Primavera Praecox

With last week’s string

Of sixty degree days

The hyacinth and daffodils  

Broke ground 

In my neighbor’s yard

It’s still February 

And today the wind

Has shifted back north

Putting a universal chill 

On the ardor for life

Over the next few weeks

I guess we’ll proceed

To play hide and seek with

Rebirth and senescence

It’s easy to see how

Any flower or bud or

Kindred spirit among us

Could end up feeling

Hopelessly confused

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Poem for a Facebook Friend

It was poem enough

Of roughed up sort

When first spoken in

Unpolished terms

To my FB friend

Jacek Dziubinski

Getting off the train

Is the first and most

Important thing

Any of us can do
Grasping at metaphor

Proves to be the key
Of every sound translation

Whenever we contemplate

Space-time travel
Whether by cloud soaring
Or otherwise

Soon enough it is not 

So much poetry as clarity that counts  
Most in not leading us astray but

Towards deeper understanding

I don't mean to brag or boast
There’s so much help each of us needs

To complete our appointed tasks

But where do you think

It’s most likely

To come from

Nowadays

Not from some college

Of cardinals or birds

Of whatever dharma

Who happen to flock together

Nor from the ivied campus of Harvard or Yale
No matter what language you choose

My friends it’s much more likely

You’ll reach some reasonable
Level of comprehension
Of whatever poem or holy scripture
You happen to be grappling with if you
Do it entirely by your own surmise
(like some later day Martin Luther
stuck in a bathroom stall)
Along with considerable help from

Wikipedia and Google Translator 

Making it that much more
Of a congenial spot

To mark the beginning
Of any truth revealed

So now there's no excuse
And hopefully you too
Will soon get started
Building the itinerary for
Your own westward Journey

For the Nothing that Remains (finally a reply to T.S. Eliot)

This morning I clicked on a link on Twitter and found myself reading The Four Quartets.  What a gloomy Gus T.S. Eliot was.  Really. This poem is part of my ongoing series of responses to the great poems I've read and enjoyed (or tried to enjoy) over the years.  Eliot was never one of my favorites - so sonorous and liturgical in his phrasing - but even with that daub of Lenten ash on his forehead, he is always worthy of a closer look and listen.

For those of you not familiar with the 4 Quartets, this poem is more specifically in response to the final stanza of East Coker, which is the second part of Eliot's poem.  It's interesting (at least to me) that when Eliot wrote East Coker he was supposedly struggling with an issue similar to what I'm currently mulling over - does it really make any sense to keep writing poetry?  Well at least in the present case I decided in the affirmative, if only in order to muster my reply to gloomy TS.

Home is not just where we start

But where we arrive in the end

As the world becomes more familiar

Not less so once we notice

(despite all pride and learning)

The recurring patterns of our dreams

Sure there will be time for this and that
Until we begin to comprehend

A present that consists of no single moment

But a great chain of being and nothingness

Connecting stone to plant and plant to man

Yet all immortal in our yearnings to make

A new beginning from each end

All dolmens speak of time forgotten

In starlight that sweeps across the heavens

And lamplight that flickers and dims

Words elide and worlds collide

Photographs curl at their edge

And fall into desuetude

But it’s the endless waves

Of wind water and light

That propagate and proclaim

To petrel and porpoise alike

Not in things themselves

But in the undulation unceasing

There we'll find unity and perpetuity
Neither in what is or is not there

But in the Nothing that remains

  

Poem Written While on Hold With Fidelity

The year has barely begun

And already I’m tapping into

My 401(k) plan

What do you think

That says about
How the future works

If not being now

(as Rabbi Hillel put it)

Then surely as soon as
The check for this year's
Seed corn has cleared
The Citibank account
And then there's whatever else
Shall come of this upcoming
Season of bittersweet toil

And then 

And then

What
* * * * *

Maybe this poem goes a little too far in divulging personal information.  Since money is the last taboo in polite society, perhaps it verges on bad taste to write about being cash poor.  But it also happens to be a good way of explaining the sense of diminishment I'm not alone in feeling lately - as we've all been drawing down on our savings to buy new seed corn, in the midst of this persistent period that's rife with uncertainty.  So please accept this as a metaphorical as well as literal truth.  Once again we seem to be falling under the iron grip of Dinkelman's First Rule -- even when it's not about the money very often it turns out to be otherwise.

