Tolling Reminiscent Bells...

Every Thought...

Week 41: Modern Times

Call this a delayed reaction, sparked a month late by the timing of annotations.  For fifteen years we have paused on the day of 9/11, remembering what we cannot forget, forgetting sometimes that the story has not ended.

10/07:

  TWL, lines 367-385:  Falling Towers

  367 What is that sound high in the air
  368 Murmur of maternal lamentation
  369 Who are those hooded hordes swarming
  370 Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
  371 Ringed by the flat horizon only
  372 What is the city over the mountains
  373 Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
  374 Falling towers
  375 Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
  376 Vienna London
  377 Unreal

  378 A woman drew her long black hair out tight
  379 And fiddled whisper music on those strings
  380 And bats with baby faces in the violet light
  381 Whistled, and beat their wings
  382 And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
  383 And upside down in air were towers
  384 Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
  385 And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

  367. A DRUNKEN HYMN: Eliot: “Cf. Hermann Hesse, Blick ins Chaos: Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas auf dem Wege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligen Wahn am Abgrund entlang und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang. Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heilige und Seher hört sie mit Tränen.”

  See Hesse, A Glimpse of Chaos (note 298), with reference to Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (note 248):

  “Already half Europe, at all events half Eastern Europe, is on the road to Chaos. In a state of drunken illusion she is reeling into the abyss and, as she reels, she sings a drunken hymn such as Dmitri Karamazov sang. The insulted citizen laughs that song to scorn, the saint and seer hear it with tears.”

  Compare St. Augustine’s point of conversion, leaving behind influences of drunkenness and lust, at note 307.

  Meanwhile, the incognizance of lines 366 and 367 continues at lines 369 and 372. Compare lines 54-56, where Madame Sosostris could not find the Hanged Man (which Eliot associated with the hooded figure of Christ (see note 46 and line 364)) and saw only “crowds (now hooded hordes) of people, walking round in a ring.”

  374. FALLING TOWERS: The unreal city (see note 60), previously seen at dawn and at noon (see lines 61 and 208), is now in Tiresias’s violet hour (see lines 215 and 220 and note 380); it is also a city at war with bombs bursting, planes whistling and towers falling.

  Towers will appear throughout section five, and while the only towers mentioned previously were white with pealing bells (line 289), they are now falling (line 374), upside down in air (line 383), horrible (note 412) and destroyed (line 430). Compare the tale of the Tower of Babel reaching vainly to God, at Genesis 11:4-9:

  “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men [built].... And the LORD said, Behold, the people ...have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth...”

  376. FALLING CITIES: London is now placed in context with Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria and Vienna, all centers of empires and cultural hubs for their time, but here they are cracking, falling apart and reforming into something unreal.  Babylon (note 209) and Carthage (note 307) may be added to this list.  See also Joyce’s Dublin at note 111.

  378. THE LONG-HAIRED WOMAN, fiddling whisper music on her hair, can be compared to the hyacinth girl, found with “arms full, and ...hair wet” (line 38); the woman on talking walls whose “hair / Spread out in fiery points / Glowed into words” (line 108); the woman who walked the street with “hair down” (line 133); and the woman who “smoothes her hair with automatic hand, / And puts a record on the gramophone” (line 255). See also hair’s tie to fertility in both Frazer, The Golden Bough 3:5.6, and Weston, From Ritual to Romance 4.

  380. THE VIOLET HOUR, previously introduced at lines 215 and 220 as the evening hour at the end of the workday (see note 221), also alludes to the liturgical color of repentance and baptism; see Brooks (note 330).  See also note 68 and Luke* 23:44 for the noon darkness that fell over the earth on Good Friday.  Elsewhere, violet or purple, appearing here as light, describes air (line 373), sails (note 77) and trenches (note 331).  See also Shakespeare, Hamlet 4.5.177 (Ophelia’s violets withered when her father died) and 5.1.229 (Laertes wishing violets would spring from Ophelia’s grave).  See also the “violet and purple morn” in Whitman, Memories  12.  Violet also relates to Phoenicia, the “land of purple”; see note 312.

  BATS WITH BABY FACES: See Pierre Leyris, Poémes, 1910-1930, 155 (1947), relating this passage to Hieronymus Bosch paintings, perhaps alluding to the baby faced bat in Bosch, Hell (1504).

 

  Hieronymus Bosch, Hell (detail) (1504)






  382. CRAWLING DOWN A WALL: See Bram Stoker, Dracula 3 (1897): “I saw the whole man... begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down, with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings.”

  384. TOLLING BELLS: See note 291 for the peal of bells in general, and see line 67, “where St. Mary Woolnoth kept the hours.” See also Whitman, Memories 6:

  “With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang.”

  385. VOICES ...OUT OF EMPTY CISTERNS recalls the “children’s voices in the dome” at line 202.  See also Jeremiah 2:13,14:

  “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. ...The young lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste...”


10/08:

  Sealed

  To put face to feathery form, the nation...   

  An eagle, on the wing and rising to
  the sky, a field prevailing azure, blue
  revealed by golden glory breaking through
  the argent ring of clouds aligned anew
  above the bird: a halo made of stars
  now taking place and rank among the powers,
  the power of peace before the power of wars,
  all sovereignties reordered after ours,
  a nation reckoned by a blazing sun:
  and thus our fate is sealed, all battles won.

 The eagle tips the balance towards peace:
  its dexter talon rightly won’t release
  the olive branch; and peaceward does it face
  forever to its honorable embrace,
  and yet the raptor holds its arrows fast
  within its eastward talon to avast
  what sinister designs may come to pass;
  it clings this bundle, ready to the last
  to stave all threats before they are begun
  and thus our fate is sealed, all battles won.

  Behold the eagle’s shield, the chief and pale
  held front and center by their own avail,
  the two most honored ordinaries hailed
  to mark the great escutcheon unassailed,
  a symbol for the way the eagle rules:
  the azure chief a congress for the whole
  above a pale of stripes, argent and gules
  kept closely unified: so speaks the scroll
  of our perpetual creed: “Of many, one,”
  and thus our fate is sealed, all battles won.
 
  Within the eagle’s beak this Latin pun
  becomes our purpose and criterion,
  our everlasting oath beneath the sun:
  E pluribus, of many, unum, one,
  and thus our fate is sealed, all battles won.


10/09:

  Silence

  Silence is an empty peace;
  Violence is a pointless war.
 
  No one ever dies for silence,
  No one ever wins with violence,
  But there is peace worth fighting for
  As there are wars that fires may cease.
 
  Fires that blaze leave deathly silence,
  None to claim the spoils of violence
  And the pointlessness increases
  When the battlefield releases
  No one to pick up the pieces,
  No one to put up the score,
  No one fighting anymore.
 
  No one wins an empty war.


10/10:

  Beyond Speech and Silence

  from Walled Gardens

  How can one describe God?
  What wins the argument?
 
  Speech is limited to comparison,
  Silence is sworn to dereliction,
  Reason travels far to reach amazement,
  Zeal arrives at self-enrichment,
  Imagination cannot find the truth, and
  Understanding turns to vanity.
  The prophets are confused by God,
  the saints are stupefied.
 
  God is the mind’s desire
  and master of the soul,
  the devotee’s commitment,
  the disciple’s goal,
  but all of this is beyond where reason goes,
  exists above existence, acts
  without regard to the usual bounds:
  There is no “in” or “out”, “how” or “why”.
 

10/11:

  In Progress

  As argument tries to take over,
  What is being taken?
  Everything, it seems,
  Yet nothing more than this:
  You cannot take what you do not want.
  I cannot have what is never mine.
  My hope remains.
  Your faith is your own to find.

