A while back (years ago, really), I was wasting time at the no-brain cube job I was working by reading some Dylan Thomas. I stumbled across a line in a poem called “I Fellowed Sleep” that hit me hard across the forehead the way that poetry can, when it’s doing what it should. The offending stanza goes like this:
‘My father’s globe knocks on its nave and sings.’
‘This that we tread was, too, your father’s land.’
‘But this we tread bears the angelic gangs,
Sweet are their fathered faces in their wings.’
‘These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade.’
Don’t ask me what that gobbeldygook is supposed to mean, but something about that last line struck me. These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade. At first, I thought the line made a powerful statement about the steadfastness of dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade. It was bittersweet. I’ve always been more of a dreamer than a doer, and have discarded more projects than I’ve finished in my time. But then I started thinking about all of the other things that fade as we breathe, which brought me around to language, and eventually to music (why write a song? a song’s nothing but air, you just breathe and it’s gone).
There’s something beautiful about realizing the value that we, as ephemeral beings, place on the ephemeral aspects of our lives.
I think about this now, because of all of the joy I get out of reading books aloud to the Bear. It has helped me to discover so many wonderful things, like how Krazy Kat has to be read aloud to be properly appreciated, or how when the Bone movie is finally made, it’ll be a shame if Phoney Bone doesn’t sound like a bad James Cagney impersonation. Most of all, though, I love how the expression of language, this act of breath creating vibrations in precise rhythm and tone, can construct a physical environment out of nothing but air.
Currently, we’re reading The Tale of Despereux. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a good read, but especially for anyone looking for something to read aloud to their kids. Like the best books we’ve read together, it rewards the reader for taking time to follow the rhythms of the prose and for taking advantage of the opportunity to construct different voices for the different characters. We’ve spent most nights this past week, my oldest son and I, lying next to each other in his bed, under the dome of breath and vibration that comes from reading this story aloud. Just like the dreaming men, just like the words from the story, we’ll both be gone in little more than a breath. It’s an impossibly beautiful thing that we can share our time together making magic like this.
I hope you get to take time to relish the passing moments with your family as well. What do you like best about reading together?
