Like a Cathedral

"My experience, my passions, my ideas, my images and memories are all I know of this world-
And they are enough. The absurd person can finally say "All is well."

"The purest of joys is feeling and feeling on this earth."

Albert Camus
"The Myth of Sisyphus"

I'm currently going through a cyclical purgation, using the old Catholic term. Gregory Corso said  "Once a Catholic always a Catholic." And he was right. But while I'm tossing my spiritual demons aside, I'm also dealing with more mundane things like cleaning my office loft, which manages to collect tons of detritus from my life-long passions. Latest find, a short poem written by one of my English 101 students at UL in 1996.
I have no idea where the author, Laura Reisser is today but if anyone reading this piece knows her please inform me. I'd like to know how her life turned out 17 year later. I nearly cried reading her beautiful piece this morning. Dig it:

A Trip to New City

My first poem ever, that's what this is.
Well, unless you count the made up versions of  "Roses are Red" or the diamond shaped
poems I used to do when I was a kid.
But now life is not so  rosy.
I just have a few questions.
Why do we work to make money that we won't have in a few weeks and why do we
sleep when we'll only be tired again tomorrow and why do we clean our house when
it's going to get dirty again.
Something keeps us going.
Something gives us the strength to witness things like rape, serial killings, animals
dying in oil spills, car accidents, fires, shootings, bombings, earthquakes, plane crashes.
I almost can't watch the news anymore or even scary movies because they're not so
far from the truth.

And then one time I went to New York city and it made me feel even worse because
just this one city has more people than the entire country of Sweden and it made me
feel so small and insignificant.
My cat is chewing on my pen right now and all I can think about is how lucky she is
because she doesn't even know what kind of world she lives in or maybe even that
she is going to die someday.
She's not afraid.
And in New York city there was never a sign that I was there.
I met lots of taxi drivers but they don't remember me now, and I guess I left some
garbage in my hotel room but I'm sure it's cleaned up by now.
A least in a smaller place you can leave parts of yourself around places.
I get my haircut in Plainview and the ladies there know who  I am and what I look like
and my neighbors recognize my car when I pull in at night and at work I have a desk
with my name on it and at school teachers notice when I'm not there.
But New York city was different.
People were everywhere.
Rushing,
Talking,
Shopping,
Fighting,
Eating,
Cleaning,
Rollerblading,
Walking their dogs in Central Park.
And they all have their own story and they all eat and clean and work for the same
reason I do.
And if I were to die today none of these people would notice or even care.
They'll go on doing what they've always done until they die.
So, I guess we are all insignificant.
So what keeps us going?
I guess for some people trying to get to Heaven keeps them going.
But what about people for whom Heaven doesn't exist?
What do they live for?

You know, I guess that's why I like to go to Spain.
I mean, families talk to each other and little kids play in the Plaza Mayor and eat ice
cream and people relax with friends and are true to themselves.
And besides in the United States, what do we that's really that old?
In Spain there are towers and medieval walls and castles and Roman theaters and
cathedrals so beautiful and powerful that when you walk in you can feel centuries and
centuries of souls and spirituality.
Maybe that's why I like to go there.
Because people left things and did things and felt things.
So, it's hard sometimes.
I wish I were a kid again so death wouldn't exist and mommy would fix everything.
And the worst that could happen is that I'd be sent to my room where I'd sit on the
bed by the door and stick my foot out and say, "Look mommy I'm out of my room."
And now that I'm grown up and will someday be a mommy it makes me wonder why
I'd want to bring a life into this world that is so painful and may not even be here in
50 years because someone want to see what happens when you set off a nuclear
bomb.

But I guess I will definitely have a child because it's an emotion that I don't want to
miss before I die.
So women are lucky because we get to feel something that men never get to.
A new life comes out of your body and you know you're leaving something behind.
Something beautiful and powerful.
Something kinda like a cathedral in Spain.

Laura Reisser
3/21/96