Setting Things Right

Every Thought...

Week 49: Tales of Simorgh


12/02:

TWL, Lines 424-426: The Fisher King


424 I sat upon the shore
425 Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
426 Shall I at least set my lands in order?

425. THE FISHER KING: Eliot: “V. Weston, From Ritual to Romance; chapter on the Fisher King.”

The fisher king sitting on a river bank, and the allusion of one who was gravely injured and, with his entire country, desperately in need of healing, is a prevailing image in this poem.  See Weston, Ritual to Romance 9: 117, 129:

“...he was called the Fisher King because of his devotion to the pastime of fishing ...If the Grail story be based upon a Life ritual the character of the Fisher King is of the very essence of the tale, and his title, so far from being meaningless, expresses, for those who are at pains to seek, the intention and object of the perplexing whole.”

But the image of this fisherman keeps reappearing in different shades and colors. See him weeping at lines 182-184, then sitting alongside a rat in the mud at lines 185-189, then musing upon the king’s wreck at lines 190-192. Later, fishmen are lounging at noon at line 263. Eliot directly compared the Fisher King to the Tarot deck’s three-staved merchant who stands on a seaside cliff and watches ships pass by (see notes 46 and 51), and he also imagined the fisherman as a sailor coming home from the sea in the evening (see note 221). Finally, at line 425, with the dry land behind him and the water in front of him, the Fisher King considers whether it might be time to set things right.

See Isaiah 38:1:

  “Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.”

This was Isaiah’s counsel to a mortally sick King Hezekiah, which led the king to weep.


12/03:

Tales of Simorgh, Revisited


O swallows, swallows, poems are not
The point. Finding again the world,
That is the point...
— Howard Nemerov

  This is the culmination of my Thirty Birds collection, a poem presented in modified ghazal style reflecting the 12th century Persian legend of Simorgh, king of the birds.  The various species of birds in the world agreed that they needed to find their king, but most species, being bound to their various natures, are unable to commit to the harrowing journey.  Only thirty birds remain to climb the final mountain, where each bird sees the king, Simorgh, in a different light, yet Simorgh is king of all of them.

The original story, by Farid ud-Din Attar, is an epic poem that runs for 4,500 lines.  My poem is barely one percent of this, but I hope I have captured that which has intrigued me the most about this tale.  We birds are flawed as we make our way to God, and many of us will not make it to the end.  We are also biased in our perceptions, and even as we approach the palace, we only see what we are able to see.  And who, ultimately, is right?  All of us, and none of us, too.  We see only a dark reflection for now, but one day we will see face to face.


12/04:

Tales, Part I


The simple truth falls in a single feather to thirty birds
And God is revealed to the congregation...

A single feather floats down from a mountain far away
And faith takes its hold in the speculation...

A thousand faces, a thousand creeds, as many excuses:
We see ourselves burn in the conflagration...

And who would believe the outcome of this gathering babel?
Consensus is born of determination...

In unified purpose, the kingless resolve to find their king,
To put face to feathery form, the nation of thirty birds.
 
 
12/05:

Tales, Part II


The hoopoe tells of an arduous flight through seven valleys
With tales of trials along the way, for every bird a tale:

Tale of the nightingale in love with love, the thorniest rose;
Tale of the peacock who clings to the trappings of paradise;

Tale of the parrot who seeks its eternal existence here;
Tale of the duck looking in ponds for purity to appear;

Tale of the homa, shadow-slave to the vanity of kings;
Tale of the falcon, blinded by the status its master brings;

Tale of the heron in a lonely place, gazing at the sea;
Tale of the owl seeking treasure, finding anxiety;

Tale of the sparrow of humility and hypocrisy;
Tale of the phoenix caught in a cycle, ever born to die;

Tale of the partridge who lives for love of gems that never move;
Tale of a lovebird chained forever to superficial love;

Tale after tale, revealing how through every foibled fable
We see ourselves burn in the conflagration of thirty birds.


12/06:

Tales, Part III


And so on speaks the hoopoe, for every bird another tale
And along the way he dedicates a word for every vale:

Valley of the Quest, of zeal, of all that a heart can achieve;
Vale of Love, of spark and fire, desire for the heart to move;

Vale of Insight, to crave, to hunger, to have all truths revealed;
Vale of Detachment, of abandon, Joseph thrown into a well;

Vale of Unity, through faith, the purest essence of the soul;
Vale of Awe, doubting doubt and finding the unbelievable;

Vale of Poverty, of emptiness, what words cannot express,
Beyond all selfish acts, the final cup of nothingness;

Until at last, through zeal and spark and craving and abandon,
through faith and awe and selflessness they climb the final mountain.

And they will find their king...


12/07:

Tales, Part IV


Come you lost Atoms, to your Center draw, and be the Mirror,
Reflecting God’s light in the contemplation...

Come you without feather, uplift your souls, leave gravity behind
And give wing to the lofty aspiration...

But even as angels to earth will return, send back your songs
Of faith and truth and all the proclamations...

I sing, Simorgh, my own reflections of God the great I Am
Through the Son of Man, my only known salvation...

But I will turn my self to selflessness, and to the world will sing
In ghazals of old, this nascent explanation of thirty birds.


12/08:

Moleskin 5.10: Rivers Of Hope And Worry


There are times when I look at my eighteen year old daughter or my fifteen year old son that I wish I could jump ahead a few years just to see how everything turns out. I worry for them sometimes, but more often it is fatherly pride that sparks this wish. I am eager to see their lives unfold, and my wishes become even more hopeful as I think further ahead, to years I become increasingly less likely to see. This is not the best way to tell a story, though. I am eager now to tell you what would happen when I was fourteen, and twenty three, and twenty six ----not to mention those years ahead after my son and daughter were born. Of course I did not know any of these things in the summer and fall of twelve, though, and as I sat and contemplated the stream before me my thoughts were filled more with worry than eagerness, more worry than a wandersome boy should be troubled with, less eagerness than one would expect along the edge of stability. But that’s where I was.