Nonno’s Poem in “The Night of the Iguana”

Nonno’s Poem

By Tennessee Williams 

 

How calmly does the orange branch

Observe the sky begin to blanch

Without a cry, without a prayer,

With no betrayal of despair,

 

Sometime while night obscures the tree

The zenith of its life will be

Gone past forever, and from thence

A second history will commence.

 

A chronicle no longer gold,

A bargaining with mist and mould,

And finally the broken stem

The plummeting to earth; and then

 

An intercourse not well designed

For beings of a golden kind

Whose native green must arch above

The earth’s obscene, corrupting love.

 

And still the ripe fruit and the branch

Observe the sky begin to blanch

Without a cry, without a prayer,

With no betrayal of despair.

 

O Courage, could you not as well

Select a second place to dwell,

Not only in that golden tree

But in the frightened heart of me?

 

Nearly 30 years ago while I was still in high school, I was attending a summer honors program at the University of Alabama. (It was a momentous summer in many ways, but those are stories for another time.) We took three college classes along with other summer students at Alabama, and every week, we had to attend several honors seminars. One of those seminars was about Tennessee Williams. 

 

The next week, we were taken by bus down to Montgomery to see Williams’s play “The Night of the Iguana” at the Alabama Shakespeare FestivaL. I’ve seen many plays and musicals at ASF, and while not all of the plays were great (I always found the plays that were part of their Southern Writers Series to be godawful), they were all very well produced. I was awed by “The Night of the Iguana” because they made it rain onstage. This might not sound that impressive to everyone, but I always thought it was one of the coolest things.

 

If you are not familiar with “The Night of the Iguana,” the play portrays the story of Reverend Shannon, a defrocked Episcopal clergyman gone astray, torn between his passions and his devotion, who leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a religious-themed tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with past demons in re-evaluating his life.

 

Throughout the play, in a secondary story about a woman, Hannah, and her aging poet-grandfather, the grandfather attempts to finish a poem he feels will be his masterpiece. The poem comes at the end of the play when the grandfather recites his “last” poem while Hannah transcribes it for him. The grandfather dies a few moments later.

 

The poem represents Tennessee Williams’s poetic view of human nature and the human story. Williams wrote many flawed or tragic characters who might survive, adapt, or make significant change if they only had the courage and confidence that goes with that important quality. Tennessee Williams is not to everyone’s taste, but I have always greatly admired his writing. Of Mississippi literary figures, I consider Williams to be the greatest by far.

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Slept Late

I slept later than usual this morning. I’d not been feeling great last night and went to bed early. Isabella tried to wake me a few times, but I just didn’t get up until my alarm went off. Anyway, have a great day.

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The Way

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

—John 14:1-6

 “‘Yo soy el camino, la verdad y la vida,’ Juan, catorce seis.” When I took Spanish in high school, we had to memorize a Bible verse in Spanish every week. The first one we learned, and the only one I can still remember, is John 14:6. This verse has always stuck with me, not just because it was the first one I leaned in Spanish class, but also because of the message. Sometimes, in life, it’s no doubt that we get lost. We are not going towards the right path anymore. We even tend to give up in finding the right place. However, Jesus tells us that we shouldn’t let our hearts be troubled and just believe in Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life. We might not know where we are going but we must keep in mind that there’s Jesus who’s willing to guide us at any time of the day. We should have faith in Him, and we’ve got nothing to worry. He will bring us in the right place. With Him, everything is possible.

John 14:1-6 is meant to give us comfort and hope. This passage is part of a larger story of the Last Supper, and his disciples are greatly distressed that their Savior is going to leave them. They believe they will be lost without him. Jesus responds to the anxiety of his disciples by saying, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me” (14:1). Jesus calls them back to this fundamental relationship of trust and assures them that he is not abandoning them. Rather, he is returning to his Father, which is good news for them. In speaking of his ascension to the Father, Jesus assures his disciples that this is also their destination. There are many dwellings in his Father’s house, and he goes to prepare a place for them, so that they will be with him and dwell with him in his intimate relationship with the Father (14:2-3).

