to your house, and, won’t you send me some of your writing, you asked, you had faith that I would be published soon. and I had never had an English god smile upon me like that, and in that moment, I was not a self-possessed city woman; I was scared and delighted and seventeen years old again; I was a child sitting on the floor at winter formal listening to you read How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I left your office with the sound of your voice lingering, like pumpkin spice in my being.
saturday morning, I bought stationary to finally write your long over-due letter, to send you some of my writing, to begin an adult correspondence with you. I was ready to tell you everything: my years of alienation, my great love and great heartbreak, and how I had given up everything to pursue writing — our shared love of language. I was ready to respond to the letter you wrote me upon my graduation, tucked inside the book of poetry you gave me; and I wanted nothing more than to make you proud; to show you what a massive imprint you had on my little life.
sunday morning, I went to the laundromat around the corner with a bag of clothes separated into whites and cold and warm and hot. it was drizzling outside in this part of Brooklyn; beginning to feel like autumn, when the air shifts and time slows to a still.
that sunday morning you died, age seventy three, and on monday night, upon hearing the news, I leafed through your book of pre-1950s British American poetry and cried, still holding a bowl of soy milk, half-drunk, in my hand. you were the first in my life to die. before my ninety-six year old grandmother, before my two grandfathers both fell ill, and lay now, in different hospital beds in my old hometown. you were the first. and so I cried while folding laundry. I cried, until I heard a voice in my head say: child, don’t cry. read. read and write. for death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires¹. and remember that nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind². you must read, my child. and you must write.
Oct 2017
¹ from sunday morning by wallace stevens — one of my favorite poems he taught.
² from self-reliance by ralph waldo emerson — my favorite essay from his class. I wrote my college essay on this quote.
a painting I did in 2017 about the feeling of being in his office.