Can the Caged Bird Sing?

The Caged Skylark

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage

Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells—

That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;

This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age. /

Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage,

Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,

Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells

Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage. /

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest—

Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest,

But his own nest, wild nest, no prison. /

Man’s spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best,

But uncumbered: meadow-down is not distressed

For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen. My favorite poet:   Hopkins with his neologisms and sprung rhythm, his eye for beauty and heart for Christ.    This past couple of weeks I have been dealing with anger and its manifestations--particularly, tantrums.   And this poem is perfect for such thoughts. The "dare-gale" skylark--what a beautiful  description of the skylark's flight and an apt metaphor for the human's desire to soar, to experience the thrill.  It's like the look in Ben's eyes when he has a plan for his "animals" or a new game to try or when Knox is about to take off on his bike for an adventure or when D has decided to stand and control where he goes instead of being wheeled around in his chair. Young children are not as "beyond remembering his free" as adults; with maturity comes responsibility and with responsibility come constraints.  That freedom once enjoyed with limited constraints is reversed, becoming a limited freedom like an atrophied muscle flexed only on an occasional Saturday afternoon or holiday. Although Hopkins probably had in mind the late 19th century worker in his poem, it seems also to be the homemaker's lot to combat drudgery, so that our day's labor, the endless chores, does not consume all of our waking moments--but I think what  is common to us all is having spirits who long to soar, but are trapped in these bodies, these "mean houses," that tether us to the mundane.  I especially think of my D-man when I think of this--unable to communicate what he wants and slowed down by his "bone house"--brittle bones, weakened muscles, uncoordinated movements. Yet in this life, we have beautiful singing moments--this week, the Cupid Bash at D's school, Ben's reading books to D, Knox initiating sharing his classroom Valentine spoil with his home-schooled brother, my husband having a great session meeting, my meeting a person from ARC and being able to talk about all that is going on with my D-man. But then there's also the deadly drooping:  writhing and raging against the barriers beyond our control.  The loss of a beautiful and wonderfully spirited five-year-old from an automobile accident, the hospitalization of a friend's child and his struggle to live, a dear one's tests revealing cancer. . .overwhelming moments filled with fear and anger. In our house the past few weeks, tantrums have been frequent.  Bickering among the younger ones turns to rage and physical assaults before I can intervene.  The youngest slighted by a busy adult or an uninterested brother erupts, a Mt. Etna of anger.  Even I had a tantrum--I actually shook as my ability to speak was overcome by tears at Walgreens as once again I had to fight for my son to have the seizure medication that he cannot live without. As a Christian adult, I have the tools I need to calm myself.  Prayer, deep breaths, thinking of other things, 20 minutes on the elliptical, trusting God to supply our needs--these calm me down fairly quickly. (And at Walgreens, a hug from a stranger who said, "You are a good mother, I can tell.") But for my five-year-old, self-control is harder to muster.  I was sent a diagram that helped me figure out how better to help since yelling back or threatening spankings or meting out consequences did not work at all.  (Here is the link for any who are dealing with young children whose passions are out of control.)  I simply held Ben, took deep breaths with him, and reassured him that I wanted to listen.  He could talk and I would hear, really hear, his side of the story or whatever it was he wanted to say.  And that diffused the rage, soothed the caged skylark within. His need to be heard reminds me of a poem I read in a delightful collection:  Poetry After Lunch:  Poems to Read Aloud entitled "For You, Who Didn't Know" by Nancy Willard.  It's an interesting interplay between a woman arriving at the hospital because of a possible miscarriage and her internal dialogue with a rabbi.  As the woman is filling out the paperwork in the ER, she asks: O rabbi, what can we learn from the telegraph?  asked the Hasidim, who did not understand. The rabbi answered, That every word is counted and charged. And then after the woman hears the baby's heartbeat and exults in the "heart dancing its name", Willard concludes the poem with this question: O rabbi, what can we learn from the telephone? My shiksa daughter, your faith, your faith That what we say here is heard there. God hears us.  He promises this in his Word.  If we are His children and cry out to Him, we are embraced by the love of his listening.  We all long to be heard, need to be acknowledged, desire to be known.  The best gift I can give my children is to listen, to really listen.  The best gift I can give those I meet is the same.  The next time I ask "How are you?" I can actually stop walking, look the person in the eye and wait for an answer.  So often in the South, we nod in passing as we say,  "How'e you?"  nodding the person's existence, but not acknowledging his actual presence. And here is the ending of Hopkins' poem:  just as the meadow is not bothered by the rainbow kissing its dew, we, though "flesh-bound", can live unencumbered even amid life's emergencies and its daily demands because our spirit is free; though once in bondage to sin, now we are free to fly, to dare the gale, to be heard and loved in Christ.