  As argument tries to win the day,
  What is there to lose?
  Nothing, it seems,
  Yet everything comes down to this:
  Your victory and my defeat,
  Or my win to your loss,
  Is the death of the conversation
  And the end of us.

  As argument tries to make its point,
  Who gets the final word?
  What is there left to say?


10/12:

  Dreams From September

  September 26, 1990

  Quick dream (I should give this more time): Dan and I are in my car, Dan is driving.  We are stopped and backed up by several cars at the corner of Prospect and Touhy; we are south of the intersection.  I take the opportunity to jump out of the car to quickly run an errand in one of the Prospect shops.  I have some film to turn in and some old record albums I want to sell.  There is a one-stop shop that can take care of both of my needs.

  I turn in the film quickly, but they have to assess the record albums one at a time, and there are about fifteen of them.  I wonder if it will take too long, but I decide Dan will have the sense to pull the car over to the side if the light turns green.

  The shopkeeper looks at the albums.  They are worth 5¢ ...15¢ ...10¢ ...etc., depending on the newness, popularity, size —all the obvious factors.  The total comes to $1.75.  It’s too small an amount, really, but I am ready to concede, wanting to collect the money and get out of the shop quickly.  But then the shopkeeper convinces me that I ought to hold off on selling them until they increase in value.  As a consolation he gives me a punch card which, when filled, will allow me to redeem a given number of records at a higher price.

  I leave the shop ...and outside I find my car sitting sideways, perpendicular to Prospect Avenue with its nose in the middle of the right hand lane and its rear almost right up against the parked cars on the side of the street.  Traffic is slowed down even more now, as cars have to drive around mine now.  Dan is asleep in the passenger seat.  I go over to the driver’s side —and it is crushed, beyond just a scrape, bashed in all along the side.  I am able to open the door and I determine the car will be driveable, but Dan still doesn’t wake up.

 I shout, in a panic.  Dan wakes up groggily and continues to be only half awake for the rest of the dream...  The cops come... We look the car over... I calm down a little... and Dan goes back to sleep.

  Approximately September, 2013

  He stood outside a Shell station in the warm part of fall, wearing scuffed black leather, studded and chained, heavy calf-high boots, fat dark glasses and a nervousness that made me look away.  I didn’t notice his hair, except that it must have completed the grey-black head-to-toe theme he had going, not goth or Johnny Cash but relic all the same. And I didn’t see if he was smoking a cigarette, either, but he had all the gestures: one hand always going to his mouth, a jitteriness about him and a general haziness.  I wasn’t close enough to smell him, but there was no point.  He seemed to be waiting for someone or something, adding to the nervousness, but he stayed close to the side of the building as though what he wanted was right there.  Maybe he just wanted to be noticed.  I imagined him getting up in the morning, putting the whole costume on one piece at a time in front of a mirror, trying to look cool, but that wouldn’t explain why he was here, standing on the alley side of a gas station.  Everything about him was out of alignment: he wore biker gear but there wasn’t a bike around; he might have been waiting for a bus, bu this wasn’t on a bus route.  He looked like there should have been a pay phone next to him and he was waiting for it to ring, except that they took out all the pay phones years ago.  He might have been waiting for someone to come out of the bathroom, or waiting for his turn, except that this particular Shell station didn’t have a side-entrance john. There was an air pump with a few loops of hose next to him, but this was probably just a coincidence, signifying nothing.

  All of this I gathered in a glance, before the nervousness turned me away.

  Inside, the attendant was a chubby faced hispanic named Alexa, according to her name tag.  She was on the afternoon shift, the same shift for enough years to know all the regulars or at least what they wanted.  I never bought gas here, too expensive, but this was a regular stop of mine for a pop on the way home, to get me through the rush hour.  One 20 oz. Diet Coke with one Grandma’s oatmeal cookie pack.  Neither the caffeine or the sugar are good for me but I will not begrudge the routine and I’m sure I spend much less here than most.  Alexa spends more time dispensing cigarettes and lottery tickets than she does my $2.61.  But she knows me, knows my purchase, and we exchange one verison or another of how do you do.  One day I’ll stop for a moment, if there’s no line behind me, and ask her what she thinks of the weather, but even if this ever happens it will probably not go further.  She has customers to attend, I have a forty five minute drive ahead of me and we live in different worlds.


10/13:

  Moleskin 5.4: Backyard River

  And then my family moved, and I moved.  Homes seven, eight and nine were those transitional places between the drainage ditch and the Des Plaines River into which it dumped: the townhome, the apartment, the stepdad’s parent’s home: places I wanted to romanticize as being in the big city and not so far away from the old Chicago River and the great Lake Michigan, but homes I tend to remember and realize in more cynical shades. Our prior dwellings had never been big or glamorous, and we had lived in an urban apartment and even a trailer home before, but I missed the Buffalo River parsonage and everything about it: the neighbors, the space around us, the sense of “us” living in one place, one family with a river in our back yard, just down the hill.

Always Another

Every Thought...

Week 40: We Will Draw Near

This far have I come, into the autumn rustle.  Every thought is a prayer, indeed, and every day is in need of a blessing.  Along this way I am reminded, by sibs and kids especially, of the continual presence of God.

09/30:

  TWL, Lines 360-366: On The Road To Emmaus

   360 Who is the third who walks always beside you?
   361 When I count, there are only you and I together
   362 But when I look ahead up the white road
   363 There is always another one walking beside you
   364 Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
   365 I do not know whether a man or a woman
   366 — But who is that on the other side of you?

  361. SHACKLETON’S ACCOUNT: Eliot: “The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted.”

  See Ernest Shackleton, South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage (1919):

  “When I look back at those days, I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snowfields, but across the storm-strewn sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of 36 hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards  Worsley said to me, ‘Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.’”  Compare Daniel 3:24-25 (note 0.5):
 
  “Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.  He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”

  364. HOODED FIGURES also appear at line 369. In an earlier note (note 46), Eliot identified the hooded figure in this passage as Christ on the road to Emmaus (see note 366), and associated him, through the Tarot deck’s Hanged Man card, with Artemis, goddess of fertility (see note 55).
 
  365. THE PATH OF PURIFICATION: See Bhadantácariya Buddhaghosa, Visuddhimagga ("The Path of Purification," 430 AD, tr. Henry Clarke Warren, 1896):

  “...A certain woman had married into a family of rank, but had quarreled with her husband, and, decked and ornamented, until she looked like a goddess, had issued forth from Anuradhapura, early in the morning, and was returning home to her family. On her way she met the elder, as he was on his way from Mt. Cetiya to go on his begging-rounds in Anuradhapura.  And no sooner had she seen him, than the perversity of her nature caused her to laugh loudly. The elder looked up inquiringly, and observing her teeth, realized the impurity of the body, and attained to saintship. ...Then came her husband, following in her footsteps, and seeing  the elder, he said: ‘Reverend sir, have you seen a woman pass this way?’ And the elder said: ‘Was it a woman, or a man, that passed this way? I cannot tell. But this I know, a set of bones is traveling on upon this road.’”

  Compare Augustine’s experience, just before picking the random bible verse that led to his moment of conversion, at Confessions (note 307) 8.12.29:  “So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, ‘Take up and read; Take up and read.’”

  366. THE ROAD TO EMMAUS passage at Luke 24:13-43 offers another parallel to Shackleton’s account, finally moving the April poem from the pains of Good Friday to a late recognition on the morning of Easter:

  “And behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk , and are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:  And how the chief priests and our rulers  delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither  they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.  And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?  And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.  And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.  And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.  But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.  And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?  Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.  And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.  And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?  And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.  And he took it, and did eat before them.”


