". . .like in the stories.
The wee folk. The thumblings. Every-
where,
these old ones, the root ones, have their stories, and
gain strength as the dusk along the woods duff deepens. . ."
Goldbarth's "Steerage" is about a voyage on which he accompanied his grandparents. As they depart, the people onshore shrink to miniatures. They resemble the fairies of folktales. With the setting sun, Goldbarth imagines the richness of their lives, with such a stunning backdrop to display their adventures.
". . .What if I stepped into
the light of that page, a burnished and uncompromising
light, and walked back up to his stone a final time,
just that, no drama, and it was so cold,
and the air was so brittle. . ."
Goldbarth imagines revisiting his father's grave, with the same sort of assurance and lightness which he attributes to the Bible at his friends' wedding. He imagines how, with that light, he could approach the grave with all rationality -- for what it truly is. He wants to notice how cold the stones are because he doesn't want to associate sentiment with his father, but rather the material and the real.
". . .If a balled-up fidget of snakes
in the underbrush dies in a freeze is it sentimental? No,
yes, maybe. What if a litter of cocker spaniels? What
if we called them 'puppydogs' . . .?"
In this excerpt Goldbarth explores the necessity of context. Do people care more about a death if it belongs to a snake than a dog? What if these dogs are described in terms of their adorableness? He's implying that there's a distinction which an author makes in the contextualizing of their subjects which directly manipulates the way an audience feels about the subject.
". . .A God,
a blind God. He would read the world
by exactly that braille."
Goldbarth imagines God as blind because he observes the intense detail of texture in the natural world. He wonders if perhaps God arranges this for his own benefit, because he views the world differently, as its creator. What man imagines to be sight may not even occur to God as relevant, in his true sight which has nothing to do with eyes.
