Catch Me If You Can

by one four two nine seven eight

Creative Writing assignment; I'm not a poet, but you can see what you think. Uploading killed some of the format, but the message is still there.

For my Creative Writing class last term, we read "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman and then were assigned to copy his style in our own poetry. We were told to choose one central image, and after many very terrible ideas, I stuck with a Golden Snitch. From there we were supposed to work a personal description of ourselves into the first stanza, ten of our favorite things into the second stanza, and three things we can celebrate about the world today into the third, using the central image throughout the entire poem.

My poor teacher did not even know what a Snitch was, let alone understanding or seeing the allusions to our Golden Boy. Even though she gave me a near perfect score (I missed one point for rhyming in the second stanza), I don't think she appreciated the thing, I think, as much as someone who was familiar with Harry Potter might. So I decided to post it here.

Song of Myself

(Or, Catch Me If You Can)

I celebrate myself,

And what I shall assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease. . . . observing a Golden Snitch.

The Snitch darts over the darkening Quidditch pitch, sweeping the curling tendrils of my

tresses,

its movements swift and bold as the deep, dark strokes of my pen on this page . . .

its wings mere threads of honey,

like the raw auburn threads of my hair which trickle down to tickle my soft, white throat.

The Snitch dances on a March-time zephyr;

the delicate lines of its flight are like the lines I draw with my pen,

soft, smooth, and fragile; twirling, dancing on that subtle breeze; curving and curling and

whipping around on those tiny gossamer wings.

My pen soars as the Snitch soars.

My pen sings as the Snitch sings.

My pen soothes as the Snitch never will.

The Snitch teases the sultry grey of my eye,

tracing a pyramid, a myriad of sketchy movements which create a ladder into the clouds.

Who will catch this golden orb in the wiry, pale cage of his fingers?

Who will ever feel the dewy beat of its pretty young wings on the dry heel of his palm?

In the murmuring silence of a grand, echoing cathedral sanctuary I will find it;

closing my eyes, I see its dazzle and sheen in the depths of my murky young mind . . .

Or, perhaps, somewhere less obtrusive,

in the eddying billows of softly spun, mellow grey clouds at noon;

or catching the tail of the squealing, rebellious riff of some eclectic, electric guitar;

or buried in a powdery, pristine bank of snow on that precious Christmas morn;

or caught in the steamy, rolling mists below each grumbling, moonlit waterfall.

More likely, however, the humming, shining wings will beat their way to me,

the Snitch, with its glinting golden shell and tiny, tinny squeaks of the gears and

sprockets and metal within,

will flush past my ear in the cold, soft shadows of a sterile new Cineplex

(a brand new movie theater will its long rows of tiny electric lights and an enormous,

seductive silver screen

upon which the great, gilded Golden Boy, even my undisputed favorite, will save the

day again by closing his fingers around the blistering, gentle kiss of the Snitch's

perfect wings) . . .

And I, with my hands in the pockets of my favored old blue jeans,

have misplaced my mind yet again,

and the lips of my memory are fixed upon the gleaming cover of a new book long

coveted,

fixed upon the miles and miles of information being sucked through the engines of

computer boxes worldwide,

fixed upon an idea that all the world is a stage, and we are all trying to play the role of an

expert Seeker,

reaching out for that single Golden Snitch.

But, again, I ask of you

who will catch this Golden Snitch,

this jeweled goal which we are all striving so diligently to catch?

We will spend our lives flying towards it, in whichever form it may take on.

We will spend our lives straining our poor mortal eyes for a glimpse of its shining

exoskeleton of gold;

we will spend or lives searching, wanting, waiting for its appearance,

and when at last it shows itself against the emerald pitch below, we rocket off after it,

so utterly ready to feel its beating wings against our flesh,

so utterly oblivious to the fates which might befall us when we do.

Ah, to have such faith in such a tiny thing as this!

Surely it is bliss to have such a preciously childish view of the world, that we should be

able to truly believe that one day, yes,

we will catch that wretchedly beautiful Snitch at last.

It must be our ability to believe so completely which brings us together as the human

race, I say.

It must be our faith that nothing or anything at all that keeps us searching for that simple

glitter of golden wings, I say.

Even in this spoiled age of man, when nothing is kept hidden from the world,

when our every thought, opinion, hope, fear, and wonder is left so wonderfully out in the

open

to be poked and prodded by the others,

we still press onward, upward, stretching our hands out wide with that tragic, steadfast

hope . . .

There are skeptics who scorn, insisting the Snitch is not so real, just a figment of our

keen, mortal imaginations –

But their eyes, too, scan the darkening horizon for its glimmer and sway on the breeze,

whether they realize we notice or not.

Yes, the Snitch exists.

And yes, we will forever chase its sparkling sidewalk trail.

And no, it will not be our trembling hands which close so tightly around its radiance,

our teardrops falling on its gilded brow,

our sunshine friends cheering us on from their roosts so far above,

our hearts thrumming so endlessly within our breast that all the many beats are but one

beat together.

No, it will never be us,

because we are the tarnished silver sons

of a broken-dream king, high on his fallen throne . . .

we are the angels whose wings have split and torn

on a shining, golden, godlike rosebush . . .

We are the pure ones, the silver, the dawning mauve and grey,

who sit and watch the Master Seeker work,

observe him toss and throw his fate and pretty young neck to whatever winds may catch

him,

toss his fate to whichever gods he prays to at night –

while that Golden Marauder squirrels the Snitch far, far away,

where no tarnished usurper's heir will ever think to look.

[ The opening lines belong to Walt Whitman, who wrote the original "Song of Myself" poem. I was happy to stea them, as my assignment permited, because Mr. Whitman is one of my favorite poets – yet another weird, queer old man who writes scandelously ridiculous verse and is very pleased with himself for doing so.]