Dignity.

An old word we encounter like a tattered keepsake. Blow off the dust. Not much in use now except in reference to its absence – “Indignant,” “death with dignity.” Not much in evidence either.

Once – can it be? – dignity was an achievement to strive toward. It derives from old Latin, meaning worthy, honorable, noble, excellent – all adjectives that feel quaint in our raucous, elbowing hour. Today’s plaudits are fast, new, famous and, above all, rich: crash, bang, boom, and the winner is…

Whom does the word evoke? (Adjectives whistle for examples.) My paternal grandmother comes to mind, the embodiment of that virtue. And Jackie Kennedy beneath her veil at her husband’s funeral. Washington, Lincoln, Jimmy Carter. And Obama at moments of searing eloquence. Some of Shakespeare’s Romans. The adjective recoils from today’s politics as from an electric shock. Dignity suggests truth, courtesy, kindness, empathy, decency, self-restraint. Not here, not now.

Why, we wonder, did the word – and aspiration – fall from favor? Noise, speed, smartphones, breaking (and heart-breaking) news played their part. Loss of respect – for institutions, elders, manners. Global competition, where all strive with all. Veneration of the Golden Calf SUCCESS.

I strive for dignity in words. What does that mean? I’m not sure. A stillness, fitness, humility, seriousness. Saying what one sees, not what one’s expected to. Letting truth dictate style. Showing – as freshly as I can – without showing off. To say I strive is not to claim I arrive: strive is an antonym of arrive.

“At Least,” a poem by Raymond Carver, radiates dignity. Carver (1938-1988) was a great writer who killed himself, like many American writers. His murder weapon was drink. “Inclined toward brevity and intensity,” as he described himself, he wrote short stories and poems and lurched through life as if rock-climbing barefoot. Yet for this hard life he was inordinately grateful. His epitaph haunts:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAnd did you get whatyou wanted from this life, even so?I did.And what did you want?To call myself beloved, to feel myselfbeloved on the earth.

I’d give my eye teeth to have written “At Least.” If you don’t know it, visit it below. If you do know it, remind yourself. So simple. Diction so unfancy, matter-of-fact. Subject matter so mundane. Yet what dignity! The poet doesn’t need to tell us he’s struggling to keep his shit together: his observations and the action of the poem tell us. What he wants seems so little – “to get up early one more morning, before sunrise… throw cold water on my face… see the waves break” – yet so much. What he wants is not riches or success or sensual gratification, but life, to feel it, taste it, “one more morning, at least.”

Scarcity creates value: this is as much an existential as an economic truth. The less life left to us, the more fiercely we cling. We wake to the realization – too late! – that we’ve been blessed with abundance all along. Yet we do not whimper, whine, even wince if we can help it. We do not blame. We embrace – with aching humility – what we’ve been given, praying only (for the poem is a prayer), though we “hate to seem greedy… one more morning, at least.”

That’s dignity, in my book. No, we are not victims, short-changed, owed. Sure, we’ve had our disappointments, but what are they compared to the glory of a day seeing what there is to see and reaching our “own conclusions”! I want to hug this guy, who reeks and sweats through his lines: Thank you, brave sir, for this lesson on how to live.

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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAt Least

I want to get up early one more morning,before sunrise. Before the birds, even.I want to throw cold water on my faceand be at my work tablewhen the sky lightens and smokebegins to rise from the chimneysof the other houses.I want to see the waves breakon this rocky beach, not just hear thembreak as I did all night in my sleep.I want to see again the shipsthat pass through the Strait from everyseafaring country in the world—old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,and the swift new cargo vesselspainted every color under the sunthat cut the water as they pass.I want to keep an eye out for them.And for the little boat that pliesthe water between the shipsand the pilot station near the lighthouse.I want to see them take a man off the shipand put another up on board.I want to spend the day watching this happenand reach my own conclusions.I hate to seem greedy—I have so muchto be thankful for already.But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.And go to my place with some coffee and wait.Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.