I fear words. They twist easily and their meaning is often disguised, leading me in confusion through hyperbole, synecdoche, simile, and analogy. I struggle with words, placing them, protesting, in sentences, which make them look like three-armed strangers, pointing and gesturing with maniacal motion, screaming, accusing. I yearn for the words that, instead of strangling thoughts and feelings, carry my meaning pure and true to sweeping eves and tilted ears. Words that glow with etymological fineness, perfect in their context, fluid in well-tempered verse. Sometimes, by luck, I can construct a perfect sentence. Where all the words tessellate to create a beautiful message, a message that does not limp disjointedly across the page, a message where all the words fit best and make me remember Goethe's warning that the difference between the best word and the next-best word is the difference between a lightening bolt and a lightening bug. But these good sentences rarely appear and their precious words are diluted by my graveled tones, slacks that are too short or a tie that does not match, by the perfect logic in which the words are sepulchered, by the elusiveness of my tortuous thoughts, by indifferent ears and sleep-slurred eyes. All of these things re-form my words into shapes and meanings not at all as I intended, and, at times, the words come back to me, like darts though my outstretched arms, and pierce me, wound me.

So speaking to you today, I know that most of my words will follow this fate of indifference, contortion, and dart, but what I fear most is the utter forgetfulness of what I say, that these poor, misshapen words will slip into minds made fallow by distraction, preoccupation, reflection, fatigue, and the arm that itches, that they will drift into the dark pool of oblivion, beyond all synapses, and I wonder if any of my words will survive. But thinking back to my own rituals of commencing, of beginning, do I remember any of the words from any commencement address which I have listened to, slept through, or read? Well, yes, one such speech does bubble up from the abyss. I think it is remembered only because the speaker drew on a poet's words, words easily rescued, words of a beautiful comport of meaning. And though I do not remember what the speaker really said -- some variation on go forth and do good, probably -- I do remember the power of the poem. And so I offer you a poem, taken from T.S. Ellot's "Four Quartets," a poem that expresses a collective being, and ushers one to a post, a spot, on the other side of the lightning bolt.

Unfortunately, my poor memory does not allow me to know these lines by heart, so that I can always carry them, draw on them when they are needed. I must have the poem written down, using that terrible crutch which Plato abhorred. Some of the words I can recall, but they are bastard versions of blurred lines. However, even in this crippled state, their power remains, and they manage to convey the poem's intent, the images, and feelings evoked by Eliot's delicate words, that take me to places, relationships, and encounters that had been burned like gray stone in my ponderous brain, giving me possession again, however tentative, of my past. Of me.

Already, I know, my words are slipping from your minds, their mortality rising and I wonder what will be left when I'm done? What did Malone talk about, people may ask? You could say, he did speak, something it seems about words, but it made no sense. And though my ego waxes and wanes, wanting you to remember these words and knowing that you will forget them, I recognize that this time, this slice of your exam-crazed days, is dedicated to your embarkation, a brief pause that you take before you begin a new journey, that port where you look back at the voyage just completed in the good ship Mary Foust. Perhaps, I can leave an image that somehow endures, that will allow you in the next hour, or the next week, or even the next year to say that someone, his name I forget, spoke and it was about this. And my highest hope is, that "this" was useful. And what is this "this"? What is this point? Life is like cloud watching and that by watching clouds we may know life and learn how to live it just a little bit better. Why, how lovely and fuzzy, you might think. What is this? Clouds are like life? Can you explain? Probably not.

F you must learn to see the clouds. You may ask how one learns to see clouds. First you must look up and this is hard for us to do. Like deer, we have no need to look up; we do not fear enemies from above. No giant bird will swoop upon us, bury its talons in our scalps and carry us off. Unlike groundhogs, rabbits, and war refugees, we do not need to scan the skies, baring our throats for danger. But children seem to have the time and the inclination to look up, to see the clouds, and I have learned from children.

Two weeks ago, as I walked to class, I passed a reverent group of three-year olds, zipped up tight against a strong wind, sitting on the sidewalk in front of the science building, looking wonderingly at the sky. Some of them were calling out in excited voices and I followed their gaze expecting to see a dirigible or something uncommon to young eyes, but all I saw were clouds scudding across blue sky. As I drew closer I made out their words: There's a ship! I see Cookie Monster. Oh yes, I see it too. Oh yes! But two of the children were silent, their eyes screwed intently upward, faint frowns creasing their small faces. And then a young woman, leaned over close to their ears, and she whispered and pointed upward and the frowns faded and their faces brightened. They had learned to see the clouds.

I remember when I learned to see the clouds. I was three or four years old and my large family was in the middle of a trip across eastern Texas. Our portal to the sky was a ribbon sky light in the family Oldsmobile station wagon, the ones with fake-wood trim. Out of boredom, my two older brothers were looking up and calling out shapes: Dragons, whales, birds, cars, women. I looked up and only saw clouds. I respected my brothers, one was sinless and good, while the other was fearless and not so good, and I wished to be like them both. My brothers had incredible powers and to my mind, as I looked upward, not at all sure what they were doing, I suddenly realized that they were creating these shapes in the sky, that through some type of mental magic, unknown to me, they could sculpt the clouds into whatever design that they desired. With all my might I tried to mold the clouds, but they did not move as I wanted. I believed in fantasy and the miraculous and I was bitterly disappointed that the cloud magic was not in me because it seemed a wonderful gift, to be able to mold the skies.

Fortunately, I later discovered how to see the clouds. They continued to remain relentless in their motion, but I saw that the clouds' inevitable drift could allow me to sit back, and let go, and draw deeply from my imagination to create shapes. That, like life itself, there will be voids, those cloudless days, there will be trials, those stormy days, there will be triumphs, those wind-swept days when we look up and see in a cloud the face of the one we love best, and the wind will remind us of children in the apple tree, and there will be days of transcendence, like the feathered cirrus clouds in the cold. bright sky.

And we can use the clouds to console our grief (every cloud has a silver lining); to hearken to the future (red sky in morning, sailor's warning, red sky at night, sailor's delight); to recognize danger (the danger and fascination of dark funnels and lightning strikes). And that rather than standing in the rain, screaming at the clouds, that we should not scream at life, but rather do something about it, if we can, such as go inside, put up the umbrella, put on galoshes, and if we can do none of these things, then perhaps we should lean back and look up and look for the shapes, your head, up there, in the clouds. And by watching the clouds we continue our explorations, and return to that time when we first learned to watch the clouds, and knew it for the first time.
 

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