10/01:
  
  VI. The Older Son
 
  The older son, the one who stayed
   at his father’s side and in his place
  Was in the field while this went on,
   and when his working day was done
  At the cue of the setting sun he came
   back home again, but as he drew
  Up closer to the house he heard
   the music and the sounds of
        people dancing.

  And looking through the door he saw
   that they had killed the fatted calf.
  What is the meaning of this? he said,
   pulling one of the servants aside,
  And the servant said, your brother is home
   and all of this your father has done
  To welcome him and to receive
   your brother safe and sound where
       he belongs.
 
  This only angered the older son,
   and he stood where he was looking in,
  Refusing to enter through the door
   and scowling at the celebration,
  And even when his father came
   outside to ask him earnestly
  To enter in, to be part of
   the party, the older child started
         arguing.


10/02:
  
  VII. The Younger Brother
 
  Look, the brother said, how many
   years have I been at your side,
  Serving you, following your rules
   and never breaking your commands,
  And have you ever given me
   as much as a suckling goat to share
  With friends, a single night that my friends
   and I might have a party of
         our own?
 
  Yet here, no sooner had your boy
   returned from his great carnival
  Of whores, his share of your estate
   devoured, for this son of yours
  You’ve gone and killed the fatted calf!
   And he despised his brother and
  Continued with his murmuring,
   but the loving father to his son
       replied,

  My son, you are forever with me,
   and everything I have is yours,
  But it was right that we should have
   this feast and celebration, for
  You see, this is your younger brother:
   he was dead, but turn around
  And look, he is alive again! Your
   brother was lost, and now he has
       been found!”


10/03:

  Blessing: An Introduction
 
  This is inspired, at least in part, by brother Josh's persistent challenge to us all to get out another "S2L2A&A" list: songs to listed to again and again.  I don’t have a full list together for this year yet, but I think I'd like to start it with a favorite song from Kirsten's Jubilate Choir days, music that I still like to turn to now and again, eight years later.  The song is Adiemus by Karl Jenkins, the lead part of a full album and the premise for a beautiful choral concert called Songs of Sanctuary.  What makes Jenkins work especially unique is that it's all done in a pseudo=Latin with no specific meaning.  The first lines, for instance, are:
 
  Ari adiemus late
  Ari adiemus da
  Ari a enatus late adua.
 
  It turns out the title can be roughly translated as "We will draw near" in Latin, but Jenkins claimed not to have known this.  Anyway, it's musically rich, solemn, dramatic, full of crescendo and sanctuary but also, at least for me all these years, intriguing in how it seems to beg for more meaning.  So this year I finally decided to give the song my own words.  In the process, arbitrarily or not, I have turned to the well known "bless you keep you" benediction, enhanced with one  of my favorite words, Immanuel, a word worth repeating, again and again.  And yes, the descant remains: we will draw near.


10/04:

  We Will Draw Near
 
  An interpretation of Adiemus, by Karl Jenkins 
 
  Brother, may the Lord be with you
  Like a shepherd in the field
  Giving you the meaning of Immanuel.
  May that mean the whole world to you,
  God's world ever given to you,
  Blessing you no matter where you are.

  Sister, may a world of peace be
  With you everywhere you go,
  Everywhere the meaning of Immanuel.
  May it mean that God will hold you
  Like a mother holds her child who
  Grows up in the arms of loving care.
 
  Son, may God's face shine upon you
  With an everlasting smile,
  Showing you the meaning of Immanuel.
  May it mean that God is with you everywhere.
  (We will draw near.)
  May you know that God is with you everywhere.
  (We will draw near.)
  Immanuel!
  Immanuel!
 
  (We will draw near.)
  (We will draw near.)
 
 Daughter, may the grace of God be
  Something you will come to know
  Moving through the meaning of Immanuel.
  As you wander through the fold and
  Grow beyond the mother's hold, may
  You remember you’re a child of God.
 
  And may God's face shine upon you
  With an everlasting smile,
  Showing you the meaning of Immanuel.
  May it mean that God is with you everywhere.
  (We will draw near.)
  May you know that God is with you everywhere.
  (We will draw near.)
  Immanuel!
  Immanuel!
 
  May the hands of the father hold you.
(We will draw near!)
  May the arms of the mother keep you.
(We will draw near!)
  May the face of the son shine on you.
  (We will draw near!)
  May grace be a lesson to you.
  (We will draw near!)
  May peace be a river through you.
  (We will draw near!)
  May you know that God is with you.
  (We will draw near!)
  Immanuel!
  Immanuel!


10/05:

  Epigraph to Thirty Birds
 
  Come, you lost Atoms,
    to your Center draw,
     and be the ...Mirror...
   
  --- Farid Ud-din Attar


10/06:

  Moleskin 5.3: Lingering River
 
  Let me linger for a moment now, back at my sixth home and its place on the Buffalo River: a muddy river, full of the soil of the fields around it; a rising river in the spring, finding its way into our basement from time to time; a meandering river that shapes its own valleys in the shadow of the Red River of the North; a river of gravel road bridges and big mud turtles. My mother had her small job of reading and reporting the river heights at the bridge station just down the hill from our home; my father worked at the church up the hill on the other side of the river, a quarter mile down and up that hill. I swam in the Buffalo River, as muddy as it was, and I explored the woods behind our house that bordered the river and give it riparian solace. I met neighbors and friends my own age all along the river: across from us, the Akers; a mile east and south, the Horpedahls. Spiritually I am still sitting, will always be, along that river, with water that seems to barely move.

The Wondrous Chant of the Gray-Brown Bird

Every Thought...

Week 39: Parable

The Return Of The Prodigal Son is really seven parables in one, each teaching a different lesson with different people and all lessons leading to the same conclusion: there is a place for us!


09/23:

  TWL, Lines 331-359 Thirty Good Lines

  331 Here is no water but only rock
  332 Rock and no water and the sandy road
  333 The road winding above among the mountains
  334 Which are mountains of rock without water
  335 If there were water we should stop and drink
  336 Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
  337 Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
  338 If there were only water amongst the rock
  339 Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
  340 Here one can neither stand not lie nor sit
  341 There is not even silence in the mountains
  342 But dry sterile thunder without rain
  343 There is not even solitude in the mountains
  344 But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
  345 From doors of mudcracked houses
  346   If there were water

  347 And no rock
  348 If there were rock
  349 And also water
  350 And water
  351 A spring
  352 A pool among the rock
  353 If there were the sound of water only
  354 Not the cicada
  355 And dry grass singing
  356 But sound of water over a rock
 357 Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
  358 Drop drop drip drop drop drop drop
  359 But there is no water

  331. THIRTY GOOD LINES: T.S. Eliot wrote to Ford Madox Ford in 1923 that there were “about thirty good lines in The Waste Land, can you find them?” Ford declined to take the bait, so Eliot answered himself in a subsequent letter: “As for the lines I mention, you need not scratch your head over them. They are the 29 lines of the water-dripping song in the last part.” See Eliot, Letters II. A few years earlier, in Reflections on Contemporary Poetry, Egoist (November 1917), Eliot had called Ford’s poem Antwerp (1917) “the only good poem I have met with on the subject of the war.” Ford’s poem graphically describes “the trench of gray mud ...turned to a brown purple drain...” See note 61 for references to the war within The Waste Land.

