TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

The noun alien has multiple meanings. One definition is an extraterrestrial, like E.T. from the classic Spielberg film: a creature from another planet. Another definition is a person from a foreign country. Both definitions describe someone who is an outsider. 

The adjective alien means strange, or foreign. Some dictionary definitions even lend it a more negative connotation: “unfamiliar and disturbing.” 

What all of these definitions have in common is otherness. The language suggests a lack of belonging, and even a lack of being welcome in a place. I think as humans, we have a familiarity bias—which is to say, we have an ugly knack for rejecting difference. No wonder people new to a place try to assimilate, to blend in.

Today’s poem dreams its way into an imagined scenario: finding oneself on this planet, an alien, a stranger, and doing one’s best to be seen as belonging, so as to stay.

Today’s poem is LeaveTaking by Rita Dove.

LeaveTaking
by Rita Dove

       From “The Retirement Annals”

I was sitting at home with my daughter               who was young again
                 a child with a child’s wish to do things over and over
                              so when she named an old film even I liked

we popped in the disc and sat back to watch
                 until daughter and living room faded               that is
                              I kept watching               but the movie                       began to dream

I became a stranger set down on Earth
                 in the late twentieth century
                              at a pool in midsummer

everyone with towels slung over their shoulders
                 children splashing each other               cackling
                              as they kicked the blue water

Beyond this activity a field stretched green               until it reached an end
                  and began to climb                      gently sloping skyward
                              like a runway to heaven

I was waiting               I knew they were coming               over the hill
                 I knew the moment I stepped out           onto the grass
                                      I too           would disappear

What a curious sensation               being the stranger
                 If I thought about it too long
                              I would be seen for what I was

but try too hard to blend in               I might forget myself
                 and miss my pickup
                              and be stranded forever

Oh I liked humans well enough               although they were immature
                 the old ones dreaming           the same dreams to the end
                              the young ones trying to forget               they were headed there too

always fretting over their bodies               working out      cursing and cooing
                 Yes I was homesick                       I walked toward the slope
                              towel draped around my neck like a human

but not thinking of humanity            not fitting in             I heard
                 something                        a gasp                  and glanced back
                              at a child in a shiny pink suit                       who stood staring

nudging her mother as she pointed my way       no  I thought not now
                 I could feel them             I whipped my towel in the air
                              as if snapping at gnats                       but kept walking

and then the dune buggy puttered over the hill
                 just like in the movies                 and just like anyone might
                              I stepped onto the grass

suddenly all the humans were staring
                 at me or maybe               the idea  of us
                              before I was zipped up                       and we were lifting

into the universe                       pouring into our true shapes
                                   Translucence            then
                                                     nothing at all

"LeaveTaking" by Rita Dove. Originally published in Poetry. Used by permission of the poet.