Want

So much of writing is "I want." I want to convince you of the political injustice of the world, and my way to fix it. People always say "I want you"-- for sex, love, lust, life. We are like birds, singing in the trees-- the songs so mysterious to us but which bird watchers hear as "I want" or violent warning to others. In Dead Poet's Society, the teacher said the point of poetry was to "woo women." To be wooed. The women in that movie were very much objects to be won, to watch as the romantic poets beat their drums and posed like bright birds. But even with this "object" role, I wanted to be the teacher-- not the wooed, not the students. But that, my dears, is another kind of wooing. To teach, to woo.

Again-- "I want." As I write my dissertation, academic, sometimes dry jargon and posing and lots of chest beating, it is another kind of "I want." And all the time, others are, like those birds being challenged in the nearby trees, beating out their wants, singing out their needs and desires. And my ear does not always do a great job of tuning OUT those insistent songs, those cries to be seen, heard. I too am attracted by bright red or azure feathers and lovely songs.

But then again, maybe I just came down with a bad case of poetry. I hear it's going around.