Good morning, classh, it is so wonderful to be back
in the gasroom at Roma Ryan’s High. I have been on a brief vacation, did you
notice that, Master Piece? Of course not, but no matter: in today’s lesion we
shall excoriate the lovely poem entitled “Once You Had Gold.”
Now, we shall once again begin at the beginning, for
as Aristotle Onassis once wisely stated, every tale must have a beginning, a
middle and an end. My, weren't those Geek philosophers profound?
So, let us excruciate the verily beginning of the
opening stanza:
Once you had gold
Once you had silver
Out of the blue
Do you know, studnuts, that my dentist, Dr. Maule,
loves the first line of this poem? He always sings "once you had gold, now
it's amalgam" as he fills teeth. But I sense a digression approaching…back
to beeswax now!
Note how Roma begins this poem with a pregnant word:
“once.” Immediately, at once indeed, an image of myalgia, er, nostalgia, enters
our collective brains. There was a time, long ago: “once upon a time” -- is
Roma giving us a fairy tale then? Maybe, maybe not. Let us ponder onwards:
ONCE, but not now is the complication: ONCE
you had gold, but THEN the stock market collapsed and you had no gold left!
Yes, Miss Ery, I do relate so much to your dismay at the downturn in the
economy. My pension plan is almost obliterated right now, and vacations in hot,
sunny Ireland seem so far, far away.
In any event, once SOMEONE had gold, but who? Who
is the persona to whom dear Roma is speaking? Miss Rhine? No, I do not think it
is Bill Gated, as he possesses soft microbes rather than gold.
Roma
thus propels us forward in search of answers:
Now, does Roma imply parallelism or consecutivism
here? For, you see, classh, if the universe is parallel, then our
unknown persona had BOTH gold and silver at the same time! On the other hand,
if Roma intends consecutivism here, then
our persona (let us call it "Ozma” just to make life wheezier) once had
gold, then fell back to silver due to some unexpected flatulation in the stock
market. This interpretation may in fact be supported by the next line of the
poem:
Aha! Then rains came, washing away BOTH gold and
silver, alas. Our wealth, says Roma, is but a temporal thing, vulnerable, like
Ozma, to the twists and turns of FATE! One day we have X, the next day we have
Y, and the next day we are begging for loonies at the corner of Rusholme and P
Street in Saskatoon, Canada. Yes, Master Card, such a junction does indeed exist,
strange as it may seem. There are things in heaven and earth, but especially in
Canada, that are simply beyond our ken, or even our barbie for that matter.
But:
Then came the rains
OUT OF THE BLUE
My, what an interesting contrapositioning! Rains coming
out of the blue, that is, the sky is blue, so how indeed may it be raining?
That is, in fact, a no brainer -- just live in Halifax (also in Canada) and
you'll get rain, snow, sleet, ice, sun, hurricanes and heat waves within any
given 15 minutes, but I know, I am digressing, weather you like it or not!
Rain coming out of the blue: yes, studnuts, life is
like that: everything is going along tickety-boom, and then, WHAM, it's raining
on your life. Yes, Miss Appropriated, it is not fair, but worse is yet
to come:
Ever and always
Always and ever
Roma here uses the literary device of repetitio ad
nauseam, and so effectively too, since I see Miss Fed turning green. Now, what
is the difference between "ever" and "always"? THAT, my
fledgling poets, is your assignation for tomorrow, which I know you are very
much anticipating: exacerbate, in 50 words or less, the DIFFERENCE between EVER
and ALWAYS.
But meanwhile Roma tells us that:
Time indeed has been known to do such contradictory
and dastardly things! The passage of time, its slow but steady progression into
the future, brings us feeble mortals both darkness and dreams. But, you
have noticed, have you not, that darkness is the SOURCE of dreams? Why, when I
go to sleep it is usually dark outside and then I have my dreams, so: darkness
gives me dreams, especially if I have consumed a pepperoni and vegemite pizza
just before bedtime.
But, classh, on the METAPHYSICAL level, on which our
beloved Roma dwells, we have here a deep philosophical statement: in the course
of our lives (= Time) we shall all experience both Darkness and Dreams. The
good and the bad, the ying and the yang. Such is life from an existentialist,
post-modern, futuristic point of view: as the Geek philosopher Heraklitos
Ryanos once wisely stated, “nothing ever stays the same”: CHANGE is everything
and everywhere. And how I wish I had some spare change right now, but Mother
Superioriosa insists that my pitiful salary is sufficient to my ability to expound
upon the eternal truths of existence.