What Takes Shape Outside the Present Frame

A swan idles

And so do I

While the full moon rises

Over Weesuck Creek

All of us unknowing

How much longer
We can maintain

This liminal state

The moon arcs higher

Buoyant into twilight

As an inch or two more

Separates it from the horizon

And into what dimension

I wonder has the swan

Swum off to now

And for that matter

Wherefore am I 

Falling or rising
Into the cloudless sky

* * * * *

What a treat to walk down to the Creek and watch the full moon rise in the company of this swan - this being last Friday night, the night of the penumbral Snow Moon.  From the looks of this poised and beautiful creature I wonder if this may not be the very same bird that prompted Rilke's lyrical outpouring many years ago.  On a spectral night such as this so much can be read into this picture about the various realms unseen - which is, I guess, precisely what my poem is attempting to describe.

So Much for the Mind of Winter (finally a reply to Wallace Stevens)

Today we've had a severe winter storm - the picture alongside was taken this afternoon of the laurels in our front yard on the point of unconditional surrender. All day we have been pounded with heavy winds and wet snow, so far more than a foot has accumulated.  It's the hardest kind of snow to remove - sodden and clinging to the shovel.  After doing my best to clear the driveway for the second time, I went for a walk out to the dock on Bay Avenue (where I retraced the steps I have taken on several such occasions before)  and had a chance to write the following poem:

So Much for the Mind of Winter (or finally I get straight on my reply to Wallace Stevens' Snowman)

There is nothing

Quite as scouring

Or uplifting as a severe

Winter storm out here

On the East End

The east bank

Of the Creek is

All but invisible now

In the driving snow

As I walk to the end of the dock

On the Bay Avenue pier the wind 

Tears through successive layers 

Getting subcutaneous soon

Enough in its lacerations

And soon too my fingers are 

Burning or else completely numbed

Just from writing a few words down

On my notebook's wet page

This is the kind

Of winter storm that

Great Russian poets

Used to extol about 

When a horse can get lost 

And expire only a few yards

Outside the front gate

It’s no longer a matter

Of fine poetic diction

I’d much rather be

Nice and warm back home

As opposed to any more

Exposed to the north wind 

Leaving off altogether
Any further cultivation of  

This frickin' mind of winter

Towards a Faith-Based Practice of Art: a short note of thanks to Mr. Apology

Theory + Practice by Fischli and Weiss

In the last 15 or 20 years the word practice has taken on a new depth of meaning, particularly as the word is now frequently used to describe a wide range of creative activities.  It has become common if not fashionable for painters and sculptors and poets and novelists to think and speak in terms of their creative practice.  As kids growing up we used to think about and speak of practice in a very different way.  Back then it was a matter of routine and drudgery, like the finger exercises we were forced to do on the piano after school.  We understood practice primarily in a negative sense – it was only worthwhile because we were told it might be the route to Carnegie Hall at the end of the day. 

But in this more contemporary usage – the word practice has taken on an enlarged and more positive significance.  We speak of creative practice in the same sense that the word it is used by Zen monks and Jesuit novitiates describing their day-to-day spiritual life.   Practice in this positive sense lies much more at the heart of the creative process in the same way it is accepted as integral to spiritual faith. It is not so much a means as an end in itself.  In the traditional western framework (by which I mean to say the framework I grew up with in America of the 1960’s) we practiced hitting fungo or played scales on the cello solely in order to prepare for a performance or some other significant future event, which would be “real” as opposed to practice.  But in the more contemporary sense of the term, we really pursue our artistic practice as a path unto itself.

