Saturday, February 12, 2011

Out of the Dust


Author: Karen Hesse


I heard the wind rise,
and stumbled from my bed,
down the stairs,
out the from door,
into the yard.
The night sky kept flashing,
Lightning danced down on its spindly legs.
I sensed it before I knew it was coming.
I heard it,
smelled it,
tasted it.
Dust.
(Fields of Flashing Lights)


It was actually taken from a chapter of Out of the Dust, a story written in free-verse poems. Set on the dust bowl of Oklahoma, the verses tells a story about Billy Jo, a little girl trying to survive from the dusty seasons.


Life in the dust bowl was hard. People of the dust bowl know that they could not hold on to their homeland. The nature they lived in was their biggest enemy.  Storms of dust were always come sweeping everything; planted seeds, soils, wheat, along with everyone’s hopes and dreams. Even the rain was not a friend. As Billy Jo said:


And as the dust left,
rain came.
Rain that was no blessing.
It came too hard,
too fast,
and washed the soil away,
washed the wheat away with it.


Billy Jo lived in the Oklahoma dust bowl with her parents, Ma and Daddy. Her Daddy was one of those men who hold on tightly to their homeland no matter what the dust storm brought them. He believed in wheat. Wheat was all he wanted to plant. When the dust storm came, he would run into it, trying to haul it away from his hard works. Most of the time he failed, and there was nothing that he can do except to plant another seeds on the next day.


Ma was a woman that according to Billy Jo never meant for farm life. Yet she was there doing farm chores, a woman that could not stand a mess in her house, and a good pianist.
From time to time Billy Jo thought that her Ma must have had a bigger dream long ago.


Living with the two parents, a Daddy that was struggling to keep up his hope and refused to give in to the nature, and a Ma that kept a very strong regret deep inside her, Billy Jo found her comfort in piano, just like her Ma.
After Ma died, Billy Jo was completely alone. There was a big gap between her and her Daddy. They rarely spoke to each other until one day Billy Jo decided it was time hor her to leave the house and find another place to live.


My father’s digging his own grave,
he calls it a pond,
But I know what he’s up to
He is rotting away.
like his father,
Ready to leave me behind in the dust
Well, I’m leaving first


This is one of those books that I know I would never be able to finish. Just like McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes.
It’s a story of misery presented in a tone that somehow far from trying to make the reader feel the sadness. The tone itself was an unspoken sentence. Sometimes you would think you sense a strong denial there. A denial that is so bitter, that only add more misery in it.


While Angela’s Ashes’ was praised for its playful tone in telling McCourt’s miserable childhood, Out of the Dustnarrates Billy Jo’s miserable life in a very flat tone. And since it’s a poem, I think it has the convenience to use the space and punctuation mark as a sentence. Even the empty space between the two lines tells a lot.


Piano, my silent
Mother,
I can touch you,
You are cool
And smooth
And willing
To stay with me
Stay with me
Talk to me


Suggestion: If you’re in bad mood or you think you need some light reading to refresh your mood, do not read this book. It’s every word is contagious, spreading sadness that will silently crawling in to your mind. Like i said before, even the empty spaces do say a lot.But should you feel like you need some journey with beautiful words, beautifully pictured sad story about family and how love and spirit helps people survive everything, this book will be a good reading




Bintaro, March0108, 9.58 pm

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