Marginalia

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive ---
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" ---
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird singing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page ---
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribblings.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

a few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil ---
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet ---
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

--Billy Collins

Harsh Visions For Such Youth

Harsh visions for such youth to witness. 

Harsh tones cutting through the static air, thunderous waves resounding all around.
Harsh approaches flung all about, heightening the exponential tension.
Harsh animosity pitched to the other, not wanting to harbor such violent emotion, but at a loss for any rational expression.
O! that fine line between such passionate human emotion
That no one seems to understand ‘til found dancing precariously along its edges
Waiting for a mere gust of decision or happenstance to flick them to either side. 

(A poem I did for my English class in the style of Walt Whitman.)

Paranoia or Precaution

Is the door locked?
Locked.
Double check.
Locked.
Walk across the room.
Check the second door.
Locked.
Both locks secure?
Locked.
A shorter walk this time.
Check both locks.
Locked.
A glance at all three doors.
Make sure nothing was missed.
Still locked.
A short nod.
A deep breath.
Now I can relax.

Every time the doorbell rings,
Every time someone knocks.
There's always that slight panic,
My mind wondering if it's occurring again,
Listening for that doorknob to jiggle back and forth.
Of course, hopefully nothing like that
Will ever happen again,
But the mind still likes to remind you
Of all the possibilities.
It never hurts to be extra safe.
It always takes time to recover
From an incident that occurred almost a year ago.
You don't blame her.
You're glad she's getting help.
But you're still afraid it may happen again.

Are all the windows locked?
Locked.
But wait.
That one night,
When you cracked your window open for a slight breeze...
I check again.
Locked.
A sigh of relief.
Now I can relax.

Why It's Important to Keep a Journal:

This is an excerpt from a journal entry of mine (I keep a gratitude journal).

I was just reading through two journal entries I wrote in July 2010. It was when I received my patriarchal blessing (it's crazy how that feels like forever ago!). I was listing all the reasons why I was heading to receive my patriarchal blessing in one entry, and then on the 24th of that same month, I was listing why my life was so hard -- for those same reasons. While some might think this was some sort of "proof" that Heavenly Father isn't here to help us, I saw it in a completely different way. I know that my Heavenly Father will always be there for me. And when we may be at our strongest spiritual potential, that's when Satan will try to crack down on us the most. I wasn't feeling bad because my Heavenly Father doesn't love me; I was feeling bad because Satan didn't want me to gain all the blessings and spiritual strength I got from receiving my patriarchal blessing.

We're all going to go through trials in this life, whether we're strong in the gospel or not. Satan is going to come at us, especially when we're at our strongest (spiritually). But that is also the time when we can have the most strength to turn away from his temptations. We don't have to let Satan gain any power over us. We are stronger than him.

So, I'm very grateful for my loving Father in Heaven, and my Savior who gave His life for me -- so that I may learn and grow here on this earth.

And I'm also grateful for journal writing. Not only can I look back on times in my life and learn things I may not have learned then, but I can also learn things that can help me now and in the future. And I know in the future I'll definitely be grateful for this particular post.

--Sadie