Much of this shift in thinking and in our lexicon, I believe, is due to the increasingly widespread influence of various eastern traditions, and in particular Buddhism, across the broad landscape of American culture.  For at least 50 years now there has been a significant degree of overlap between various creative communities and Buddhist sanghas, with a long list of prominent avant-garde artists who are active Buddhist practitioners or fellow travelers, of one stripe or another, from Jack Kerouac to John Cage to Jasper Johns and Brice Mardin.    And more and more, at least among my circle of friends, it has become increasingly common for creative people to include meditation as an integral part of their creative process.  In fact, it seems increasingly common for creative and spiritual practice to begin overlapping, to become part of a single more integrating life experience.  When that happens it brings an entirely different dimension to your creative life.  Creativity is no longer simply a matter of following your passion.  Of course, it’s something you can still feel passionate about, but it also goes beyond passion and takes you right down into the inner most code of your personal operating system – it’s the way you begin to find and express new meaning from day to day.

I think this represents a change much for the better in the way we understand what it means to be creative – it heralds something of a new age in which spiritual and creative practice come together as one.  It leads us towards creative work that is far less driven by the dictates of the market, and towards art that is more attuned or responsive to the illumination cast by an inner light.  This is what I believe it means to be working towards or practicing a faith-based art.  It does not require or entail an artist-practitioner to adhere to any particular set of beliefs or dogma – our only dogma or dharma is that which flows from the creative practice itself.  We become fully committed to using our artistic practice as a way to engage with and learn more about the world, as a direct extension or integral part of our spiritual practice, whatever that may happen to entail.

*  *  *  *  *

 For me there is another significant way in which my creative pursuits have acquired a distinctly spiritual dimension.  I believe that creative insight or vision is very often passed down through a distinct lineage, from one artist to the next.  This kind of personal transmission is certainly familiar to those who have engaged in an eastern spiritual practice, where spiritual insight is passed down in precisely the same a way, in a direct handoff from master to disciple.

I know many artists for whom the seed of inspiration was first nurtured by close association with a spiritual and artistic mentor.  Quite simply, there’s no substitute for the knowledge that you can glean up close from watching an inspired artist at work in the flesh, breathing the same air and directly observing the creative process as it unfolds.  It is a form of knowledge that unfolds in a wordless fashion much like the truth of the Flower Sermon. In my case, the artist who has inspired me most  -- sad to say – is not someone I ever had a chance to meet personally, even though so much of my current life is directly shaped by his genius.

Mr. Apology, Allan Bridge

I am referring to the artist Allan Bridge better known as Mr. Apology.  Valentine’s Day is his birthday and this year he would have been 72 years old.  He died in an accident in 1995.  His death for me is a source of many mixed feelings and meanings.  Tragic in the full sense of the word – the way Euripides understood tragedy – Allan was an artist who was literally consumed by the brilliance of his vision – he gave everything of himself to his work and ultimately it destroyed him.  His masterpiece was a conceptual art project called the Apology Line, which he launched in 1980 and then devoted the next 15 years of his life to nurturing and expanding into the world’s first electronic community – a community that predated the advent of the Internet by more than a dozen years.  He did it all with twisted pair copper wire and answering machines he bought at Radio Shack and then jerry rigged to suit the purposes of his artistic and spiritual vision – to provide a safe haven (which he operated entirely outside any established religious, cultural or legal framework) where anyone could call and apologize for whatever was troubling their heart or soul.  Many thousands of people did.  You can read more about Allan and his incredible work by clicking here.

I say Allan’s death is a source of mixed meaning for me in part because his life story is both inspiring and a cautionary tale.  In his later years he grew deeply frustrated and depressed, as he had devoted the entirety of his creative energy and identity over a period of 15 years to a work that ultimately failed to draw attention or support from the cultural establishment.  He built this thriving community – in which he stood at the center, the absolutely vital cog in the operation, requiring his complete attention night and day – and yet he was positioned in the shadows and stood in isolation from all the other members of the community.  Mr. Apology ultimately remained an anonymous and brooding figure, an aloof and less than human presence pulling the levers of the machine.  Not only that, but Allan never figured out a way to make the effort pay, in practical terms, or to provide himself with a means of support to continue with his work.  The accident in which he died was entirely avoidable except for the fact that something vital inside of Allan very likely had already died – in a Pygmalion like way he ended up becoming drawn in and consumed by his own creation. 

