12 March 2018 Feather Falling

Have you ever watched a feather falling, or picked one up already fallen to ground? Have you held a bird, large or small, and felt the silkiness of the layers of impossible patterns and colors?

This poem is deeply metaphorical, as are many poems. For some reason, when we humans write poems, a bright, new language opens up – the language of the inner awareness and imagination. Often, the language of poetry is the only way we can express what we want to/need to. Even with the artistry of poems, the challenge remains of getting the images and symbols precisely right. For this, the metaphor device is often used. In past posts, we have defined the metaphor; however, permit me to repeat a few brief definitions:

• A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily means one thing is applied to another thing to suggest a likeness between the two.
• Metaphors are often used extensively to paint a more colorful picture in the reader’s mind.
• A metaphor is a literary device that allows a reader to experience the poem in quite a different way than poetry that does not use the device.

And just a reminder: Metaphors do not use “like” or “as”; similes do use such words to make the comparison explicit.

Okay. Enough about a technical aspect or poetry’s devices. Why bring up metaphor at all? We’ve visited this literary tool before in prior posts. I’m certainly not claiming that the brief poem below is an example of an epic poem; however, it is a good example of a poem that is one big metaphor made up of multiple metaphorical parts. The main reason I bring up “epic" is that metaphor is almost always used extensively in epics, long narrative poems that typically have a hero facing impossible conditions and events. Our species’ history is rife with epics. The work of the Greek poet, Homer, is one of the oldest examples of the metaphor-filled epic form. Remember The Illiad and The Odyssey? No doubt you have heard of them, if not read them. Other examples of this form include Virgil’s Aeneid, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and The Song of Roland, a French work.

Don’t worry. We’re not going to venture into any of these long, and many say, difficult epics. The points are 1) just to get a taste of how metaphors are used, and 2) to experience a tiny example of a poem that is nearly 100% metaphor.

Happy reading!

             The Feather Is the Thing

The feather is the thing

Feather ripeness plucked from body –  falling

down and unredeemed but liberated

Perhaps a white feather free – rocking earthward sky

Thermal rider detached from blue-air’s compass

No answer much less a riddle

           After intolerable precision amputates it 

  Tattered drifting in brutal time confiscated

Flying toward you hoping for a gentle snare ‘round my tender wings 

one hand on either side – one wing touching palms aligned 

warm and lovely until you let me fly alone

              My battered breast hits clarity like a window

            wild with broken places – feathers bond to blood and stone 

Frantic, wounded, raw and open 

I strain to warble remedies – chants of comfort 

For things done for which no one can atone 

Still one feather keeps on falling 

Now clipped, no up, back or forward, only down 

Though my throat is open – my voice calling 

Lonely canticle for unconsecrated one 

                        Silk-fine feathers singly rocking, flutter silently to ground 

          A shadow follows each whiteness close behind 

A feather falling – a certain sign

Background: Uncharacteristically, this poem has almost no background. A feather rocked to earth; a human being observed it. That is all. Then the poetic journey attempted expression of that which cannot easily be expressed. Often the inexpressible is captured in metaphor, and metaphor is rarely straightforward without a knowledge of the history, myths, and rituals of the culture within which the poem is written. This takes a particular amount – more or less –  of familiarity with real or imagined stories, classic literature, and even modern cultural references. All in all, the territory of metaphor attempts to create understanding through references to a culture’s life and history.

Note: If you would like to have a look at a modern expression of a work chock-full of metaphor, explore a Star Trek – Next Generation episode that some say is the most profound installment ever produced. Reference: 102nd episode; second episode of the fifth season; stardate 45047.2. In the episode, Captain Picard must learn to communicate with an alien species called the Children of Tama who speak only a metaphorical language based on stories and allegories from their history. As Counselor Troi interprets the Tamarians, “They seem to communicate through narrative imagery by reference to the individuals and places which appear in their mytho-historical accounts [stories].” Troi goes on to give an example that nearly everyone is familiar with: “Juliet. On her balcony.” For the Star Trek crew, the problem remains: unless they are familiar with the Tamarians’ myths, heroes, villains, and history, they have almost no hope of understanding their language and thereby communicating with them.

I won’t spoil the Star Trek story; rather, I’ll provide a few examples of the Tamarian’s metaphors with their approximate translation. Remember, our lack of familiarity with the Tamarian’s lives and history prevents us from interpreting the metaphors.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra  Two warriors face each other at a hostile place
Shaka when the walls fell  A failure
Kiteo, his eyes closed  Someone who does not understand
Sokath, his eyes uncovered  Someone who understands something
Temba, his arms wide  Generosity

Near the end of the episode, Picard recounts, Gilgamesh, an epic story from Earth written in about 750 A.D. wherein a hero must face a monster. Picard says for example, Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk.

Exploration #1: Without worrying about correctness, select as many phrases as you like that you think are metaphors, i.e., a word or phrase that literally denotes one kind of object or idea is used in place of another, usually straightforward analogy. The metaphor’s strength is that it is a strong and concrete object or action that isn’t usually literally true, but helps explain an idea or make a comparison. Don’t worry about the foregoing definition; rather trust your ear and heart.

Exploration #2: Who is the poet speaking to?

Exploration #3: What is the difference between a single feather descending, and multiple plumes falling?

Exploration #4: What might the “certain sign” be at the end of the poem?

Exploration #5: How does the poem make you feel? Why is that so? The poem is only made up of words.