what if?

In Wendel Berry’s Leavings (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2010), his poem “IV” appears in the section called “2008.”  It sparked a series of associated thoughts.  First, his poem.

A man is walking in a field

and everywhere at his feet

in the shortgrass of April

the small purple violets

are in bloom.  As the man walks

the ground drops away,

the sunlight of day becomes

a sort of darkness in which

the lights of the flowers rise

up around him like

fireflies or stars in a sort

of sky through which he walks.

This poem reminds me of  Cree stories from the northern parts of the Americas.  I first learned about these stories from Howard Norman’s collection, Wishing Bone Cycle: Narrative Poems of the Swampy Cree.  Like those wishing bone poems, Berry’s piece turns an observation on its head by making the purple violets into sparkling stars.  By grabbing the flower and planting its negative, he lets us walk with the man in the sky.  He lifts us to new terrain full of previously unimagined possibilities.  Besides being fun, these transformations exercise the imagination–of creator and audience alike.

In days of personal or public depression, when individuals or groups can feel overwhelmed, the value of imagination grows.  What if?  Let’s just imagine. Although it sounds simple, some people lack the imaginative muscle.  For one reason or another, it has atrophied, which makes it hard for them to imagine circumstances as other than they are.  By itself, imagination does not solve all problems.  Can it help touch on a possibility?  No doubt.  Can it turn an earth-bound flower into a star of light?  Sometimes.

Helping students imagine the created world of a poem or a fictional character exercises this important muscle.  In a world that people say is changing at an ever-increasing rate, the ones with strong imagination can be more prepared for change, and more able to help the rest of us navigate it with compassion.