A Thai English poem explicated

A Thai English Poem

Smile at all Times

Written by Pompen Hantrakool 

explicated by Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya

The text

On being born

Smile first forms to welcome the beginning of life

While growing up

Smile next follows with the well awareness of blessedness

On being ill

Smile sadly hides inside pain and pitifulness

While getting old

Smile easily realizes the physical impermanence

On dying

Smile finally greets the departing of soul   and spirit

Explication

This is a wonderful poem where Smile or a kind of facial language is the protagonist. Smile first forms to welcome the beginning of life. Well this is a curious observation. A baby often smiles as soon as it is born.That is, the capability of smiling is innate. Why do babies smile? By the by they are not social smiles. They are reflex smiles. They win over the human environment of the child so that the child is taken care of .Or else if the baby finds any difficulty it smiles to draw attention of its mother.The babys social smiles take place  when it is six months or seven months old. Smile forms not only on the face of the baby but also on the face of men and women surrounding the baby.With Pompen smile forms in the baby that welcomes the beginning of life. At the same time smile forms in the adults to welcome the beginning of life in the baby.The babyhood and childhood are perhaps blessed. With Wordsworth child philosophers are best seers.They come trailing clouds of heavenly glory.  A child in William Blakes  The Lamb  says addressing a lamb—Little Lamb I ll tell thee

                                                        Little Lamb Ill tell thee

                                                      He is called by thy name

                                                       For he calls himself a lamb

                                                     He is meek He is mild

                                                      He became a little child

                                                    I a child  and thou a lamb

                                                  We are called by his name

Well here the smile is genuine where orbicularis  oculi contracts

It indicates the sweetness of soul..But blessedness does not linger long. On being ill smile softly hides inside pain and pitifulness.Human life is subject to diseases decay and death. Pain  visits the ill. And ill ness may  arouse or deserve pity or arouse contempt. And when attacked by disease one might smile to hide the lamentable state of ones being . This is perhaps fake smile. And there is a sadness in smile.This is a nice word painting.While getting old smile merely realizes the physical impermanence.Under the impact of diseases and old age one realizes the impermanence of the body. We are here reminded of the theory of mirror image of Lacan. The little child yet a toddler sees his own image on the mirror and thinks itself as stout and strong. This creates the sense of blessedness in the child  But with age this illusion is shattered. There is the fall from Eden One feels that body is impermanent and of course one becomes aware of the inevitability of death which is impending when one is old. At this stage one can really smile at oneself feeling how foolish he or she was  earlier when he or she believed in the permanence of body and the permanence of the world of eyes and ears. . With age when one learns that the body is frail he also learns the transitoriness of worldly things and pleasures as well.The reversal of the outlook in man  is dramatic and evokes smile in us.  Such smiles are humourous humour meaning sympathy with the seamy side of things.So far the poet Pompen portrays smile with sugarcoated harsh irony. But the last two lines of the poem  is unique---

On dying

Smile finally greets the departing of soul and spirit

On dying ,so far as the present authors  experiieces go, men look relaxed and perhaps smiling. Because the burdens of life  fall off from his shoulders perhaps . Hence one is apt to ask –Death! Where are thy stings.Death might mean sleep. But nay. Pompen takes body as the garment in which the soul is decked.Just as our clothes when old and tattered are doffed by us so does the soul doff the body when it is old and decrepit. At that moment that is on dying Pompen observes that Smile greets the departing soul. This smile is a class by itself and few poets or philosophers or psychologists have noted it. That body is the vestige of the soul is taken for granted by the poet and this is the premise on which the poem is raised. Life is therefore a sojourn of the soul  in the world.The soul decks itself in human body  to travel in the world just as we don fur coats to travel in the cold countries. The sojourn teaches the soul the impermanence of all that the world could offer. Physically wizened and finally dead the soul departs from the world  wise,learning a lesson which is too deep for tears. And Smile appears in the dead body wishing good bye to the departing soul. Smile in this poem perhaps shines through tears. The poem is here heavily weighed down with irony. The poem thus exhorts in a sly way that we are not bodies but living souls and we should brave the sorrows and sufferings of life with an equanimity of mind and with a smile. Another legitimation of the poem is that life here on earth is full of sufferings.