Now, however and always, let
us transpose ourselves into the next stanza, assuming, of course, that our
explication of Always and Ever will be stable, in a quantum manner of speaking.
Now you can see
Spring becomes autumn
Yes, dear Miss Rhine, Roma IS indeed clear-sighted
here: Ozma, our proposed poetic persona, can SEE! "She once was lost, but
now is found, was blind but now can see.” Isn't that amazing, Grace? What,
Master Works? Oh, Grace graduated already? Good for her! At least someone
graduates from Roma Ryan’s High once in a blue midnight.
Ozma, for so have we appellated her, is seeing
SPRING become AUTUMN! Well, here's an obvious quantum enigma: what on earth has
happened to SUMMER?
But no need to ponderate: it is oblivious that Ozma
must be a Canadian! You see, in the far away land of Canada, there are only
these seasons: Almost Winter, Really Winter, and Not Quite Winter Yet. So one
can easily SPRING right into Autumn without passing through Summer at all. How
convenient for Ozma and Roma.
But there are even more amazing things to pique us
up:
Leaves become gold
Falling from view
Aha! Roma is using “ringo compositio” so infectedly
here: the opening stanza spoke of having gold, now, here, leaves become
gold! So, if leaves are becoming gold here, does that mean that Ozma still has
her stash of gold from the first stanza? Or, do you think that Roma is really
saying that, if you can't have REAL gold, rake up autumn leaves instead?
"The autumn leaves fall by my window, I hate them since I have to
Moe".....But enough of my brilliance – leaves not only become gold, they
are
”falling from view” -- ah, an image of desolate
dissipation! Beautiful leaves of gold fall from view, are lost to us, and we
lament their passing, don't we, Mister Woof? Yes, one by one our leaves fall,
in fall, of course.
Now, studnuts, if a leaf falls in autumn can anyone
hear it? Probably not, given the deafening roar of boom boxes all summer long!
Did you know that 70% of teenagers are losing their ears to mega-decibels? Miss
Heard? Oh, sorry, you didn't hear what I just said, and that is exactly why
Marc Antony wanted the Romans to lend him their ears!
Now we encounter a very Roman-esque repetitio:
Ever and always
Always and ever
Sound familiar? Yes, indeed: now you can see,
through a glass full of Guinness, the importance of your first assignation!
But lettuce carrion:
How very, very true! Yes, we
all have our dreams: why, once I wanted to be a trapeze artist, flying through
the air, light as a feather, caught at the last possible second by Mr Clean, or
by Mr Swartzenegger, but I digress….
Yes, says Roma, NO ONE can promise that our dreams
will come true, sadly. BUT does that mean that we should stop dreaming?
Of course not! Dream on, dream BIG, high five your way through life! That's the
spirits.
But now we must come to the light in the tunnel that
we pray is not an oncoming train of thought: dreams cannot always be
realized because:
Aha! We have encountered our villain once again:
TIME! Time dictates our compliance with dreamlike stages of being. It is time
either for darkness or dreams, but who knows save Only Time? And only when it’s
Universal Time and not Daylight Saving Time, a very annoying disrupter of
dreams.
Darkness and dreams: divine alliteration, isn't it,
classh? You see, Roma is telling us one of the GREAT TRUTHS of existence
(so write this down, Miss Read!): our lives are full of BOTH darkness and
dreams, why, life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you are
going to get! Maybe a nice maraschino cherry, or maybe an almond that will
destroy your amalgam filling and compel you to get GOLD! Expensive though that
may be. Thus, this brilliant stanza reminds us all of the ephemeral nature of
existence itself. Our lives, like the leaves, fall to the ground, our dreams
may be swathed in darkness, as is my pension.
And now we approach the conclusion, where we have
been heading since the start. In her final stanza, Roma starts to complete the
tale of Ozma thusly:
Oh goodness gracious me, a metaphysical question is
posed right away, away, away: what IS the dark? Well, studnuts, the DARK
can be many things: the dark force of Evil overcoming Good (as in “Luke, I am
your father”), the Dark Matter of the Universe (which will cause everything to
implode before any of you manage to graduate), the dark chocolate that I love
so much, the dark night of the soul, the dark sole of my shoe, and so on and
on.
