“Sufficient is so huge a sweetness, I suppose it by no means happens, solely pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson lamented in a love letter. In his splendid short poem about the secret of happiness, Kurt Vonnegut uncovered the taproot of our fashionable struggling because the gnawing sense that what now we have shouldn’t be sufficient, that what we’re shouldn’t be sufficient.
That is our fashionable curse: A century of conspicuous consumption has skilled us to be dutiful residents of the Republic of Not Sufficient, swearing allegiance to the marketable fantasy of shortage, hoarding bathroom paper for the apocalypse. Alongside the way in which, now we have unlearned easy methods to dwell wide-eyed with surprise at what Hermann Hesse known as “the little joys” — these unpurchasable, unstorable emblems of aliveness that abound the second we glance up from our ledger of lack.
The poet and etymologist John Ciardi (June 24, 1916–March 30, 1986) gives an uncommonly great wakeup name for this civilizational trance within the out-of-print 1963 gem John J. Plenty and Fiddler Dan (public library) — half fable, half poem, half prayer for happiness.
Written as an extended lyric and illustrated with light charcoal sketches by the artist and experimental filmmaker Madeliene Gekiere, the story is a soulful — non secular, even — fashionable tackle Aesop’s famed story of the grasshopper and the ant, radiating a countercultural invitation to rediscover life’s true priorities amid our confused maelstrom of materialism and compulsive productiveness.
Ten years in the past, or possibly twenty,
There lived an ant named John J. A lot.
And each day, come rain, come shine,
John J. would take his place in line
With all the opposite ants. All day
He hunted seeds to haul away,
Or beetle eggs, or bits of bread.These he would keep on his head
Again to his home. And John J., he
Was blissful as an ant may be
When he was carrying a load
Massive as a barn alongside the street.The work was arduous, however all John J. —
Or some other ant — would say
Was “Extra! Get extra! No time to play!
Winter is coming.”
So it’s that, because the birds of summer season sing, John J. A lot goes on hoarding “beetle eggs, and crumbs, and seeds, moth-hams, flower-fuzz, salad-weeds, grub-sausages, the choicer cuts of smoked bees, aphid butter, nuts,” single of goal, all the time marching to the mantra of “Extra! Get extra!,” insentient to Annie Dillard’s haunting admonition that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
Then comes the flip — that very important and vitalizing aspect of each good poem and each good story: Someday, John J.’s sister falls in love with a grasshopper named Dan, who spends his days taking part in his carefree fiddle within the grass, filling the world with music. Anxious about what would occur to his sister when winter comes and she or he has no cache of sustenance, John J. tries to cease her. However she elopes with Fiddler Dan, feeding on love and music.
All day lengthy from rose to rose
Dan performed the music the summer season is aware of,
Of the solar and rain by the tall corn rows,
And of time because it comes, and of affection because it grows.And all of the summer season stirred to listen to
The voice of the music. Far and close to
The grasses swayed, and the solar and shade
Danced to the love the music performed.And Dan performed on for the world to show,
Whereas his little spouse lay on a fringe of fern,
And heard the center of summer season ringing,
Unhappy and candy to the fiddle’s singing.
In consonance with John Berger’s statement that music is our best means of taking shelter in time, Ciardi writes:
So the solar got here up and the solar went down.
So summer season modified from inexperienced to brown.
So autumn modified from brown to gold.
And the music sang, “The world grows outdated,
However by no means my tune. The tune stays new,
My unhappy candy love, because the considered you.”And summer season and autumn dreamed and located
The title of the world in that unhappy candy sound
Of the music telling how time grows outdated.
Fields held their breath to listen to it instructed.
The bushes bent down from the hills to listen to.
A flower uncurled to shed a tear
For the sound of the music. And area and hill
Woke from the music, unhappy and nonetheless.
John J. A lot hears “the music far and close to,” however goes on trudging alongside to the trance of “Get extra!” His sister and Fiddler Dan, he vows, will get nothing from him when winter comes — that may educate them, he grumbles.
After which winter does come, and John J. A lot shuts his door, and he gloats when he hears the music go silent, and he gloats as he begins relishing his infinite stash of delicacies.
However as he heaps poached beetle-eggs and moth-ham onto his plate, he’s all of the sudden seized with a horrible thought: What if winter goes on without end and he finally ends up not having sufficient?
So John J. A lot waited and fasted.
As for the winter, it lasted and lasted.
He nibbled a crumb sooner or later in ten.
However he shook with terror even then
When the considered how he could be losing
All that meals he was hardly tasting.
And that’s the way it went.
When spring arrives ultimately, John J. A lot vows to retailer twice as a lot this yr. However as he begins out the door to search out his first load, he’s stilled in his tracks by the sound of music.
From far and close to, from blade to blade,
He heard the tune that springtime performed.
It’s a softer fiddle than autumn is aware of
When the fiddler goes down tall corn rows,
However the identical far tune. It grows and grows,
And spring and summer season stir to listen to
The music sounding far and close to.
And the grasses sway, and the solar and shade
Dance once they hear the music performed.It was Dan, nonetheless singing for time to show
Whereas his little spouse lay on a fringe of fern
And heard the center of the springtime ringing
Candy and new because the fiddle’s singing.
Stung with disbelief that Fiddler Dan survived the winter with nothing however his retailer of magnificence, John J. A lot topples over and falls facedown within the mud because the music goes on taking part in and life goes on residing itself by its pure abundance.
I suppose he recovered. I hope he did.
I don’t know the place the Fiddler hid
Along with his fairly spouse from ice and snow.
I suppose about all I actually know
Is — save slightly or save lots,
You must eat a few of what you’ve received.
And — say what you want as you trudge alongside,
The world received’t flip with out a tune.
