I’m getting on one of those Chinatown express buses in about an hour, so now I am trying to stay awake long enough to catch it and then settle down and sleep (I hope) until I wake up in NYC and try not to look too awkwardly like a tourist as I negotiate the subway and the bus that will take me to my friend’s place. So here I am...
Ever since I read this diary about the Statue of Liberty getting jeered when the New 7 Wonders of the World were announced,
I have thought I should go see the Statue of Liberty on this trip. I never have before, for some reason. I have always wanted to. I mean, who doesn’t have strong feelings about the Statue of Liberty?
When I was in 6th grade and we had to memorize poetry, I picked
"The New Colossus" as my poem. I had to google the poem just now to see how much I remembered (about half). Then the New Colossus made me think of the Old Colossus (that of Rhodes) --which was on the old 7 wonders of the world list, so I googled it, and was struck by how both Old and New Colossus had inscriptions about Liberty. And that reminded me of
Ozymandias, although the inscription as envisioned by Shelley is quite different:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
In fact, it made me think of George Bush, and the thought of Bush associated with empires crumbling reminded me of this Sandberg poem I love, "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind."
Here’s a couple of verses:
The doors were cedar
and the panel strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us every was.
The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
3
It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened
... and the only listeners left now
... are ... the rats .. and the lizards.
And there are black crows
crying, "Caw, caw,"
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The only singers now are crows crying, "Caw, caw,"
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are ... the rats ... and the lizards.
Ouch. I spent too much time this morning reading the diaries about the economy crashing and martial law.
Luckily, the Statue of Liberty evokes one more image, this one from the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story "The Swimmers." Even though she isn’t specifically mentioned in it, I always picture her in the background as the protagonist Henry sails for Europe. This is one of my favorite images of this country:
Watching the fading city, the fading shore, from the deck of the Majestic, he had a sense of overwhelming gratitude that America was there, that under the ugly debris of industry the rich land still pushed up, incorrigibly lavish and fertile, and that in the heart of the leaderless people the old generosities and devotions fought on, breaking out sometimes in fanaticism and excess, but indomitable and undefeated. There was a lost generation in the saddle at the moment, but it seemed to him that the men coming on, the men of the war, were better; and all his old feeling that America was a bizarre accident, a sort of historical sport, had gone forever. The best of America was the best of the world.
...
...France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter—it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.
My hour is up. I definitely will go see the Statue of Liberty this weekend.