The Great Designer

I have been posting poetry recently. This is ironic. I have never felt a mastery of poetry, and have always viewed it from "afar"--as if it is a mystery too great for my involvement. Ms. Shipley, my 9th grade English teacher, was a bizare and intriguing person. She was shorter than any of us, and would be described as "round" in physique. Her hair was a natural mess of wavy grey/brown streaks. Pieces of uncontrolled beauty would fall down into her view while she was talking to you, causing her to frequently brush hair away from her face and adjust her glasses. Her glasses were often slipping down toward the end of her nose. She was both very calm in her demeanor, and very agitated. She wore a sullen look on her round, wrinkled face, but smiles would pop out of nowhere and soften her into a youthfulness. I was drawn to her quirky, surprising approach to teaching and relating with us. It did not intimidate me, as it did so many other people in our class. An example of her element of surprise can be seen in this one snapshot moment from class: We were all working quietly at our desks. Sitting in rows of about 5 desks in each row--it was a long narrow classroom. It was an advanced English class, so we were emersed in our work, and no one was causing any disruptions. Ms. Shipley's desk sat facing her students' profiles. On her desk was a two-tiered wire basket, like an in/out basket of grading. As we sat quietly working, Ms. Shipley sat at her desk grading papers. With one swift move, rising out of the stillness of that bleak, monotone classroom, Ms. Shipley grabbed the entire top wire basket and flug it across the room. The wire basket flew in an arc above our heads and bounced hard against the empty desks at the far side of the room, landing with a clatter on the tile floor. As it sailed over our heads, papers fluttered down, raining on us. A changing of seasons in the classroom. All of this occured in a split second. But being ripped out of a lull by such a surprise, made the experience play out in slow motion. I remember looking over at Ms. Shipley. As papers floated down around us, she sat at her desk, grading the stack of essays she had been working on since the beginning of the hour. She didn't look up. She didn't say a word. I was facinated by Ms. Shipley. Others were intimidated. I liked that she kept us guessing as to who she was and what we might experience. Mrs. Shipley was a well known and awarded poet in the state in which I went to school. She socialized and worked in circles of creative people who valued the power of the word and its ability to impact the soul. She would tell stories of facilitating writing workshops in high security prisons across the country. She would read us poems that men who were on death row had written. Then, she would ask us to write poems. I was intimidated by Ms. Shipley's offer to engage poetry. Poetry was mysterious and surprising to me. It seemed to invite me places that I wasn't expecting to go to. When I arrived with the poem in this private place in my soul, I couldn't figure out how we had gotten there. How could a poem about ordinary things linger in my mind all day long? How did it intice me ponder things of life and death? I was used to writing my thoughts in a composition and getting wonderful feedback from my teachers, but how do you take a handful of words carefully picked arrange them in a purposeful way, and carve out a path the soul? I tried to write poetry in Ms. Shipley's class, but it was stiff and stilted. She did not like my poetry, and she told me such. She never said I couldn't write poetry. She just told me she didn't like the poetry I was writing. Ms. Shipley intrigued me. Poetry intimidated me. I find it ironic that as I am processing some thoughts in my life right now, I am drawn to poetry. I think I owe this to Ms. Shipley. She allowed poetry remain mysterious. She engaged us with intrigue. She let me wrestle with words and emotions and thoughts. Thank you, Ms. Shipley. The desire to look for my soul in the reflection of poems today is a result of her invitation. We have been talking about sovereignty and love in Seminary. The discussion has been in terms of "which is greater." I have been contemplating my ability to embrace Sovereignty. Some discussion of this concept tends to produce fire in my soul, and other thoughts draw me in close to my Designer. Here's a poem I found that makes me understand the Soveriegnty of God, the Master Designer. Design
by Robert Frost
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite. What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small.
From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine.