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A Brief for the Defense - Poem by Jack Gilbert

I'm in a bit of a melancholy mood after homeless church this morning - thought I'd find some resonance with a poem that was recently sent to me by a good friend.  This one helped . . .

A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies

are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

-Jack Gilbert

 

First Tweets - I'm nobody! Who are you?

I just entered the Twitter-verse (http://twitter.com/#!/BrianBajari) with a bit of reluctance . . . for a variety of reasons. However, I thought my initial foray into tweeting should begin with a poem from one who was rather hidden & better known as a gardener in her lifetime - though her poetry would later change the world. Needless to say, the practice of quiet & anonymity was good for Emily & the poems hidden in her desk drawer needed to remain hidden until the correct time emerged.  Doubtless she would have remained rather unknown in the web 2.0 world.  So I hold her thoughts with me as I plunge deeper into a world of savage verbiage.  Of course quiet & a movement toward hiddenness may be a tonic for all of us so immersed in instantaneous information.  So yes I now tweet but with a sense of nobody-ness in & around me.

 

I'm nobody! Who are you?

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog! 

 

-Emily Dickinson

 

 

There is a Place Beyond Ambition - Mary Oliver

There is a Place Beyond Ambition

When the flute players couldn’t think of what to say next

they laid down their pipes,

then they lay down themselves

beside the river

and just listened.

Some of them, after a while,

jumped up

and disappeared back inside the busy town.

But the rest—

so quiet, not even thoughtful—

are still there,

still listening.

- Mary Oliver

Horae Canonicae - W.H. Auden (A section for Good Friday)

SEXT

III.

Anywhere you like, somewhere

on broad-chested life-giving Earth,

anywhere between her thirstlands

and undrinkable Ocean,

the crowd stands perfectly still,

its eyes (which seem one) and its mouths

(which seem infinitely many)

expressionless, perfectly blank.

The crowd does not see (what everyone sees)

a boxing match, a train wreck,

a battleship being launched,

does not wonder (as everyone wonders)

who will win, what flag she will fly,

how many will be burned alive,

is never distracted

(as everyone is always distracted)

by a barking dog, a smell of fish,

a mosquito on a bald head:

the crowd sees only one thing

(which only the crowd can see)

an epiphany of that

which does whatever is done.

Whatever god a person believes in,

in whatever way he believes,

(no two are exactly alike)

as one of the crowd he believes

and only believes in that

in which there is only one way of believing.

Few people accept each other and most

will never do anything properly,

but the crowd rejects no one, joining the crowd

is the only thing all men can do.

Only because of that can we say

all men are our brothers,

superior, because of that,

to the social exoskeletons: When

have they ever ignored their queens,

for one second stopped work

on their provincial cities, to worship

The Prince of this world like us,

at this noon, on this hill,

in the occasion of this dying.

This is a section of perhaps one of the greatest & at the same time one of the most neglected poems of the English language . . .  Auden's Horae Canonicae has helped me understand how all of us have joined the crowd - whether we like it, admit it, attest to it or not.  You can read the entire poem here - take your time & read it aloud if you can.  This is not an easy poem to read but is certainly worth the climb.

You Whose Name - Czeslaw Milosz

You Whose Name

You whose name is aggressor and devourer.
Putrid and sultry, in fermentation.
You mash into pulp sages and prophets,
Criminals and heroes, indifferently.
My vocativus is useless.
You do not hear me, though I address you,
Yet I want to speak, for I am against you.
So what if you gulp me, I am not yours.
You overcome me with exhaustion and fever.
You blur my thought, which protests,
You roll over me, dull unconscious power.
The one who will overcome you is swift, armed:
Mind, spirit, maker, renewer.
He jousts with you in depths and on high,
Equestrian, winged, lofty, silver-scaled.
I have served him in the investiture of forms.
It’s not my concern what he will do with me.

A retinue advances in the sunlight by the lakes.
From white villages Easter bells resound.

- Czeslaw Milosz

Why Some People Do Not Read Poetry - W.S. Merwin

Why Some People Do Not Read Poetry

Because they already know that it means
stopping and without stopping they know that
beyond stopping it will mean listening
listening without hearing and maybe
then hearing without hearing and what would
they hear then what good would it be to them
like some small animal crossing the road
suddenly there but not seeming to move
at night and they are late and may be on
the wrong road over the mountain with all
the others asleep and not hitting it
that time as though forgetting it again

-W.S. Merwin

A Blessing for One Who is Exhausted - John O'Donohue

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The ride you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.A

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

Beannacht - John O'Donahue (poem)

Beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

when the canvas frays
in the curach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the the protection of the anscestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

When Death Comes - Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

and therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music, in the mouth,
ending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real,
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

You See I Want a Lot - Ranier Maria Rilke

You See I Want a Lot

You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don’t seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it’s not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there.