When Jesus says that they know the way to the place where he is going (14:4), Thomas, like most characters in the Gospel, takes Jesus quite literally. He wants directions, a road map to this place (14:5). Jesus responds by saying that he himself is the way: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (14:6).

When we get lost in life, which can be very hectic, stressful, and even disorienting, if we believe in Jesus, follow His teachings, we will never be lost. When we’re lost, Jesus can and will show us the way. He tells us to “believe in God, believe also in Me.” There are times we all feel lost and in despair, know that Jesus is the way through our troubles.

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Moment of Zen: The Great Outdoors

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Creatures of Habit

Cats are often a creature of habit. some have their routines, and they stick to those routines very closely. Back when I was teaching in Alabama, my previous cat, Victoria, and I had our afternoon routines. She used to sit in an upstairs window watching and waiting for me to come home, then when I opened the door, she’d be sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for me.

This was her perfect vantage point for seeing through the window above the front door, and there she would wait. Occasionally, she’d come down the stairs to greet me, but more often than not, she would sit there and wait for me to come upstairs. I would be so exhausted from teaching, and she wanted me to come upstairs and take a nap with her. I’d go upstairs and to lie on the bed and take a nap; she’d come lie down beside me so that the bottom half of her body was by my side and the upper half would be lying across my chest. Them, we’d take a nap. She would get quite upset if I did not take my nap with her in the afternoon. Although, she had one unbreakable rule, I had to keep a shirt on. She hated laying on naked skin. Go figure.

Isabella has her habits too. She wants me to get up around 4 am to feed her, which I admit often annoys me. However, she realizes when I really need a little extra sleep, and in those days, she can be a bit more patient. But that’s not her only habit. She too will greet me at the door when I come home. She’ll also demand where I should be at what time of the evening. If I go into my bedroom before 9:30 pm, she comes and taps my arm to try to get me to go back into the living room. However, if I stay in the living room past 10 pm, she does the same thing, but wants me to go into the bedroom and go to bed.

We also have another routine each morning. I always thought it was really just for me, but I realize yesterday morning, that it’s become part of her routine. Each day as I’m leaving for work, she’ll be lying on her pile of blankets, and I’ll walk up to her, scratch her on the head and say, “Bye bye, Isabella. I have to go to work. Be a good girl today.” Yes, I know it’s silly, but it’s what I do. And each day as I say it, she looks up at me and meows like she’s telling me to have a good day. More likely it’s to say, you better come home on time. Yesterday morning, she was not on her blanket, and I wasn’t quite sure where she was, though I’d seen her only a few minutes before. So, I said to the room, “Bye bye, Isabella. Be a good girl.” I was not expecting a response, but she came running up to me and meowed. Where she came from, I don’t know, but I reached down and scratched her head. A few minutes later (I have a blink camera so I can check in on her while I’m not at home), she crawled up onto her blankets and went to sleep.  I thought it was kind of sweet that she was afraid she’d miss me telling her goodbye yesterday morning. 

Anyway, here’s your Isabella pic of the week:

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Feeling Better

I woke up this morning feeling better. Thank goodness because I have things I have to do at work today. It doesn’t mean my headache is gone, I’m feeling the effects of a postdrome or migraine “hangover,” which is an apt description of how I feel once the worst of my migraines ease. I'm usually achy, mentally foggy, and physically drained. I wish I could just go to bed and be able to fully recover from my migraine, but, as I said, it’s not possible with what I have to do at work today. Most of what I have to do is this morning, so if I still don’t feel well, I could possibly take the afternoon off. We’ll see.

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Another Migraine

With temperatures plunging from 63 degrees yesterday to 26 degrees today as a storm front moves through, it was no surprise for me that I developed a migraine last night and that said migraine is still with me this morning. I had really bad photophobia last night, and it’s not much better this morning, so thankfully, it is raining so the sun won’t be out and it should be a full gray day. It’s strange: the rain caused my migraine, but I’m thankful for the rain because it will keep it from being a bright, sunshiny day. It’s definitely a catch-22.

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