The Ottawa Is a Dark Stream

 

A recent writing exercise asked to try to remember the first words that struck you as beautiful, that pulled you in to the world of words.

What first occurred to me was this:

Do not forsake me, Oh my darling

On this our wedding day.

I cannot have been older than seven when I first heard it, on the TV; the theme to “High Noon.” I heard it once, and it stuck with me so powerfully that in adulthood I was able to connect it with the movie. Probably the movie had something to do with its power for me.

But what a sad two lines.

Another quotation from TV, from about the same time, that I have not been able to trace. It was from some movie. I do not remember the exact wording.

That is not distant thunder you hear

Those are the big guns. They are coming closer.

Again, dark, and mysterious.

Another bit of lyric verse, often sung by my grandmother, always caught my fancy:

East side, West side, all around the town

Ring around the rosy, London Bridge is falling down

Boys and girls together, me and Mamie O'Rourke

We tripped the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York.

It was the last two lines that connected. “The light fantastic” suggested a portal to a world where things were as they were meant to be; although I knew this was not literally meant. It was the world of art—of dancing, music, and poetry.

Some years later, lines brought home by my older brother:

The Ottawa is a dark stream;

The Ottawa is deep.

Great Hills along the Ottawa

Are wrapped in endless sleep.

The poem spoke of a chance encounter with a beautiful little girl, who simply curtseyed and said “M’sieu.” But she too represented the mystery of art, of beauty. Somehow, this lead-in struck me more than the climax. It was the sense of mystery, of moving to a different dimension of experience.

Compare the tripe I got in school at about the same age as these words were entrancing me:

"Oh, oh!” laughed Dick. 

"Here are Sally and Puff. 

See funny white Puff.” 

Sally laughed, too. 

She said, "Puff is pretty. 

Puff is not yellow. 

Puff is white. 

I can make Puff look pretty. 

Pretty, white Puff.”

School texts are deliberately made boring, as though the intent was to prevent education.

Traditional fairy tales—the ones not adulterated by Disney--are full of dark corners and dangers, and lots of gore.  These are the real education.

It would be so easy to make school better.