  343. LIMBO: Compare the absence of silence, of solitude and the presence of a dry thunder to the suspended state of limbo in Dante, Inferno 4.41-42 (see note 64).  See also Brooks (note 330), comparing these descriptions to the different sounds and presences to come, when a third will begin to walk beside the travelers (lines 360-366) and the thunder will bring rain and words with meaning (lines 400-423).

  357. THE HERMIT-THRUSH: Eliot: “This is Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii, the hermit-thrush which I have heard in Quebec County. Chapman says (Handbook of Birds in Eastern North America) ‘it is most at home in secluded woodland and thickety retreats.... Its notes are not remarkable for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and exquisite modulation they are unequalled.’ Its ‘water-dripping song’ is justly celebrated.”  See Frank M. Chapman, Handbook (1896).

  Lines 331-359 present the longest stretch of the poem in Eliot’s own voice without apparent allusions or the need for translation, but the hermit thrush's call at the end of this passage represents  the hint of, or the longing for, a third voice. This itself alludes to the hermit thrush in Whitman, Memories:

  “4.

  In the swamp in secluded recesses,
  A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

  Solitary the thrush,
  The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
  Sings by himself a song.

  Song of the bleeding throat,
  Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
  If thou wast not granted to sing thou would'st surely die.)

    ...

  13.

  Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,
  Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the
  bushes,
  Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

  Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,
  Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

  O liquid and free and tender!
  O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer!

  You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)
  Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.

  ...

 16.

  Passing the visions, passing the night,
  Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades' hands,
  Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my
      soul,
  Victorious song, death's outlet song, yet varying ever-altering
  song,
  As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling,
  flooding the night,
  Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet
  again bursting with joy,
  Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,
  As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,
  Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,
  I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with
      spring.

  I cease from my song for thee,
  From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing
      with thee,
  O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.

  Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
  The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
  And the tallying chant, the echo arous'd in my soul,
  With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full
      of woe,
  With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
  Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to
      keep, for the dead I loved so well,
  For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this
      for his dear sake,
  Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
  There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.”


09/24:

   I. The Shepherd

  “What one of you who murmur,
  disapproving of the company I keep,
  Who grumble at these sinners
  drawing near that they may hear,
  Who complain about the publicans
  so hungry for my words and
  Would not have me receive them
  at my table —which of you,

  If you were a hired shepherd, and
  you lost one of your hundred sheep,
  Would not leave the ninety nine
  in the ambles of your wilderness
  To go after the one who strayed
  into the mountains?  Wouldn’t you
  Be relieved to find your little one,
  to lift him up, to carry him on
      your shoulders?

  And who among you, coming home
  with news to share with everyone,
  Would hesitate to call your friends
  and neighbors round to celebrate
  The simple fact that you had found
  that little one that you had sought
  And could restore him to the good
  folds of your pasture?  Tell me,
      would you not?”


09/25:
  
   II. The Housekeeper

  “So will the angels cheer in heaven, and
  how much more their cheering for
  The one returning soul than for
  the ninety nine who never wandered?”
  And even as the Pharisees
  continued with their murmuring, he
  Kept talking to them, questioning
  and challenging them with parables.

  “Imagine you are a woman now
  with only ten coins to your name,
  And then suppose you find one day
  that you had lost one of your coins:
  Which of you would not turn up the lights
  and sweep out your entire house,
  Looking everywhere until you
  found that one lost piece of silver,

  And in that coin would you not find
  the grounds to dance, a cause to call
  Your friends and neighbors, all of them,
  to share the joy with you?  I tell you,
  So do heaven’s angels sing and dance,
  God’s very name pronounced
  With celebration every time
  a single sinner simply turns
      around.


09/26:
  
   III. The Prodigal Son

  There was a man who had two sons
  and the one who was the younger stood
  Up to his father.  Father, he said,
  give me the part of your estate
  I would inherit now, as I
  can’t wait around for you to die.
  And so the father, still alive,
  took what he had and gave it to
      his sons.

  Then, with his share, the younger son,
  who could have been a blessed one
  And always had a place to stay,
  within a week was out the door,
  Taking a different road and looking for
  a distant land, somewhere to waste
  The substance of his portion, and
  the road took him where he meant
      to go,

  And there he lived in riotous
  abandon, spending all he had,
  But then a mighty famine came
  and he became a beggar of the land,
  An immigrant among the citizens,
  consigned to work their fields
  And feed their pigs, willing to line
  his belly with the husks left for
      the swine.


09/27:
  
   IV. The Road Home

  But when no one gave him anything,
  he started talking to himself,
  Questioning, remembering
  how servants working for his father
  Always had enough to eat,
  and bread to spare, he said, and here
  Am I, so far away from where
  I was, with less than I need to stay
      alive.

  I will stand, he said, and go back to
  my father. Father, I will say,
  I have sinned against the heavens, and you
  have seen me.  I have turned away,
  But now I fall before you, one
  no longer worthy to be called your son.
  Instead, I beg you, let me be
  one of the hired servants in
  your fields.

  And the son arose and started walking
  back towards his father’s place,
  But when he was still a long way off
  the father saw the suffering of
  His child and he was greatly moved.
  He ran to him with open arms,
  He fell on him with a strong embrace,
  he held him to his heart and kissed
      his face.


09/28:
  
   V. The Celebration!

  The son, just as he planned, began
  to say, Father, I have sinned against
  The heavens, and in your sight I am
  no longer worthy to be your son,
  But before he reached the begging part
  to work as a servant in the fields
  The father wiped his words away
  and turned toward the servants he
  had hired.

  Bring out my finest robe, he said,
  and give it to my son to wear,
  Let him have rings for his fingers
  and put new shoes upon his feet,
  And then bring out the fatted calf,
  have it quartered, chopped and cut
  Into the finest veal for our table
  that we may eat and celebrate
      the day,

  And then as they prepared the feast
  and as the plates of veal were passed
  The father rose and raised his glass
  and gave a toast to all the house:
  My son was dead, he said, but now
  he is alive!  My son was lost
  But here again, you see, my son
  is found!  My little one is home
      at last!


09/29:
  
  Moleskin 5.2: Rivers

  My first home was Owatonna, Minnesota, a town built on the banks of the Straight River, Straight, or Owatonna, being the name of a Dakota princess who was first healed by mineral springs on a tributary, Maple Creek. I lived there as an infant and remember nothing of it. My second home was in Billings, Montana, however many blocks away from the Yellowstone River: I was a toddler here, and I do not recall anything about my toddler years. Third was Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the mighty Mississippi courses through; we lived in a trailer park just east of the Miss, but my memories are only third party suggestions: I am told I first learned my address here, and being told this enough afterwards I still remember it. Fourth was Maddock, North Dakota, with no rivers of its own but the Big Coulee two miles west and the Sheyenne five miles south. I remember Maddock —our house anyway —but not the rivers. Fifth was New Hope, Minnesota, four miles west again of the Mississippi, still in the days before I had ever heard of Huck Finn.

Free Music

Every Thought...

Week 38: Songs To Listen To

Songs to listen to again and again, a beautiful way of showing and sharing a part of what makes us tick, of celebrating our variety and expanding the awareness of our collective souls...

09/16:

  TWL, Lines 322-330: After... 

  322 After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

  323 After the frosty silence in the gardens

  324 After the agony in stony places

  325 The shouting and the crying

  326 Prison and palace and reverberation

  327 Of thunder of spring over distant mountains

  328 He who was living is now dead

  329 We who were living are now dying

  330 With a little patience

  322. REORDERING: See line 427: “Shall I at least set my lands in order?” After the disorder of the first four parts of this poem, part five opens with four lines, one for each part, summarizing where we have been so far.  The sections are still out of order for now, but earth, air, fire and water are now revisited with the word “after.” This follows lines 297-280 (“After the event he wept”); see note 279 for what the event may be, but “after,” repeatedly spoken, now suggests an opening willingness to move forward. 

