“I’ve measured out my life in coffee spoons.”

A commentary regarding [ one of ] my favorite poem[s] of all time.

As I sat in the quiet 11th floor corridor of The James Comprehensive Cancer Center at Ohio State, the hospital in which I volunteer, I pulled out my journal to leaf through old entries. I staff a desk at the entrance to the MICU for both the University Hospital and The James, so volunteer services allows us to work on homework or read during times when no guests are in the Visitor Lounge. I came across a two-page spread in my coffee-stained, hairline-cracked (vegan) moleskin journal that my good friend Millie bestowed to me a few years back. The entry was something I barely do anymore — a transcription — that I used to write every so often as to take up more pages in the journal. As I carefully leafed through the recycled parchment paper pages, whose crisp sound split through the painstaking silence like a the crack of a whip, I began to really mull this transcribed poem over in my mind. The work is T.S. Eliot’s The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Note: I felt inclined to simply include the rather lengthy poem in this post in lieu of hyperlinking some weird website for you to go to; so here it is:

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all —
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all —
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all” —
If one, settling a pillow by her head Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor —
And this, and so much more? —
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous —
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old…I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Now, some of you may be thinking ‘how the hell is this poem your favorite?’ The answer is sort of complex. Chiefly, the work conjures up quite pleasant memories from my high school English courses, taught by a favorite educator and mentor of mine, Elaine Miller. I have not always relished in language arts and the appreciation or study of literature, believe it or not. But Mrs. Miller truly knew how to inspire us at that (young) age and engage the class to think more analytically every single day. Moreover, whenever we read and discussed Eliot’s piece during class one day in 2013, I was a

different person going through starkly dissimilar issues (e.g. relationship stuff, college application stress, what being an adult was like; I’ll just kinda leave this all right here lol). The words seemed to be more salient, more pertinent, to a young person struggling with what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and coming to terms with if I even had to decide which road to take (oftentimes it felt as though I didn’t have a map) so early in life’s journey or not. Most days, back then and sporadically nowadays, I felt as though I indeed was trudging through life, measuring everything in mere coffee spoons. I’ve since become an absolute coffee-crazed fiend, and thanks to Columbus, my obsession of independent, artsy coffeehouses has only accentuated. Digression aside, Eliot’s words were — and still are — indubitably identifiable.

I like to think of myself as a human who genuinely cares about the state of others. I did, in fact, score a strength of ‘Restorative’ on my StrengthsFinder assessment from Gallup last week (s/o to STEP @ OSU), which (I guess) means that I like to help folks with their problems. Consequently, whenever I read or recite — and I’ve actually worked on memorizing it — the latter half of the poem that begins, ‘No! I am not Prince Hamlet…’ the words tug on the very core of my person. As long as I can remember, I’ve never really enjoyed being the center of attention (this is different than being in a leadership role, subtly; think of the ‘attendant Lord’ as the director or producer of a film and the ‘Prince Hamlet’ as the lead actor). What I am talking about is the fact that in the vast majority of instances, yes, ‘[ I ] am an attendant Lord…glad to be of use.’ I love to help out but not necessarily be in the ambient limelight and all that jazz. Albeit that’s all fine and dandy sometimes, but on the whole, I feel as though my place in the world is to work hidden in the wings, backstage, to make the show as flawless as possible. If that means doing the ‘messy’ or less desirable work, for example emergency medicine (something I’m considering after my time working at Mercy Medical Center this past summer) and not getting as high praise or salary as the surgeon, I’m totally fine with that. Am I making sense at all? I hope so. Random side note: my favorite line in the poem is ‘Do I dare disturb the universe?’ What a cold, petrifying, mundane question to pose so rhetorically? It’s gold. Stay gold Ponyboy.

Addressing the elephant in the blog post:

I know this poem is depressing as hell.

BUT, that doesn’t mean it can’t be my favorite poem (right now). Eliot so eloquently weaves his words to paint a portrait of heartache and utterly bone-chilling despair. The imagery is so vivid, so clear, that it would be a crime to not appreciate the work (I’m a sucker for some good ass imagery). Language is so weird, so fantastical, so different for humans than any other species of animal, so we think. I’m often reminded of the countless spot-on quotes from the undeniably classic 1989 film, Dead Poets Society, where Mr. Keating, played remarkably by the late Robin Williams (Rest in peace), instructs the less-than-eager-at-the-time adolescent boys that language is something that has limitless beauty, power and wonder. In The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, this concept is put into practice — language and monologue become a coping mechanism for everything the narrator fears in life, everything they’ve faced in life. Being able to express thoughts and feelings so freely and exactly by little lines and swoops and curly Q’s on the page is pure MAGIC. THINK ABOUT IT.

Tangent: after writing this blog for a while I just thought to myself that I don’t need to justify to the online world why this poem is my favorite. It just is! Just like how a person should never have to spell out why they are vegan or why they voted for a certain political candidate; these are personal choices that have every right to remain personal. I love debate and dialogue, so naturally I share my thoughts and enjoy hearing new ideas from others.

I recently purchased a secondhand poetry textbook that was originally printed circa 1945, I believe, and was absolutely thrilled to find this poem included in the text. It was, among myriad other works, annotated by the careful hand of one of the previous owners of the book.It is always a delight to read through the course and overused pages. Often, I like to day dream about what the first keeper of the book did in life or the sequence of events that led to me, holding the book in my tired hands. I like to meditate on the previous proprietors of my secondhand belongings (which are more ecologically sustainable, see my previous blog post) and their lives. Each owner has with their own story to tell, their own favorite poem within the tattered and forgotten pages of a book, and finally, but most importantly, their own unique mark on this universe.

‘We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion.’ — John Keating, “Dead Poets Society”