Poetry by Joey Connolly
“When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility
on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering,
subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his
body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the
paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden
his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent.”
– Mencius, Chinese philosopher, 3rd century B.C.E.
TYPHOONS : A NURSERY OF ADVERSITY
We face adversity at times as a result of economic
downturn, typhoons, and/or some personal crisis.
We’re falling into and climbing out of some abyss
think about the Myth of Sisyphus not Dionysus
all those less fortunate others and how we learn.
Feeling down, messed around, where do we turn.
Buenas yan saludos ga’chong, Brother and Sis
prepared, unprepared, all our mistakes are shared
Chinese say understand sour to know what is sweet.
There are many lessons to be learned from adversity
for and with family, friends, and the entire community
everyone pulling together after disastrous typhoons
makes us better, stronger, gives us a sense of unity.
Typhoons have many different adversarial effects
as we clean up the mess and go on with our lives
we become stronger, live longer, time always accepts
as busy as bees making honey, tending their hives.
Some of the benefits of adversity are easy to learn
so towards a ‘positive psychology’ let us all turn.
***
“Albert Camus, in his 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus
saw Sisyphus as personifying the absurdity of human life”
but Camus concludes “one must imagine Sisyphus happy”
as “the struggle itself towards the heights is enough to
fill a man’s heart.”
My inspiration for this positive psychology poem comes
from Jonathan Haidt’s ‘The HAPPINESS HYPOTHESIS,
Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom.’ 2006 Basic Books.
But get this, it might sound familiar, he is also the author
of ‘The Righteous Mind:Why Good People are Divided
by Politics and Religion.’ 2012.
***
TASI YAN LANGET
(ocean and sky in Chamorro language)
“The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, …
and so no doubt can you and you.” – Mary Oliver
The Tinian sea can be ‘todu kaduku’ crazy
‘yan lokkue tosta’ low tide, quiet and smooth
after weeks of calm it sometimes seems lazy
then it quickly becomes rough and uncouth.
Spitting sand and seaweed up on the shore
as it has done for countless centuries before
fish get caught in throw nets near the beach
some escape and swim quickly out of reach.
We too can be crazy, lazy, calm, and quiet
disrespectful, dishonest, rude, and uncouth
manifest gluttonous habits, need for a diet
in life’s ups and downs, old age back to youth.
As we live and love next to the Philippine Sea
the ocean can be rough and calm and so can we.
Home seems far away and so sad am I
the channel is wide. I cannot get across
the ocean waves crash, break, and toss
I long to look past clouds to stars in the sky.
I look for steamy looking distant stars
down near the Scorpio constellation’s tail
coming out of the Teakettle constellation
spout, hope no clouds and eye’s don’t fail.
(The ‘distant stars’ alluded to are the
Milky Way galaxy, visible from earth.)
Joey “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.