  AFTER THE TORCHLIGHT: See the fire of Part III, with its river sweat (line 266), red sails (line 270) and incessant burning (line 308). 

  

  HOLY WEEK is also reflected at lines 322-330, with several specific Gethsemene references (torch, sweat, garden, agony) ; see also notes 71, 321.5, 322, 366 and 393, and see Luke 22: 39-45 (note 0.5):  “And he [Jesus] came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow.”

  See also Matthew 26:36 (note 0.5), placing this prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane; and John 18:3 (note 0.5), adding soldiers’ torches to the scene; and compare these to the torches in Whitman, Memories 6 (see notes 2, 61). 

  323. AFTER THE FROST: See the water of Part IV (see note 311.5) and its association with the drowned girl in the hyacinth garden (lines 37 and 38). 

  324. AFTER STONY PLACES: See the earth of Part I (see note 0.5), with its stony rubbish (line 20). See also Matthew 13:5 (note 0.5):

  

  “Some [seeds] fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth.” 

  325. AFTER SHOUTING AND CRYING: See the air and talk of Part II (see note 76.5).  “After” is implied here (see note 322), perhaps not uttered to keep with a developing pattern of threes (see note 434). 

  330. BEFORE THE EPIPHANY: See Cleanth Brooks, Modern Poetry and the Tradition 7: The Waste Land: Critique of the Myth (1939)., noting the limbo of those “living ...now dying” in split levels of life and death.  See also note 64.  This description of “he”  and “we” also reflects the mood of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (see note 366): in their grieving, before Jesus was revealed to them, they talked to him and walked with him and listened to him and finally asked him to tarry with them longer over a meal, all “with a little patience” (line 330).

09/17:

  Meditations of a Waiting Room

  

  Today we meditated: father, son

  And waited on a Wednesday afternoon

  To see the doctor of attention spans

  Whom we had hoped to meet at four pm

  But found her overbooked and in demand.

  We found ourselves within a waiting room

  Of fellow patients of psychiatry

  (And those of us along for the support)

  For two full hours, and ironically

  Amid the stacks of social magazines

  And with a background television on,

  Among a sampling of the population

  Listening to hear their names be called,

  We meditated. Unexpectedly

  

  My son, the one who never could sit still,

  Is starting to mature before my eyes.

  He’s waiting here more patiently than me,

  And I begin to wonder anymore

  If he’d been diagnosed with ADD

  A bit to hastily back in the day

  When he was acting all of eight years old

  And telegraphing his apparent need

  For Adderol, if we have come this far

  Again to have his old prescription filled

  More out of habit than necessity,

  And if there isn’t better therapy

  In meditations of a waiting room

  Than medications of amphetamine.

 Today we meditated: everyone

  Who waited with us had a different need,

  A different habit, if their trials be told,

  And yet we seem to be so much the same,

  At least as far as anyone reveals.

  I don’t begrudge the doctor for her role

  In getting us to recognize ourselves

  And realize how simple life can be,

  How we all need this opportunity

  Of time, however given, to reflect

  On simple things, like having empathy

  Or understanding our maturity

  Or sitting in positions of support

  Or being patient in a waiting room.

  

  My father once was in a waiting room

  For me. The wait was relatively short

  And our trial was a different one to tell,

  A different diagnosis, but the same

  Prognosis: Give it time, give it time.

  The doctor didn’t specify these words

  Or scribble his prescription b.i.d.,

  But as he had my father wait outside

  He talked to me a while, and then he asked

  If I played chess. This took me by surprise,

  But I said yes, and so the troubled teen

  And the Psy.D. played chess while the old man

  Was waiting in the hall, more patiently

  Than I appreciated, until now.

09/18:

  Songs To Listen To

   ...This next piece is inspired by brother Joshua’s persistent Symposian call for submissions of S2L2A&A: songs to listen to again and again. Thank you Josh.  Here is what my kids and I came up with.

  

  Andrew

  

  The state of Massachusetts by Drop Kick Murphy

  Back aginst the wall by Cage the Elephant    

  Horchata by Vampire weekend

  Little lion man by Mumford and Sons  

  Fool on the hill by The Beatles  

  For what its worth by buffolo Springfield  

  Pumped up kids by Fosters the People

  Baby you can drive my car by The   Beatles

  Kids by MGMT

  We dont need no education by Pink Floyd   

  If your going to be dumb you got to be tough by Smut Peddler

  I will walk 500 miles by The Proclaimers

  We are young by Fun.  

 Kirsten

  

  Rise

  Beck - Morning

  Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings, op. 11

  Radiohead - Faust Arp

  Yann Tiersen (Amelie) - Comptine d'un autre été

  Beyoncé - Haunted

  

   Zenith

  Lana Del Rey - Money Power Glory

  Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk

  Xtreme - Te Extraño

  Die Antwoord - Ugly Boy

  Lana Del Rey - F***ed My Way Up To the Top

  

   Set

  TLC - No Scrubs

  Arctic Monkeys - Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?

  Juanes - Fotografía

  Destiny’s Child - Say My Name

  Beck - Turn Away

  

 Jon

  

   WE WILL DRAW NEAR

   1. Adiemus, by YCTC

   2. Forever Young, by Bob Dylan

   3. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts I-V, by Pink Floyd

   4. Tintinabulum, by YCTC

   

   WALKING SONG

   5. Modern Man, by Arcade Fire

   6. Have a Talk With God, by Stevie Wonder

   7. Modern Love, by David Bowie

   8. Rococo, by Arcade Fire

   

   STARRY NIGHT

   9. Widow’s Grove, by Tom Waits

   10. Vincent, by Don McLean

   11. Pictures of You, by The Cure

   12. Take It With Me, by Tom Waits

09/19:

  Baptism Of Joshua Paul

  

  A Sermon by Joseph Vold, October 12, 1969

  Text: John 9: 24-41

  

  If we had a person here in our midst who had been blind from the day he was born, and now on this day, he hears the word of a physician —and follows it and of a sudden —he is no longer blind but can see —SAY WE WITNESSED THIS we would be overwhelmed by the event.  He was blind, but now he can see —oh,! we would be amazed by the fact!  We would be mightily impressed, and would never forget it.  BUT THAT HAPPENED HERE TODAY IN OUR VERY MIDST.  Through baptism.  It has happened to this child, Joshua Paul.

  

  In the catacombs of Rome where early Christians gathered to hide from hostile authorities to keep from being killed and to live and to worship, they left on the walls frescoes, pictures of what they treasured.  The story of the man born blind appears seven times in catacomb art, most frequently as an illustration of Christian baptism.  This story was taken by the early church as an interpretation of what happens in baptism.

  

  When the early Christians were about to baptize a person who had been prepared and was brought forward to be a member of the Body of Christ, i.e. the church, they read Chapter 9 of John —the story of the man born blind and healed through washing —they read this chapter together.

  

  The early Church Fathers referred to baptism as the washing away of blindness.  Tertullian opened his book (or tract) on baptism with the words ‘Happy is the sacrament of our water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set  free unto eternal life.’

  

  Augustine comments on our text:  “This blindman stands for the human race ....if the blindness is lack of faith, then the seeing (illumination) is faith ....  He washes his eyes in that pool which is

  interpreted ‘one who has been sent’; he was baptized in Christ.”

