The Spark And The Lantern
[ Home ]“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.”
― Wisława Szymborska
Mother did not like me writing poems.
“We do not need absurdity, or craziness and insanity, Adrian. ” She would say when she tore my precious stanzas into the fireplace, with ruthlessness. And my father-my pastor father who never disobeyed her. Never a word of objection, never refusal to anyone. He pretended I was never there, and he was the moon, always revolving around her.
Absurdity. Poems were never my absurdity. They would always be my spark in my monochrome days chained by noble etiquettes and judging from the teachers. Once I believed they were created to save me, to fix the emptiness of my dull daydreams, to prove my meaning of existence. They had saved me from being the tiresome church people who knocked at the door every morning. I was their faithful believer. They were my god.
Mother did not always chase after me doing things she banned, so I hid my absurd belief in every corner of the house. I wrote about what I heard from the gossips of the servants, and the news on my father’s newspaper. But what I write more was my feelings, my heart that never belonged to this gorgeous house and splendid reputation, my soul singing for solitude and freedom, for what they called it “absurdity”. Poetry, my spark. Under every carpet, every staircase, every drawer in the house. My spark.
Not long after I turned fifteen, the age everyone said was the age of maturity, my aggressive mother faded out of my life. Before I read her last letter to me, I never knew why she interfered with my dream in such a slandering way. I was always like her, so bright and proud, trying every best to fight for her freedom and equality as a woman, which tragically led to her plaintive death.
My father was shocked. I thought even just once he put down all his aristocratic manners, went out to demand an explanation, while he simply continued his life as nothing really happened.
So I escaped. I became what they call insanity, abandoning the wealth and sparkling future to pursue my absurd poetry, which was the only sparkling future I believed. There were endless newspapers criticizing my unsensibleness, or authorities laughing at my childishness. They thought reality, like a lantern, is much more worthy than my ambiguous spark.
I roamed around the streets and forest, creating poems that people rejected. Publishers recognised me as a fleeing psychiatric patient, and one of them even called the police. But I only sinked down in my mind of the ocean, expressing my love, or hate, or any emotions from the deep bottom of my soul. I am with solitude, I am with freedom.
Then it was when I met Vicky, another spark in my life, marking the significance of all my effort pursuing my dream. She kneeled down beside me and some stray cats, giving us some pennies for livelihood. I was cold and poor, stray and lost, enjoying my extreme condition by writing ironic poems, when my first ever compliment came from her shining eyes. We talked so late that night, about literature and history, poetry and philosophy ideas. She really shocked my heart when she exactly expressed my feelings hidden between the words, the only key matched to my heart lock.
She should be my spark. Mine. When I endlessly woke up at midnight thinking of her warm smile, I knew I was trapped. Always trapped inside sparks. Not lanterns.
However, the merciless lantern of reality, has exiled my spark the second time away from me. I could hear my heart smashing into pieces when I heard she engaged a local gentleman who people talked behind him. Since then I never heard from Vicky again, and I did not want to know. She became the sacrifice of the society, the firefly in the lantern, which would eventually burn into dust.
I left the town and took a train to northern England. The icing wind was howling and screaming at my window, scoffing at me for living such an absurd and meaningless life roaming around. I smiled weakly and held my unfinished poem drafts tight. I knew I could not go further, and here will be the place to bury my unrested soul with my beloved dreams.
My last poem was finished. I named it as Spark, the full stop of my long and tiring journey. Not for my parents, not for Vicky, this is the first poem I wrote to myself. You did not do anything wrong. I whispered and hugged my gift, when warm tears rolled down my cheek.
Dizziness overwhelmed me. Before my consciousness totally faded away, I saw my mother in a pale emptiness. She was at the fireplace, smiling, reading my poems in her armchair. My father was also there. And Vicky. They read through every piece of precious memory from my perspective, and then they slowly turned back.
There were sparks in their eyes.