Cracked Blue Pitchers Productions presents:

~ 18 min. video: My story and a reading of 'The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock,' by T. S. Eliot.

Text:

Cracked Blue Pitcher Productions presents “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ by T.S. Eliot:

Read by Bert Haverkate-Ens

I do not wish to make a presumptuous pronouncement, but I’m not sure that can be avoided if I open my mouth. Better for you, perhaps, to see if you can find truth and beauty within yourself, or, perhaps out underneath the stars above at night. When I step outside in the wee hours of the morning, often there is no genuine silence. The world seems to hum. It sounds a lot like my refrigerator. I have thought about trying to find the source of what, to me, seems like dull noise. In the absence of many of the noises of the day – often I still hear a siren moving through the night – this humming intrudes into the sense of clarity that I seek. I suppose if I could find the source of the noise - I would just follow my ears. After all, few people would be willing to get up out of their beds to try and stop me. I would just pull the plug. But something almost surely would go bad.

So I don’t.

I am just imagining that I am telling a story here and reading a poem that reveals truth and beauty to me. YouTube has kindly agreed to store this recording on their servers and make it available to anyone who wants to listen for a click. It seems reasonable. How they make a buck out of it is their business. Time – and not money – is the value at stake hear. But never mind.

Late last summer, I walked into the Social Service League. I was on my way to the river, a walk I take nearly every day. The thrift store was in temporary quarters across the street from the Douglas County Courthouse. I’m not saying that I discovered a miracle in that cluttered and cold, dimly lit, nearly abandoned warehouse space. It’s too soon to tell. But I might have found part of the great mystery of the universe.

On the shelves at the Social Service League, among all of the twiddle and the other odd stuff, was a blue pitcher. The color and the very pleasing round shape appealed to me. I held it in my hands. The ceramic was smooth and cool to my palms. There was a chip or two and some apparently negligible cracking but I wanted the pitcher. It was in a thrift store, anyway.

I then browsed the poetry section of the used books. On the top shelf, I saw a pale green copy of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland and other poems.’ I had that very book at home, the black and white slightly enigmatic photo of Eliot, his chin resting on his hands folded over a cane on the cover. I suppose, it might have been an umbrella. The photo was cut off below his tweedy elbows. Maybe the book could be a gift.

At the counter, they asked for and I paid two dollars. I didn’t get a receipt so I don’t know how much for the cracked blue pitcher and how much for poems I already had on my bookshelves.

I carried the pitcher and the book with me as I walked. I had slipped my digital camera into my pocket before leaving the house and I posed the objects among the petunias in the planter boxes along Mass St, and in other places.

If time is the preeminent value we are talking about here, I had gotten my money’s worth before I even got back home. I cleaned up the pitcher a little and filled it with water. When I came back some time later, the pitcher was empty and the counter was all wet. To me, it was clear why someone had donated the pitcher to the Social Service League. It didn’t hold water. Still, it was a beautiful object. I was happy to have it. I place it around in several different places in my yard. Finally I put it into my little garden pond after the ice from the winter had melted. It seemed suited to its element.

Occasionally, the wind would rock it enough so that water spilled into its mouth and it would fill and sink to the bottom. Easy enough to reach.

Eliot, on the other hand, was confusing me some. I carried the thin little paperback with me now and then. I could hardly make any sense of the Wasteland, though some individual lines would make me laugh. But ‘The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ continues increasingly to bring satisfaction to my soul. I don’t particularly mean anything much by that word, ‘soul,’ I just don’t have a better one handy. I don’t think I’m especially religious anymore, but since things mean something to me – even if only apparently – I suppose I might have some sense of the sacred in me somewhere. I had a philosophy professor once tell me that it was difficult to tell the difference between the voice of God and indigestion. I know I cannot.

But Prufrock gets to me. ‘Let us go then, you and I/ when the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table;/ Let us go …’ Well, Eliot goes on for several pages. I think that he is talking about time. He uses the word ‘time’ directly any number of times.

I first read this poem years ago. Before I got married, even, and that was half a lifetime ago. Thirty years this year, if you’re counting. One night -I don’t know how all of this happened - I read the entire poem out loud on the telephone to a friend of mine who is completely blind. I could hear her breathing in my ear. It turns out, I have never read that poem better than when she was listening. Of course, I have read it silently and out loud for myself and also for a few others, both in fragments or whole some times since. And now I would like to share Mr. Eliot’s poem with you. If it doesn’t mean anything to you, if you don’t enjoy the sounds of the words and my voice, am sorry. Or maybe it was my story that soured you. Time is what can never be recovered

But if, and I trust you, if there is any stirring in your soul as you listen to me read, go to the Social Service League – or find a street performer - and give them something for their time and stuff. You don’t have to tell them that Prufrock sent you. But gratitude should be paid. The universe is a vast and random place – but not without some personality. You and I are part of the universe, after all. And I, of course, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I think that I enjoy reading Prufrock more if someone – even if I am only imagining you – is listening. Some mystery is involved.

So now, Cracked Blue Pitcher Productions presents “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ by T.S. Eliot:

"Let us go then, you and I, …

**

~ 8 min audio: My reading of 'Prufrock' with sampled soundtrack from 'Still breathing.'

~ 8 min audio: My plain reading of 'Prufrock.'

Here is also a link to the text of the poem itself which includes another reading http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/173476

or you can listen to a YouTube of Eliot reading his own poem 

https://youtu.be/JAO3QTU4PzY


The words are the same, but the sound is different. You may or may not hear anything differently. If you do, it might have to do more with who you are at the particular moment.

Some things simply take time and attention.