  

  I would like to draw from the entire ninth chapter of John for our sermon today to show what God does in baptism.  FOR THE MAN BORN BLIND WHO IS MET BY CHRIST AND HIS LOVING ACTION: Instead of darkness or blindness, there is light and ability to see.  There is much stress on the fact that the man in our text was born blind.  It is mentioned —this fact of being blind at birth —no less than seven times.

  

  Now when we consider a little child —that cuddly little bundle who is so winning —mostly because he is so small and helpless and dependent —we overlook this fact of his being blind.   Unless he is enlightened, unless he receives the vision of God he will remain in darkness —He will not know who he is and what he came into the world for.  But Christ comes and brings enlightenment starting with the washing of baptism.  The one who has the Christ and his light through faith has the vision of God.

  

  But how can such a little child be enlightened?  He does not know, surely he does not know what is going on.  He cannot have faith or comprehension.  So some will argue.

  

  The only way this little one is going to know of Christ (have the vision of God) is if the church loves him —and, loving him, teach him of the good news we have.  The first and second —and third lesson —and all the way through the last lesson we teach should be this: God loves you so much that he has adopted you to be his own, and we, the church, love and care for you as a brother.  You start teaching that lesson from the very first day.  We know that an infant child may not understand much but he surely feeds on love —and he is nourished by the love that people can give to him.  The parents can love him just because Christ has loved us and gave His life for us.  The parents can be patient and forgive because Christ forgives us and is patient with us and keeps bringing us back.

  

  The child is going to know of Christ as the church shows care for him.  The child will know of Christ as people in the church live the life of Christ, live the way of the cross in the community.  He will not know the fullness of the faith as a baby or as a little boy —or as a young man.  BUT LOVE CANNOT FAIL.  He will know someday.  He will know the greatness of what has happened to him in the claim of God in baptism —the miracle of new life —someday I believe that.  I am filled with high hope for him because of the Word of God.

  

  Now in the ninth chapter of John we see a gradual dawning —an increase in knowledge for this man who received his sight from Jesus.

  

  The Jews —it is the way of the world with, or against, the baptized —would not accept that Jesus had accomplished the restoring of sight to this blind man.  They hounded the man who had been born blind.  “How were your eyes opened?”  The man Jesus did it.  “Where is he?”  I don’t know.

  

  Later on they wanted to press him further on this matter so they asked, “What do you say about Jesus?”  The former blind man said:  He is a prophet.

  

  Now in the part of the chapter that is the text for today the Pharisees (or Jews) are pressing him again and are trying to teach that Christ is not good or able to heal blindness.  The man says plainly to them: I don’t know whether Jesus is a sinner or not, but once I was blind, now I can see.  The man has great power. 

  

  Growing recognition of the fact and the power of Jesus as the one who gives light and goodness in life —This is the thing that happens to the child who is brought up in the baptismal covenant.  He doesn’t know all the answers about Jesus, but he learns of his life and his power —because of what Christ —and the Body of Christ —can do and has done for him.

  

  When the man who had been born blind answers the Pharisees that someone who does such great things —so good —has got to be from God —he gets clobbered by the Jews.  The baptized, who live by their baptism, may share the same reaction from the world —but they hold fast to Christ who gives light and life. 

  

  Finally this man is confronted again by the Christ who tells him who he is and asks, “Do you believe?”  He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

  

  The child who is baptized may not know the fullness of the truth of Christ, but as he experiences the power of God through the Church —through loving people as well as the Word and Sacraments —he will one day also fall down and worship Jesus as the Lord.

  

  He will someday know how much he needed this act of baptism, this washing away of blindness of the natural man.  He will someday know how necessary it was for God to come to him and to give forgiveness and light.  He will know that he passed from blindness to the vision of God through Christ (Once I was blind —now I can see).  He will know it because of the church, the caring, faithful, loving, teaching, acting church.  And he will be glad for the judgment of God.  The judgment of God upon this little one baptized here today is YES, you are my child.  That’s what I want to teach him to know the rest of the years I have to be his earthly father and his brother in the church.  Will you help me to teach him that?

AMEN: YES, YES and it shall be so.

09/20:

  Coronota

  

  Whiplash migration, filling the branches

  one day, on their way the next, so quick it seems,

  four weeks flying by as fast as the flash

  of their yellow posterity, moving in dreams

  from south to north to south again with stops

  and light refreshments.  Free music.  Dancing.

  Life, nothing fancy, but sweet all the same,

  the simplest warble and a two-step shuffle,

  easy going charity with yellow patches

  on the elbows of their sleeves and in the press

  of their hats.  Plain folk simply passing through

  with an unexpected splash of country

  flare, nothing fancy but sweet all the same,

  and only memories with the next flight south.

   

09/21:

  Equinox

  

  September.  I once stayed with you because

  I thought I could distinguish right from wrong:

  The kids were growing up, you had just lost

  Your job and all your confidence was down;

    Yet you hated me and took it out on me

    For all that was and all that couldn’t be,

  And as I watched the shades of summer turn

  I knew I couldn’t leave you on your own.

   

  A dozen seasons later, your new job

  Is thriving and your confidence is strong,

  The kids are grown up more and anymore

  You’ll be all right.  You don’t need me around.

    I turn to watch the sunlight slip away

    And see the time diminish every day  

  And still I stay with you, but now because

  I dread the thought of being left alone.

  The equinox is fleeting, but I try

  To hold on to its balance for as long

  As tilting worlds allow; we lean away

  From warmth and I can feel the harder ground

    Of colder days to come, and even now

    I know I should move on, or move somehow,

  But as the autumn winds blow through the leaves

  Of September my cold feet turn into stone.

  

 I hope that there may never be an end

  To anything, from dawn to dusk to dawn;

  That fall is just a stop along the way

  To winter; that beyond this we are bound

    Eventually to see another spring

    And then wherever time and fate will bring

  Us, traveling together or apart

  But never, through these autumn woods, alone.

  

09/22:

  Moleskin 5.1: Studio

  

  As I write this, I am sitting on the edge of a river: yes, I am still here. But it is not the same river. My place is the same, for the most part, and my position has barely shifted over time, other than to keep balance and circulation, but the river: maybe this is what my story is really about: the water of seasons, the gravity of upstream, the quiet velocity of now; the accumulation of purpose, the weight of every moment and the immensity of destiny. For the moment, the river seems peaceful enough, but history cuts the river bed and current moves every drop. The course changes without consultation and proceeds past more bends than one can ever see from a random perch. And I, sitting here Siddharta-like, or Huck Finn-like, am constantly thinking of venturing downstream, crossing to the other side or immersing myself and trying not to be seen.

Preparing for Pirate Day

Alas, as Rod Stewart says in probably his best song (certainly one 2L2A3): "It's late September and I really should be back at school"...

In Bohemia, and probably most Catholic lands, the parish prays specifically for students going back to school. Katerina and I have been at it for over a month, international schools usually starting mid-August. Joe and Ben and Em have begun at Kepler Gymnasium, Petriny Art School, Hanspaulka Prep respectively, and it is wonderful to see much care in their curricula.

We pray also for a good senior year at Lake Forest, Andrew, and the new opportunities in Madison, Andrea. Lots of activities in Champagne, from Potter cousins to KC to Tilo. We pray for all of your teachers, too.

And we pray for Brother/Son/Father/Uncle/Ever-with-us Josh. He will be 47 on Monday, celebrating from heaven, praying more steadfastly for us. I realized as I crafted this week's poem that Josh listened to us instinctively, deliberately, gracefully, and among a thousand other things, I'll miss that in face-to-face time. I'll count it more, though, in prayer-time, listening so deep:

http://lostmenagerie.blogspot.cz/2016/09/listen-so-deep.html

No Argument But The Wind Itself

Every Thought...

