Ballet vs Heavy Metal

I liked the Stevens poem well enough, much better the second or third time around though. But it is really the first and fourth parts that I find most captivating. I think the first stanza is beautiful. "Just as my fingers on these keys make music, so the self-same sounds on my spirit make a music, too." It's wonderful. These lines alone give me this strange sort of feeling deep in my chest (I mean this quite literally). I didn't know what it was or where it came from. But it felt something like hope. Now, I'm not trying to be all "deep" or anything. It truly surprised me. If this mysterious feeling is one of hope, then what is it that I feel so hopeless about? I'm still not sure, but I can make a few guesses... Perhaps it gives me hope that such romantic language isn't lost - I know that the poem was published back in 1915, but I'm reading it in 2009 and it is hard for me to accept that the world can get lost in a language consisted of "yo," "like," and "roflmao" losing the beauty it once held in "just as my fingers on these keys make music..." Call me a nerd, but I love watching "Dancing with the Stars" to see couples perform the fox trot and waltz, etc. Whereas today's "bump-n'-grind" I find revolting. I'm more of an old fashioned type of person in some ways I suppose, and these lines ignited that old fashioned flame within me. But after the first couple stanzas, the poem is no longer a favorite of mine. The elders really creep me out.

Aside from the actual language of "Peter Quince at the Clavier," this idea that music is everywhere reminded me of a day when my two sisters and I were climbing into the back seat of my parents’ van. On my right, Emily was trying to buckle her seatbelt but it kept getting stuck. Every time she tugged on the strap she let out a little gasp from all the effort it took, making an “eh…eh…eh…” sound. I was in the middle also trying to buckle my seatbelt, but it wouldn’t clasp. Every time the metal tip tapped against the metal of the buckle it made a clinking sound, “tink…tink…tink…” And on my right, Kristin was trying to close a small storage compartment so that she could use it as an arm rest, but it wouldn’t stay shut. So she kept slamming the lid hoping the force would shut it, naturally it never did, “slam…slam…slam…” After a short while we noticed our parents staring at us from the front of the car. Apparently, we made a sort of beat or rhythm from these frustrating things that didn’t even work. “eh tink slam, eh tink slam, eh tink slam” We all started to laugh at the absurdity of the moment. To be honest, it’s one of the few times I can remember us all laughing together like that. Not that we were often cold to one another, but it seemed like there was always somebody not getting along with somebody else.

Though Stevens doesn’t mean to say that actual music is everywhere (“Music is feeling, then, not sound”), this memory in my mind now plays a certain tune to me - a happy one, one that you might play to cheer somebody up. Each memory I have is a different tune. Some of them are loud, dark, and frightening pieces, but then there are the lighter ballets that make all the rest ok. In my mind light is stronger than darkness, though sometimes it’s hard to remember that.

So I suppose I must disagree with Stevens here. Beauty is not “momentary in the mind – the fitful tracing of a portal; but in the flesh it is immortal.” I think it is extremely important to remember that in our minds we can hold everything beautiful, so that when things do turn dark, we can always recall those moments and pieces of light.