Brisker Pipes Than Poetry

In which poems somehow weasel their way into my thoughts on writing about Mexico

In A.E. Housman's classic ode to cynicism Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff, the poet argues in favor of poetry and alcohol as numbing agents against the realities of the cruel world in which he lives, and that one should:

...face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.

Housman's friends argue that his poetry is too melancholy and moping, to which Housman responds:

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.

When I write about Mexico, should I be dancing? Or should I indulge in dark poetry? I focus a lot on the positive aspects of Mexico, and perhaps I'm somewhat dismissive of the negatives. I am aware of the dysfunction in Mexico. The gang-on-gang violence of the drug cartels. Other criminal activities that may or may not be cartel related: robberies, theft, muggings, kidnapping. And the seemingly unstoppable tide of systemic corruption. I get it. I am not unaware; I'm not a Pollyanna, oblivious to the bad things that may be happening just outside my periphery. And while I do write articles about crime in Mexico, they are few and far between.

In Sonnet - to Science, Edgar Allan Poe describes science as a:

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities

And later:

    Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Science, in Poe's poem, feeds on the corpse of fantasy and imagination. Do I see Mexico's crime and corruption as a vulture that feeds on my whimsical vision of Mexico? Or is it the media who is the vulture, feeding on the dullness of the good things to sate its appetite for the sensational and the grotesque? Should the truth - the science - of Mexico rob me of my dream of Mexico? Is it even a dream?

Here is my answer: crime in Mexico can both exist and not be my focus. That doesn't seem like an incompatibility, or a retreat into some fantastical daydream. I don't feel that the world needs me to write more words about the bad things that happen here; if you are interested in the criminal and dysfunctional elements of Mexican society, you certainly don't need yet another voice (mine) to keep you informed: look at any large U.S. news site. Watch the news on T.V. If that's not enough, jump onto a Mexico-related subreddit for some really first class toxic rhetoric on Mexico. It is out there, and it seems often deafening.

So yes, there is all the bad stuff, and I acknowledge it. But I choose not to focus on it. Why would I, when there are so many good and interesting and useful stories to write? Despite all the bad, there is goodness, wonder, fun, sweetness.

It's kind of like my dog: she doesn't get along well with other dogs, at least not until she's spent a good deal of time around them. She often reacts aggressively to unfamiliar people, especially men. She takes up a lot of room on the bed (don't even start in on me with the no-bed thing). But I don't obsess over her inconvenient behaviors. I love her. I celebrate her good qualities: her unflinching devotion, her playfulness, her empathy and constant affection. The way she licks her nose.

In Samuel Taylor Coleridge's wonderful opium-fueled fever dream of a poem, Kubla Khan, the narrator muses in the final verses about building an exotic pleasure dome, and through this endeavor emerging as some sort of divine force of creativity. To which he warns the reader:

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Drinking the milk of paradise puts one on equal footing with the gods (the Greek ones, at least). It is a bold ambition, and perhaps like Icarus the narrator's choice to elevate himself to that level will result in disaster. And maybe by striving for a sort of paradisiacal vision of Mexico, I will one day come crashing down to earth.

But I don't think so. The milk I drink is from Lala, not paradise. Or at worst, directly from the udder of a cow whose primary job is to fill cups for morning pajaretes. Nor am I a force of creativity; creativity for me waxes and wanes in a cycle that closely parallels my coffee consumption (which does include milk, btw - hmmm...).

The heart wants what it wants

That quote from Emily Dickinson is not a line from one of her poems; it comes instead from a letter that she wrote to an acquaintance. But it is such a beautiful and succinct statement of truth: despite everything, despite the good, the bad, the indifferent: the heart wants what it wants.

Returning, again, to Edgar Allan Poe, this time in To Helen:

Helen, thy beauty is to me 
    Like those Nicéan barks of yore, 
 That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 
    The weary, way-worn wanderer bore 
    To his own native shore.

The wanderer here is Odysseus (Helen, of course, is the eponymous Helen of Troy), who spends 10 years after the Trojan War trying to return home. The Nicéan barks are the ships that finally deliver him to the shores of his native Ithaca. And returning home is no picnic. After 20 years away, he is recognized (of course!) only by his dog. And he has to go on a killing rampage to win his wife back from a bunch of bad guys. Maybe he would have been better off wandering the Mediterranean Sea indefinitely.

But probably not. Because despite the flaws and the seemingly endless struggles, home is home. We recognize the flaws, correct them when we can, and when we can't, we enjoy the comfort there. When we can.

Closing, appropriately, with the words of the Mexican poet Rosario Castellanos, from her poem Amor:

Basta. No quiere más la oreja, que su cuenco
rebalsaría y la mano ya no alcanza
a tocar más allá.

English translation:

Enough. The ear does not want more, for its hollow
may overflow and the hand can no longer reach
very far to touch.

I wrote over 1,000 words here, and Rosario Castellanos sums it up in 20. Ah well, such is the power of poetry.

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Looking for more Mexico Listo (and really, who isn't)? Here's an article I recently wrote for The Tulum Times. Please check it out, if you're so inclined.