Week 37: Spirit

Spirit is the quintessential element.  It transforms the dirt, fills the air, sparks the flame and brings new life through water.  Spirit gives hope gives faith gives peace: beyond all understanding.


09/09:

  TWL, Part V: Understanding

  321.5 V. What The Thunder Said

  321.5. ACT FIVE: Eliot: “In the first part of Part V three themes are employed: the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston's book) and the present decay of eastern Europe.”

  For the journey to Emmaus, see lines 328-330 and then 360-366; for the decay of eastern Europe, see lines 367-385; and for the approach to the Chapel Perilous, see lines 386-395. See also Weston, From Ritual To Romance (note 0.2).  These themes, and the more prominent emergence of Eliot’s own voice without allusions (see lines 331-359), will lead to the poem’s “thunder” culmination, beginning at line 396.  After the sections of earth, air, fire and water, this might be called the quintessential “spirit” section of the poem, in which the poet begins to find understanding, or more properly a peace that passes understanding (see note 434).

  THE VOICE OF THUNDER is the culminating metaphor of Prajapati’s lesson in the  Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (see note 400), but thunder is also heard at lines 327 and 342.  It is also called upon by Flamineo in note 44, precedes the witches’ entrance at Macbeth 4.1.1 (notes 0.1 and 308) and, while not alluded to directly, is the opening and prevailing “tempestuous sound” in The Tempest (1.1.1).

  Thunder’s voice is also heard in Revelation 10:4 (note 0.5):

  “And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.”

  See also John 12:27-30 (note 0.5):

  “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.  Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.  The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.”

  And see Job 26:14 (note 0.5):

  “Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?”

  Finally, see the "thunder of infinite ululations" in Dante (note 0.1), Inferno 4.1-9:

  “Broke the deep lethargy within my head
  A heavy thunder, so that I upstarted,
  Like to a person who by force is wakened;

  And round about I moved my rested eyes,
  Uprisen erect, and steadfastly I gazed,
  To recognise the place wherein I was.

  True is it, that upon the verge I found me
  Of the abysmal valley dolorous,
  That gathers thunder of infinite ululations.”


09/10:

  Kissing the Earth

  Dostoevsky Final (Russian 141, 11/30/90, Prof. Rubchak)

  “Go at once...stand at the crossroads, bow down, [and] kiss the earth,” instructed Sonya (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 433, 1866, tr. David Magarshack, 1951). It was a command heavy with implications, and at first Raskolnikov refused to comply.  What was she asking?

  First, to stand at the crossroads implied that he was to stand at the center of Haymarket Square, the busiest part of the busiest city in Russia.  There he would be where the whole world could see him, making himself completely vulnerable to whatever reaction his confession would bring.  They might laugh, they might scorn and jeer, they might attack him there, or even stone him; they might just pick him up and take him away, never to return again.  But he would have no way of knowing their reaction until he carried out the instruction.

  At the crossroads he would be at St. Petersburg’s point of orientation,  where there would be street signs and mileage and direction signs; and this would also be his own orientation point.   There, based on all the resulting changes in perspective, he would be able to sort things out.

  And he would be able to determine the path before him, for it is at the crossroads that one decides direction.  As much as one tries to plan such decisions ahead of time, it is only at the crossroads that the choices are actually made and the steps actually taken for the journey’s continuation.

 After Sonya spoke these words she offered Raskolnikov a cyprus cross to hang around his neck.  “We’ll suffer together, so let us also bear our cross together,” she said (435).  Here then was another implication of “crossroads.”  Confessing and asking the world for forgiveness is a praiseworthy religious act and a testimony of faith, and yet it is not an easy step to take.  The cross to bear along this road is heavy and entails a deep humiliation; it conjures no magic remedy before the symbolic  crucifixion, no preview of the resurrection.  Yet, Sonya inferred, it was a necessary step for the sinner to take.

  Thus Raskolnikov was to stand at the crossroads: he was to bear his cross of repentance, stand in front of all people, recognize where he stood, and determine his future.

  And he was to kiss the earth: “...the earth which you have defiled,” Sonya said in full (433), implying that at the crossroads he would be making his apology directly to the world.  By murdering, he had not only wronged his particular victims, who now lay under the soil, he had also sinned against all humankind across the globe.

  Furthermore, kissing the earth was a demonstration of the deepest humility.  He was to bow down and prostrate to the world as low as he possibly could, showing with face to the ground that he deferred to everyone.

  By touching the soil this way he would also atune himself with “Holy Mother Earth,” from whence he came, upon which he walked, and whither he was going.  Thus, in one action he would recognize his origin, his existence and his mortality, acknowledging his defilement with respect to all three.

 But finally, kissing the earth is more than a humble, atoning apology.  It is experiencing a purgatory cleansing by bringing sensuality to its fullest: the taste, the smell, the feel of city dirt next to one’s nose and on one’s lips would stir the soul.  And indeed, when Raskolnikov put Sonya’s directions into practice, his sensuality was so dramatic that one observer remarked that he was drunk.  “He simply plunged... into this new and overwhelming sensation... tears gushed from his eyes... and [he] kissed the earth with joy and rapture” (537).


09/11:

  Waking The Wind
  
  from Walled Gardens

  Those unable to speak their love
     are as cold as hammered steel;
  Those unable to grieve
     are a vacant wind;
  Those who are ungrateful
     are frightened of themselves;
  and those who cannot remember God
     have grown older than the hills.

  Say the name, O wild rose,
     speak the unpronounceable;
  Moisten your lips, move your tongue
     and praise the indescribable;
  Utter the words of every spring
     waking the divine;
  Open your mouth, O wild rose,
     and reveal your hidden gold.


09/12:

  Tending The Fire

  from Walled Gardens

  I have no argument
     for you, my friend;
  no matter how the fires of
     conviction burn within,
  I shall remain
     conspicuously calm,
  let others recommend the course
     of conversation,
  let them render
     judgment on us all:
  no less convicted,
     they of the open air,
  until the flicker of their flame
     surrenders to the wind.
 
  For you, my friend,
     I have no argument
  but the wind itself:
     may it ever fuel your dance
  and feed your soul
     and start your turbines turning;
  and that inner fire,
     may it be your self content:
  even as the wind begins
     to rage against you,
  may you ever keep your spirits
     trimmed and burning.


09/13:

  Parting The Waters

  A child asked, where was God
  when the Red Sea waters drowned
  the Pharaoh’s men? Never mind
  Moses and the Pharaoh,
  where was God for the soldiers
  who had no choice but to do
  what they were told to do?
  where was God for those
  who didn’t know the rules
  of Passover, whose children
  were killed for the ignorance
  of their parents?

  This from the mouth of a baptized babe:
  Where? Where was God
  for the unchosen, those
  who were drowned before they had
  a chance to be baptized?
  God leads his sheep to drink
  from still waters, but sends
  his enemies to drown in
  a stormy sea,
  but where was God for the soldiers
  without a promised land?

  This from a little lamb, carried
  so long in the shepherd’s arms:
  I do believe in God
  who created all water
  and quenches all thirst
  and cleanses all impurities,
  but where was God
  in the desert and the dirt
  of those who did not know
  where to turn
  when the impartial waters fell?

  This from a child who turns to me,
  and what am I to say?
  My mouth, my faith is parched
  and dry and without words,
  except to admit how much
  I do not know,
  but I try to find words anyway:
  Let it be said that in this house
  we talk about God,
  and every thought is a prayer.


