Chez Chesler

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
`By thy long beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin ;
The guests are met, the feast is set :
May'st hear the merry din.'

I've always believed in experiencing art with as many senses as possible, for better understanding.  When I watched Hamlet with my kids (it's a ghost story!) I served Havarti.  I read them The Cremation of Sam McGee while waiting for a school bus in sub-zero weather.  Last week I realized a long-held dream, reading to them Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner while out at sea (OK, we were barely out of sight of land while taking a ferry across Long Island Sound.)

The two boys wandered off, but my daughter stayed to hear the end, which I reached just as we pulled into Port Jefferson harbor.  I don't know how much they got, but like so many things that one understands only when older (10 is not about Bo Derek wearing nothing but corn-rows, it's about a mid-life crisis) I finally understand the poem.  It's about old people forcing young people to miss parties by telling long, pointless stories!

Labels: coleridge, mariner, poetry