Today we take a respite from the journey of “The One,” to look once more at what Buddhists call “the great matters of life and death.” The title of today’s poem harks back to the days of the Wild West; however, it is all about the wild days living on the edge, on the divide between being and not being.
This poem was not the easiest to write, nor do I expect it will provide easy reading. It begins with a “nestled in” feeling, all creatures sheltered and calm. Or are they hiding? A tenderness follows as we, perhaps, identify with the beings passing through this landscape. On the other hand, within this impermanence, we continue our activities: saving memories, compiling records, scrapping and pinning up. The words “appalling fragility” appear soon enough with their contradiction; “fragility” summons up a desire to protect (or destroy?) And the word “appalling” conjures fears of destruction as well as beauty.
A bit farther on, a contrast arises between delicate “globes of light,” and perhaps, a hint of our touching tendency toward elimination. Yet, still, we continue, not satisfied to be idle, whatever that means. This is followed by a challenge that echoes the task Ben gives to Willy Loman at a critical juncture in Willy’s life in Death of a Salesman). On the other hand, the last stanza of the poem offers a reason to summon up courage and go into the jungle of life. Which of all these alternatives, each of these scenarios of living and dying, do we want? Back in the Wild West of living on that edge.
Wanted: Dead or Alive?
body at rest deep in history
black organdy and red mist silent at dawn
prairie dogs keep to their tunnels
sparrows hide their heads under their wings
bears dream in their forest dens
Within this quiet
we undertake great ruses, our bodies in motion
the appalling inertia of fragility
At each trick’s end, exposed to our particular selves
unstrung by the elimination of each venture
completed ploys like empty quivers
repeated long-feathered falls to ground
end over end and then the dark
Nothing signified in the dead of spring
no one remembers what just had to be done
choices like a dozen cats underfoot
White petals spread, ripe and raw
Extant moments turn to face us
and we avert our gazes
to keep from being wrong or being hurt
In one blink’s time, unexpected deprivation
Surely, no chance of consolation
in flashes – moments’ amputation
The great matters of death and life do not change:
we breed, and birth, and disappear
We save finished memories
compile rare records
consume time scrapping days
pin up what passes for true love
while we miss and miss and miss again
the chances blooming, longing
to be embraced
to be regarded
to feel seen and heard
Our appetites are faulty
while we sleep ‘longside a feast
fruiting halos ‘round calloused feet
Then at seventy and feathers-dropping fast
critics snort and snap, offering
more than twice but all at once
practicing their specialty: prophesying
Every twinkling speculation
wears a groove into quasi-suicidal aspiration
behind the ruined and desperate
poetry of our days
I’ll match any day for rude, for inattention
for busyness, nostalgia, touch restrained
words unspoken, miles unwalked
Dead, expired, yet alive on a neglected moon
Our hands close gently ‘round globes of light
hot spheres of our lives
or perhaps, howl our bones alive again
don’t get it don’t get it
don’t ever get it
We miss out by not going in
to the jungle to fetch the diamond out
not demanding regard
too much trouble
getting it done
under piles of rubble
Mingle with potentiality
defy the monkey bars of gravity
alight together like star explorers winking out
going where we’ve yet to go
should the choice be the sunset way?
letting our essence dribble free
throw cold water on exuberance
and never know the marvel that is we
Background
Life, in all its complexity, appears to be worth the trouble. First, there’s the survival instinct, the first rung on Maslow’s hierarchy or needs. That is followed by a need to belong; perhaps that’s why we gather, save, compile, and keep scrapbooks. After intermediate steps, the last rung of Maslow’s developmental ladder is self-actualization, transcendence of our basic drives to something grander.
I’ve always been fascinating by what Joan Halifax calls “edge states,” those places carved out by key values held by an individual or a group. For example (but not in Halifax’s pantheon), how do we define the edge state of “honor”? Of “duty”? How do we keep a balance between extreme positive acting out of such values and falling into a chasm of pathology?
Always, always, we are walking the narrow path of our values, our attitudes toward living and dying, our excitement over possibilities, and our dread of potential outcomes.
This is not a poem given to glib interpretations or easy answers; however, hopefully it provides a guide through our jungle full of diamonds.
Exploration 1: Why does this poem end with knowing “the marvel that is we”? Is the phrase a contradiction to the rest of the poem?
Exploration 2: What does it mean to have a “faulty appetite while sleeping ‘longside a feast”? Could it have something to with missing and missing again?
Exploration 3: Is there a connection between “miss and miss and miss again,” and “don’t get it, don’t get it, don’t ever get it”? What is it that is missed; what is it that isn’t ever understood, or acquired?
Exploration 4: After the references in Exploration 3, the poem appears to offer ways to not “miss” and to “get it.” What effect do these offerings of an alternative way have to say?
Jungle full of diamonds: we perceive them as coal. We must crush our perceptions.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is right in front of us, yet even the most advanced sage has a "beginners mind."
I'm glad you had the ways not to miss it at the end. You're not as dark as you're made out to be.
Good-ness ... It's too early in the day to wrap my mind around that, what with this being my first cup of coffee and all. But what I gather in all its dashing about---, no, its gnashing of teeth, its snap-snapping, its running here "THE SKY IS FALLING!", its running there and looking back, "I FAILED TO WATCH IT!", is that life is this whirlwind and some of us 'Seize the carp' and some of us don't, and some sit in darkness and regret it deeply, some ignore life's end and live out loud, some kick leaves about, naming each in a whirlwind as they fly by in a frenzy. Good grief, Charlie Brown. It's only Lucy, it's only Lucy. She's got her own problems, don't make them yours. Snoopy though, has the right idea. "Don't worry. Be happy."
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