09/14:
  
  Elements

  Fire, wind, ground and water: we
  have thrived on these, would hold and harness these.
 
  Science, passion, faith, philosophy:
  we turn to these and would depend on these
 
  to understand small sparks, short gusts, the mist
  and dust of east and west, of north and south;
 
  we cling, we clutch and to the death defend
  the corners of existence of and in

  a universe we cannot comprehend,
  nor are these elements we can control,
 
  the warmth, the breath, the earth, the very blood,
  of fire and wind, of ground and water: we,
 
  for all we grasp, remain beholden to
  the God of time and space and land and sea.


09/15:
  
  Moleskin 4.9: To Be Continued


  The bus rides were round trip tangents, though, that always seemed to bring me back to my summer of unwanted change. But pardon these flash-forwards and circling back again: I am getting ahead of myself and forgetting my lines. And now, my dear other, the point. These shoes you are being asked to try, just to get their feel and fit, will never be your own footwear; maybe they pinch too much or don’t look like anything you’d ever wear. Maybe they’re too old and boring, or maybe they smell with age. So take them off now, and put your own shoes back on: slip into what you know, the life I do not know, and be on your way. Return to your own summer of twelve, or thirteen or fourteen or forty: but please, let me continue. There is still more to the story.

1,000 Words, Pt. 2

Every Thought...

Week 36: Jonleby the Scrivener

I translate without knowing the language, restate without following the transcript, transcribe without corrections, write without understanding. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.


09/02:

  TWL, Lines 312-321: Translating the Water Section 

  312 Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
  313 Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
  314 And the profit and loss.
  315      A current under sea
  316 Picked his bones in whispers.  As he rose and fell
  317 He passed the stages of his age and youth
  318 Entering the whirlpool.
  319                                           Gentile or Jew
  320 O you who turn the wheel and look windward,
  321 Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

312. THE PHOENICIAN, it seems, has been dead since his opening appearance (see line 47); and from the start he was also given an enigmatic identity. See note 39, and see lines 47-52, when Madame Sosostris successively introduced the already drowned and pearly-eyed Phoenician Sailor and the one-eyed merchant.  Eliot later suggested, at note 219, that the merchant would melt into the sailor.  Eliot also associated the Phoenician with the hyacinth girl (see note 125) and with the originally pearly eyed Prince Ferdinand (see note 218, referring  to Shakespeare, The Tempest (note 0.1) 1.2.376-402)).  See also note 12 for the Phoenician origins of Queen Dido. Phoenicia literally means “land of purple” in Greek, so named for its purple dye trade.  See note 380.

314. FORGETTING: A sailor who has drowned is like a merchant who is undone by the mechanics of profit and loss; he has not  only lost the mastery of his environment, he has succumbed to it.

318. THE WHIRLPOOL: The dead body, rising and falling with the waves, begins to decompose, or “melt,” into the pool of the undercurrents.  Compare the cauldrons of St. Augustine and MacBeth (notes 307 and 308).  The stages of age and youth are behind him now, as are the identities of gender and religion.

GENTILE OR JEW: The speaker now turns ambivalently to the Gentile or Jew, i.e., one without distinction whether one is in the faith or out of it; compare line 365 (“I do not know whether a man or a woman”). See also Romans 3: 9-10 (note 0.5):

  “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.”

320. TURNING THE WHEEL: The whirlpool imagery of line 318 continues.  Recall the Wheel card drawn by Madame Sosostris (line 51), but now “you,” the reader, are said to be turning it and looking windward as you go; see note 311.5.

321. PHLEBAS alludes to Plato’s Philebas, one who held pleasure over intellect, in contrast to Socrates, who put knowledge first.  See Plato, Philebus (360 BCE), tr. Harold N. Fowler (1925), 48e:

  “Socrates: ‘And there are still more who think they are taller and handsomer than they are...’”

DANS LE RESTAURANT: The entire water section loosely restates the third stanza of Dans le Restaurant (1920), a poem Eliot had originally written in French. Here is my translation, prompted by Eliot’s partial restatement and adding my own take of the “Dans” variations:

 “Phlebas the Phoenician, fifteen days dead,
  Forgot the cry of gulls and the swell of Cornwall
  And the profits and losses and the cargo of tin:
  A current under sea took him far away,
  Past the stages of his former life.
  You have to consider, it was a painful exit;
  All the same, he was a man who once was
  handsome and tall.”


09/03:
  
  5. Weblog

  (...better than your cell phone’s“can you hear me now?”...)

  suddenly walking ruins shoes, driving turns weary chore, it’s
  all souls / machines can do keeping rubber feet / wheels moving
  simply getting home, housed, parked, finding anywhere dry,
  accepting anything, settling, seeking temporary cover like
  poor tired refugees, huddled under square box umbrellas
  with fogged windows, streaked panes: our world’s eyes,
  distorted from unwanted tears, saltlessly wondering why


09/04:
  
  6. Quicknote
 
  (...taking the time, waiting for lighting...)
 
  yet, everpresent, effervescent reason shows itself now, hinted
  within renegade rays of subtlest sunlight revealing rain-
  water’s constant beauty: sparkling, living, even as it falls:
  you will see green grass again, these angels say, speaking,
  singing hard working droplets they: we’ll roll those heavy
  clouds away, restore your great forgiven sky, clean slated,
  blue, more breathable, renewed.  holy, fresh, clear water!


09/05:
  
  7. Clipboard

  (..., adjusting the speed and exposure...) 

  cleansing, cleaning, washing, rinsing.  (repeating,
  remembering how mother / other, taught, still teaches me)
  necessary, yes, she says this was, shall always be,
  evermore her favorite time, season, place:  praying amen,
  hearing “heavenagain,” feeling particulate waves,
  letting herself become immobilized, moved, emotional,
  willingly becoming elementary, simplified, soothed.


09/06:
  
  8. Facepost
 
  (...and then looking for reason you discover the art...)

  reflection...premise...perception...truth, fundamentally faith
  alone explains God’s nature; thus, man’s (woman’s, child’s)
  ritual immersion, each gender, age, every creed’s splash
  therapy, aqua conscience, awakening, rejuvenation; believe:
  reincarnation, return, rebirth, baptism; sprinkling; accept:
  drowning, spiritual surrender inwards, outwards, upwards:
  replacement...promise...permission...life, sacramentally.


09/07:
  
  9. Scratchpad

  (...of a thousand five hundred words.)
  
  indent.  empty space.  leftover poetry, endless stories,
  Yahweh (simple self pronoun, present tense being)
  variations.  free association.  blank verse.  filler.  everything
  matters, articles, prepositions, objects, conjunctions,
  interjections, river bed metaphors, parched desert similes...
  consciousness streams, trickles, floods, sates, holds. final
  judgment awaits. stillwater, someday. we’re halfway there.


09/08:
  
  Moleskin 4.8: Shortening The Distance

  Our original dad was still in our lives, but from a distance now that was usually shortened to phone calls and letters and a few weeks of vacation time. But suddenly, one Christmas break, I was deemed old enough to get on a Greyhound for the first of a series of year-end visits. It was a sixteen hour night run from Chicago to Minneapolis to Detroit Lakes. The bus culture was more than my siblings could endure, at least not in my care, but for a kid turning thirteen and fourteen it was an adventure my mother and stepfather were willing to allow. On the other end my real dad never questioned their wisdom and was simply happy to see me. And I enjoyed those bus rides, talking for hours with whomever I was seated beside, learning how to sleep sitting up, eating more vending machine food than was good for me, taking curious note of the people who seemed to live in and around bus terminals, but best of all, going to see my dad.