The DARK: well, our beloved Roma will NOT leave us
in the Dark, will she, Miss Placed? No, for in the next verse we read:
Shadows around you
Aha! Ozma is surrounded by shadows! She is in the
dark world of shadows. Perhaps you ask why, Master Chef? Well, may I be so bold
as to suggest that, since Ozma once had gold, but now has, well, dead leaves,
that would depress anyone, even Spam of Green Gables.
And they are wet leaves too -- what a mess on the
lawn. If only she could find Mr. Midas - he of the golden touch -to fix her
muffler. Yes, Miss Rhine, Ozma wears a muffler - it is cold on the neck in
Ireland this time of year, and we don't want the poor dear to catch a cold.
But let us continuum, for Roma has not yet done us
in:
Why not take heart
Yes! Roma provides our sad Ozma with hearty HOPE!
Hope has a place in Ozma's dreary little heart
after all. Take heart, Ozma, (of course, we do not speak literally, for I take
only tums at the moment). Cease thine weeping and wailing! You’re waking Nicky
up again!
Then we stumble upon:
A new day has come, for none other than Celine Dion
has so pronounced. Thus Ozma is told to take heart “in the new day” - how
uplifting! And what a grand new motto that would make for Roma Ryan’s High: “Why
not take heart in the new day” -- I
must speak with Brother Chisellus about having that engraved above the front
door, where Mother Superioriosa is having a smoke right now. Roma Ryan’s High
is now totally smoke free, you know, after that unfortunate and fiery incident
in the chemistry lab last semester.
And now, we meet an old friend yet again:
Ever and always
Always and ever
This refrain comes back to haunt us, to send us back
into the quantum world of ever and always, as so wonderfully explained by
Stephen Hawkings, though I really have no idea what on Earth he is talking
about. Nonetheless, we shall override these lines and boldly march right to the
conclusion of the poem:
How sad, but how true. I certainly won't promise
anyone a dream; I might get sued for breach of promise, and I cannot afford
that on the miserable salary I receive here, despite my many years of
servitude.
But, more to the point, as I was indeed digressing,
does this line, Master Card, remind you of something earlier in the poem?
Excellent, indeed: in the second stanza, the 7th line read: “no one can promise
a dream come true”!
BUT Roma has pulled the old rug out from under our
collective feet yet again: she has changed the final words from "come
true" to "for you." I wonder why she would do this? Any ideas,
Miss Taken? Mister Woof? Sigh, though my hope springs internal.
Let us thus ponderate once again:
No one can promise a dream FOR YOU
(emphasisio mea)
Time gave both darkness and dreams TO YOU
(emphasisio mea)
Now, far be it from me to
editorialize our beloved Roma, but: I really think that rhyming "come
true" with "to you" in the second stanza is a bit more, let us
say, “fluid”, than rhyming “for you” with “to you.” I suspect that, by this
point in the poem, Roma may have been in need of Pepto-Brennan ™. Why, staying
up until dawn breaks her window, beavering away at lyrics with a wooden pencil
– just think of the stress she must endure! And those unruly fans keep blowing
hot air all around her too!
So, let us preclude: we have here a sad, but
ultimately hopeful poem about a persona who once had gold and ended up with
yard compost. Now, any normal persona would be depressed by this and make an
appointment to see Sister Sigmunda, but thoughtful Roma has given Ozma HOPE!
Just like Pandora, but without the box. My goodness, OZMA must be PANDORA
– ah, we consummate our analysist with an original idea for a change.
In any event, the ultimate lesion we can all draw
from this is clear: no matter how dark things are, no matter how deep are the
shadows we wade in, no matter how little chocolate is left in the Box of Life,
we can always take heart in the new day. Time may give us Darkness, yes, but it
also bequeaths unto us DREAMS! Or, at least I hope so.
Now, classh, the rest is up to YOU: those of you who
feel very inspired may now write your own essays (10,000 words) about this
poem. And those of you who are very perspired should go at once to the shower
room.
Ta!