The Captain's Sculpture, parts 240 - 243

 

240. “One needs to know something in order to take out a person’s gall bladder, but all poetry, just like all paintings, are just a matter of whatever some person feels like doing.” That is what he said, and that is what he thinks.

241. Have you ever been in the position of listening to an angry person’s denunciation of their spouse, and as you listen to the narration of events you can’t avoid the realization that you are entirely in agreement with the other party.

 

242. I felt a strong desire to come to the defense of the Good Doctor, and yet I was hard for me to admit that I strongly agreed with his ideas about painting and poetry.

243. “Certainly,” I said, “It you consider the great artists of the past, you can see clearly at a glance that they knew a great deal. But what about this?” I said, pointing to a poster on the wall of the sculpture studio.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 236 - 239

 

236. On the yellow legal pad on which he had written the first line of his poem, he has listed all the words that rhyme with ‘mind’, and he is trying to write out lines that will end with those words.

 

237. I said to him, “You are not writing a poem, you are composing a limerick.

238. My husband does not understand the difference between a poem and a limerick, and my attempts to explain the difference just threw him into a rage.

 

239. He thinks the idea that there is something one needs to know about writing poetry is just as absurd as needing to know things in order to paint a painting.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 232 - 235

 

232. “My husband”, she explained, “not content with his exalted position in the world of medicine, has decided to embark on a literary career. He is writing poetry, or rather, he is attempting to write a poem.”

 

233. He has completed the first line of his poem, it goes like this, “The knowledge weighed heavily on my mind.”

 

234. His idea is to write a poem about that period of time when he is in possession of some critical information about a patient. He knows that some person is going to die, or on the other hand, some patient is going to be just fine.

235. He wants to compose a poem about that situation, and you have to admit, it is a good concept for a poem, but his approach is quite childish.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 228 - 231

 

228. It was obvious that he was very proud of this line of poetry of his, and repeated it to me several times with urgency, examining my face to see if I understood how great it was.

229. Then he said, “When my Language Arts teacher read this line she said that I would have a brilliant career as a poet if I chose to go in that direction.”

230. Well, I chose to be a surgeon, and I am a great surgeon as everybody knows, but I could have been a great poet if I had chosen that path.

231. I was quick to agree with him in order to put an end to what I felt was an embarrassing conversation, but that was far from the end of it.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 224 - 227

 

224. It did not surprise me that her husband had such negative ideas about his wife’s concerns; it was obvious to me that he considered all of his wife’s art interests to be simply social activity, the same as a bridge club.

 

225. But it was much more complicated than I could have ever imagined. After telling me the high points of their argument she added this: “I came into the kitchen this morning and he had some old papers and notebooks of the table that he was looking through.”

226. He handed me a faded mimeographed booklet from junior high school, he was listed in the content page because of a poem he wrote.

 

227. His poem in the booklet was called “The Cat’s Shadow,” and in the poem there was the line, ‘the shadow of the cat, was more catlike, than the cat.’

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 220 - 223

 

220. She was in the habit of calling her husband ‘The Good Doctor.’

221. “He simply does not understand that he is asking me to do something which is not possible, and it is actually unethical, unprofessional, naïve, simpleminded, stupid…” Here she ran out of adjectives with which to condemn her spouse.

222. I said nothing, but it was apparent that the two of them had a serious argument; the kind of argument wherein things are said that should never be said in a relationship.

223. He said that her artwork was pointless, stupid and a waste of time and money, and now that she had a real opportunity to use her drawing skills for the advancement of science, she refused.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 216 - 219

 

216. About a week later Agnes came to class and I noticed right away that she was especially upset about something. She had not bothered to comb her hair that day.

217. Agnes had frizzy hair, white sprinkled in all over, and usually kept in place by being tied in a knot. She always had a pencil stuck in the knot. On this particular Saturday, there was no knot, and no pencil, and she had the look of a gypsy woman running from the police.

 

218. We sat together, alone in the studio. She was sitting on a table, and I was sitting on a stool. On the table was an unfinished head of a woman in red clay that had fallen on the floor, and all the features were smashed over to one side.

219. The clay head should have been wrapped in plastic, but instead, I think it had been abandoned. Agnes said, “I have stopped doing the Good Doctor’s shadow drawings.”