How to Approach a New Idea, and: Untranslatable, and: Butterfly in the Lecture Hall

Abstract

How to Approach a New Idea, and: Untranslatable, and: Butterfly in the Lecture Hall Lynne Sharon Schwartz (bio) How to Approach a New Idea By stealth,on tiptoeholding your breathnot to scareor waken too abruptlyrousing fearof being roughlymauled or scarred,crudely taken,and ensnared. Use discretionwhen it quivers,soothe its tremblingwith assuranceof respect and every dueconsiderationfor its subtletyand guardedpossibilities,its secret convolutions its future evolutions.Once you cup itin your palmkeep it warm,never rushinglightly touching.If you prod or hastenit will crouch and curl.Let it unfurl in its time,exposing each striation. [End Page 98] If it trusts youit will yieldintimate initiation-what unparalleled elation. Untranslatable Little Greek fish with no name,you came in a mound on a platter,fried, succulent, praised by the waiterin that cafe on the beach, Aegean waterlapping under the moon. We triedall the names we knew of small fish-sardines, anchovies, smelts, herring, minnows-but he kept shaking his head-no English name.In Greek? He shrugged: we call them little fish. Little fish, size of minnows but not minnows,fish as fine as you deserve a name.When I want to revive that summer night,the soft air on our skin, the skimming surf,the stars, the shiny fishwe ate with our fingers, a savory, garlicky fishyflavor, I want a word. Without a wordmemory's a cloud I can't slidemy hand around.Little fish, how did you glideso nimbly past the translators? [End Page 99] Butterfly in the Lecture Hall for Sinan Antoon The lecturer was grave,speaking of exile, poets uprooted,refusing to brood in silence, bravely singingof freedom, when the butterfly appearedflitting above his head, swooping, distracting the audience by its sweepingdesigns, the swirls etched on airas the speaker, rapt, pursuedthe trail of injustice, forced flight, unawareof this other, extravagant flight, that seemed a ployto mock his somber theme, a frivolousairborne blossom teasing his power pointswith "lighten up." But when it lingered pastthe instant of surprise, I knew the butterfly was sent to illustratethe dartings of the speaker's thought,the flighty pattern of a fertile mind,the freedom of its arabesques, the forceof thought assuming visible wings:a butterfly. [End Page 100] Lynne Sharon Schwartz Lynne Sharon Schwartz's latest book is the memoir Not Now, Voyager. She is the author of twenty-one books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translations from Italian, including the novels The Writing on the Wall, Disturbances in the Field, and Leaving Brooklyn (nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award). Her first collection of poetry was In Solitary, published by Sheep Meadow. She teaches at the Bennington Writing Seminars. Copyright © 2010 University of Nebraska Press