At first glance, ‘Cold Pleasure’ doesn’t look like much of a poem. And compared to Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ or Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ it isn’t. It barely looks like a poem, no rhyme scheme, no rhythm. Yet it counts as a poem because it dis-covers (uncovers, reveals) a life in a fragment of time. There are not many details. But each detail is important to the weight of the poem.
First, consider the location; a doctor’s office. People are not there by desire but by necessity. Something is not right. Something could go wrong. A gathering of strangers feeling fragile and vulnerable, sitting in the concentrated intensity of their very private skins. Each one is waiting patiently for his or her name to be called. Each one waiting patiently for news.
Finally, name is called. Jim. Jim stands up. In that moment the room of anonymous people loses a bit of its anonymity. Someone knows Jim. It’s Bob. A greeting rings out across the room full of solitude. We notice that Jim is hobbling. It is difficult for him to walk. Who could blame Jim if that trouble got the best of him. If he withdrew from active life and drifted through his days. Give him a break. It’s hard for Jim to walk.
Bob reveals to the rest of the room something significant about Jim. His service on the ice cream committee. We do not know the organization that requires an ice cream committee. But we do know that Jim was a member at one time, back when walking was easier. Then we learn he still is on the committee. In fact, he’s been on the ice cream committee for some time, a fairly long time, sixteen years.
In spite of his limp, and the vicissitudes of working with others toward a common goal, Jim has done his part; meeting after meeting, decision after decision, year after year, scoop after scoop.
Jim has lasted. On the grand scale of things not doing much. But something. The order of the world is maintained because millions of individuals find their usefulness and perform it steadfastly. Like Jesus’ first miracle of attending to human pleasure, turning water into wine at a wedding celebration, Jim’s contribution was offering the cold pleasure of ice cream to others gathered for an occasion. Jim’s road choice, like Frost’s, was also “the one less traveled by.’ For Jim as for Frost, ‘ . . . that has made all the difference.’
So much we can learn about life from so little.