That a faith-based practice of art can lead an artist towards darkness as well as light is something I have struggled with myself in recent years.  The pursuit of a creative practice may be an organizing principle for an individual artist but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world (or any meaningful part of it) is going to embrace the artist’s vision or work.  Therein lies a huge difference between what it means to engage in spiritual practice as part of a sangha, where the religious community you’re a member of is at least in theory there to provide succor and support, in contrast to an artistic practice, where the artist really has no organized community to provide the equivalent sort of reassurance or safety net.  Much more typically the artist must forge a path forward in the face of indifference, struggling to navigate a path towards personal truth, without running aground on the many surrounding dangers.  The longer one pursues a creative practice in isolation, the harder it becomes not to succumb to a sense of despair.

 This is a poem I wrote several years ago with Mr. Apology’s work and ultimate fate very much in mind:

Ode to Truth

Poetry entails
A spiritual practice
If nothing else as
The accidental byproduct
Of the relentless pursuit
Of a full and fair description
Of simple but ineffable truths

Which may be found

In the oddest places

Quite unexpectedly and

By the most ironic of means

Though sadly it may end up

Cutting us most deeply

If we should fail to realize

In our admiring gaze

It’s a two-edged sword

We hold aloft in our hands

Whether or not Allan’s work ever receives the broader recognition it richly deserves, the spirit of Apology lives on in countless ways.   I try to comfort myself with this awareness when I consider the very limited audience I’ve been able to find for my own writing over the last 15 years.  Faith-based-art possesses a real and practical power to move us forward in our lives, no matter how an artist’s work is received in their own place and time.  And the message and meaning of a creative practice may be passed on, from one person to another as a form of living truth, no matter how high a price an individual artist ends up paying for pursuing and cultivating the faith.

That being said, I remain incredibly grateful to family and friends for every scrap of emotional support I am able to glean along the way.  Qui transtulit sustinet is the motto by which I try to operate, whether translating Tang poetry or writing my own poems, from one day to the next.

*  *  *  *  *

This essay is an excerpt from my new book, still very much a work in progress, the working title of which is The Little Book of Nothing.   Please click here and add your name to my mailing list if you are interesting in hearing more as this book progresses. 

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Pinocchio's Song

A modern Tang poet aspires to be  

Both a puppet and a dummy

Freely possessed by the voice

Of all ten thousand things

And keenly aware the tug of

Each and every string
That’s attached

This short song is the result of an exchange on FB with my friend Michael Freed.  It started out with his posting this drawing of Pinocchio, which then prompted an extended back and forth about freedom and illusion.  The doctrine of Pratityasamutpada teaches us that everything is dependently arising - so from a Buddhist perspective we should see there are strings attached not just to the puppet but to the scissors as well. This further suggests there may be a better path to freedom - to free ourselves of the yearning to be free of the strings instead of trying to cut ourselves free in fact.  Understood literally or metaphorically, the latter approach is always likely to entangle us in a heap of difficulty.     

Reclimbing Fern Hill (I See Floodwaters Rising)

Then for now

Or now for then

To be green and golden

Or gray and olden

Time knows no mercy

But restores the world
To the same old pleasures

Via the same old

Circular means

All that’s to come

Has been foreshadowed

In the light of all

That has ever been

So we dance on and on
Holding hands unbroken

Change is an illusion

And so too are the chains

That won't keep the seas

From rising again

* * * * *

The immediate prompt for this poem was the image (reproduced below) that my friend Christy Rupp  posted to Facebook.   Simple but harrowing.  It shows that Photoshop is not only capable of distorting an image but (in the right hands) is also capable of restoring us to a fuller sense of its original meaning. 

Christy's reworking of the Orwell cover in turn inspired me to revisit Fern Hill - in greener days, one of my favorite poems.    The more things change, the more they stay the same, but also the more our understanding has a chance to ripen and deepen; with any luck, eventually we become attuned to the rhythm and patterns of of time's circularity.  Perhaps if we re-climb Fern Hill enough times the chains of our purely linear perspective will fall away altogether!   Free at last, free at last - too bad all we see are the floodwaters rising ...

  

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