Hero's Poetry Journey, week 4

DEPARTURE: Meeting the Mentor

Hello, Poetry Friend

One of the hardest things about motherhood is knowing when to push and when to hold back. We can on-the-one-hand and on-the-other-hand ourselves in circles. That’s where a mentor can help. But a mentor does not always appear in the guise expected or say the expected thing.

Meeting the Mentor

With so many voices online and in our lives, it can be hard to find a mentor whose voice resonates. For me, it took discovering A.E. Stallings’ poem “Listening to Peter and the Wolf with Jason, aged 3,” to realize my mentor is this little boy.

He’s only 3, but he has two things going for him. One, he’s young enough to not see any boundary between things visible and unvisible. And two, little Jason is musical. For me, music speaks a language that words don’t and can’t.

With Jason as my guide, I’ll know what is the next right thing to do, even if all is not right with my world. And often, it hasn’t been.

Motherhood Fear

Let’s be honest, there’s a lot to fear in motherhood. Here be dragons. Here be wolves.

There was a moment when even our dogs were afraid. It was around 3 a.m., and they were growling, as if at an intruder. But it wasn’t an intruder; it was our child. Frankly, the dogs had been trying to let me know things were amiss, but I ignored their cues, as if they were 3-year-olds throwing a tantrum. They weren’t. Fear was their rational response.

How do we carry our fear? With a poem, of course.

“Listening to Peter and the Wolf with Jason, aged 3,” by A.E. Stallings

This poem is about not only facing fear but also finding delight in fearfulness. Jason is “Balanced between the thrill of fear and fear.” He wants to know “Where is the wolf?” because something in him loves the moment when “The cymbals menace, the French horns loom, / And the music is loose. The music’s in the room.”

As I write today I am listening to Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. This particular piece sounds a little scary. I turn it up.

Listening to Peter and the Wolf with Jason, aged 3

Eyes wide open, grinning ear to ear,
Balanced between the thrill of fear and fear,
He clutches at my skirt to keep me near

And will not let me leave him by himself
In the living room where Peter and the Wolf
Emerges from the speakers on the shelf.

He likes Peter’s jaunty swing of strings,
The reedy waddle of the duck, the wings
That flute up in the tree, but still he clings,

(Even though for now it’s just the cat
Picking its sneaky way through sharp and flat);
He isn’t frightened of a clarinet,

And laughs at Grandfather’s bluster and bassoon,
But keeps his ear out for another tune
At the shadowy edge of the wood, and coming soon.

Where is the wolf? He asks me every chance
He gets, and I explain each circumstance;
Though it’s not as if he’s heard it only once—

You’d think he’d know by now. Deep in the wood,
Or under the tree, or sent away for good
To the zoo, I say, and think he’s understood.

And weary of the question and the classic,
I ask him where the wolf is. With grave logic
He answers me, “The wolf is in the music.”

And so it is. Just then, out of the gloom
The cymbals menace, the French horns loom,
And the music is loose. The music’s in the room.

—A.E. Stallings

Poetry Journal

• Read Stallings’ poem. Jot down what you notice, what you like, what you don’t, what questions you have, and at least one way in which the poem speaks to your soul.

• What does your mentor look like? Sound like? What kind of music do they listen to?

• Read Stallings' poem aloud. Pick one phrase or line or stanza you can tuck deep in your heart.

• Write your own haiku about this stage of your hero’s poetry journey. However, for this stage of the hero’s journey I did not write a haiku; I rewrote Billy Collins’ poem “The Lanyard” using lines from a song straight outta Daisy Jones and The Six. (It’s at meganwillome.com.) If you like, email me what you write haiku or hit song.

P.S. If you have never listened to Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, it’s a story told by an orchestra, to introduce children to the various instruments. If you’ve got half an hour, get yourself good and spooked.

Happy Poeming!

Megan