Standing Up to Avoid Defeat

                As humans, we can’t help but build.  We are in a constant process of standing things up.  Whether it be objects, words, or ourselves, we seem to have the innate need to create, build, form, and erect.   We build monuments as a representation of ourselves.  Our creations are erected throughout our lives as a reflection of who we are, what we represent, and our ideals.  However, no matter how much effort, material, or work we put in to our creations, there is a time when they will eventually fall unable to withstand the elements and time.  Yet despite knowing things will inevitably fall, we continue to build, erect, and stand things up because it gives us a sense of purpose.

                I liked Wendell Berry’s poetry, “The Farmer, Speaking of Monuments” because it takes something that seems commonplace and shows the magnitude of the process.  Most don’t think of crops as something to praise unless we are in the process of enjoying their flavor and freshness.  However, a farmer knows that his harvest is a reflection of his hard work and sacrifice.  As Berry states, “he remains in what he serves by vanishing in it, becoming what he never was.”  To me, he becomes an artist, a builder, a sculptor.  He creates a monument to himself.  Every spring he buries his seeds which will mature throughout the summer, “standing for him” in the fall for only a short time before he must cause them to collapse in order to harvest and sell his monument in pieces to others. 

                Three things struck me with Berry’s poem.  First, I find it ironic that in order to stand up his monument, the farmer must first bury his seeds.  Typically the process of burial relates to the permanent falling of something so I have to wonder if the farmer is symbolically falling himself, putting aside his carefree days of winter in order to immerse himself in his erection of crops until they will fall.  It is interesting to see that this is a process that beings with a fall and ends with a fall.  Second is the realization that at the height of his accomplishment, when the crops have reached their full potential and are ready to be harvested, no one sees his fully erected monument but himself, the farmer.  Third, although no one sees the monument at its pinnacle many will benefit from it even to the extent that it could be considered critical for those who are fed by the farmer.  A monument that seems so temporary and must be rebuilt at the beginning of every season is seen in a much more magnificent light and I begin to realize that “in autumn, all his monuments fall” but the work of a farmer is always standing.  His fields remain as a representation of who he is.

                Maria Melendez also discusses the monuments that we build to represent ourselves in her piece of work "A Chicana Writes to Rilke".  However, her monument seems more personal.  She does not want a monument that is tall and erect.  She says, “might, in me, is not erected, but absorbed.”  I feel she is building a monument that is not for the world to see, but rather for her.  A representation of who she is for self reflection.  Her creation is built of elements which have made her who she is, such as masa.  Her statue is much more internal and personal.  I also believe it is like the farmer’s because it changes just as her life and experiences change who she is.  She talks of “an interior grinding stone to scrape the realm of concept completely” which suggests that the process of building is an evolving one that is always chipping away to shape us.  In the end, the monument is very personal, not some large erection that represents her but rather is “cobbled within.”

                In the "Twelve Stones of Pentre Ifan" Leslie Norris writes about a monument created by another that has seen time and the elements take its toll on the ability of the twelve stones of “Pentre Ifan” to stand.  However, his poem seems to bring life to the stones and actually make them stand taller.  He talks of a “nameless” people whose survival was a struggle.  Yet despite the difficulty of their existence they were able to rise above it and build a monument “taller than any man who will ever stand where I stand, lifting their hope.”  The monument represents the ability in each of us to stand throughout our lives, to build our existence, and to fulfill our purpose.  It is also a reminder that there will be times when we will have difficulty standing on our own yet there are those around us we can lean on who can provide the stability we need until we are able to stand on our own, “as a man, leaning in, supporting.”  Norris reinforces to me that the monuments we build throughout our lives are built with the support of others and that we are not alone although our creations we build are our own.

                Of course, we know that all things must eventually fall, we as humans will fall when we die.  Likewise, monuments also have their duration.  There is a time when, despite the process of building and creating, those statues that have been erected will crumble to the ground.  The elements of the earth and time both play a role against our monuments.   Percy Bysshe Shelley discusses this corrosion of our erections in "Ozymandias".  Shelley tells of a monument that, at one time, depicted a great king.  However, the statue which was erected in honor of this king has now fallen and is covered with sand in the desert.  All that can really be seen anymore are the “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” signifying that although the legs are still there they no longer hold up the rest of the sculpture, nothing else is left standing.  I can’t help but compare the “wrinkled lip, and sneer cold command” from the half buried face of Ozymandias to the political statues of Stalin and Lenin and the prideful way in which a monument was erected to establish power and control which eventually fell, as did the power of the men themselves.  This process of falling is different because it is not the physical falling of an individual but rather the fall of an ideal for a greedy purpose. 

                I have to wonder why we try so hard to build, erect, and create if we know that it is not lasting and will someday crumble to the earth.  I conclude that the process is a representation of who we are.  We stand as a way of showing strength, power, and life.  Therefore, we spend our lives building around us, standing things up to help reiterate the fact that we too are here, and standing.  It is innate in us.  We cannot tear down without rebuilding because to tear down and leave alone would signify defeat.  As humans we cannot bear the thought of defeat.  Therefore, we begin the process of building in order to ensure that we are still standing in the monuments we erect.  All monuments eventually fall, but what they represent can continue to stand long after they are gone.