Readers, and not just Walt, occasionally send verse. One commenter who works in the biological field sends these lines, which he had written earlier but were recalled by the post A Trip To Durban. They are after the Read More. I think that man’s search for the numinous is not always, nor even largely about a desire for an afterlife; for many that will come if it will. Their search for the holy is fundamentally a quest for love; and more than that, for play. The reader catches that in these lines where the vast distances between the stars are not terrifying voids but playgrounds in which the spheres sing their lullabys.
I’ve got several seas
I’m thinking of, imaginary sails
tracking across great spaces, while the sun
beats down. It’s not as scary as it looks.
The children draw it often with a smile.
Some of Teresa of Avila’s poems express a great longing, not for the preservation of her existence, but for the arrival of love, for the advent of beauty. In her poem, Let Mine Eyes See, she writes:
Let mine eyes see thee, sweet Jesus of Nazareth,
Let mine eyes see thee, and then see death.
Let them see that can, Roses and Jessamine,
Seeing thy face most fair, all blossom are therein.
Flower of seraphin, sweet Jesus of Nazareth.
Let mine eyes see thee, and then see death.
Nothing I require, where my Jesus is;
Anguish all desire, saving only this;
All my help is his, He only succoureth.
Let mine eyes see thee, and then see death.
It’s a sentiment expressed in a particularly Christian way, but the feeling I think, is universal. Anyhow, here’s our commenter’s work.
THE SERIES OF PRIME NUMBERS NEVER ENDS
Prosperity awakened in the cave
a clean, seductive scent, vanilla wood
(French oak staves, medium toast, with overtones
of nutmeg.) Wine matured, money was saved
by not insisting the quartet arrive
on time, hiring a limousine, the like.
My problem was the obverse
of that song,
O precious love
something along those lines
already much too old for reckoning
various side deals, externalities
time folds in, trolling just enough to tease
joy forth—
Above the vineyard, liquid staves
of Swainson’s thrush’s song.
—In early May
addressing each other with “winged words”
—as in the Iliad—flying around
the table a few times, while each jots down
impressions, reservations. But today
is having none of that. The first movement:
the switch in mid-phrase from austere octaves
to rich chords is surprising…and somehow…
touching…
However damn playful we get,
however long the rose withholds her bloom,
today I’m going to diet more curiously,
graze on the garden’s lettuces and hope.
These Steller’s jays are all over the place.
It may be time to reassess the sun.
Its keeping quiet, I mean. Let me begin.
No, let’s you do it. I’ve got several seas
I’m thinking of, imaginary sails
tracking across great spaces, while the sun
beats down. It’s not as scary as it looks.
The children draw it often with a smile.
Meanwhile, back in the cave, the mere idea
of others having fun makes us join in,
ignore hay fever symptoms, giving way
to levity and sorrow—equal parts,
but shadows of themselves—so daylight seems
to last longer. The pieces assembled,
the shards, light and shadow, triangular:
acute, obtuse, scalene, isosceles,
right, equilateral (the latter rare).
I wanted our relationship to be
Platonic, if that makes sense, in a dream
like this. But others have a vote. The lake
reflects consensus, light rippling a wind
sent from upstate, unbidden, with its own
agenda. Beavers working up-valley
behind the distant ranges take a look
downstream, alter the waterscape a while
and move on.
—Once, years back, we would make hats
of them, but then thought better of it, so
I’m going hatless this year, in the rain
awaiting global evening. The desired,
highly eccentric intersection of
your passions with our tomfoolery makes us,
innocently enough, begin the dance,
the one that flings and scatters underthings
and damp regrets, until the misaligned
corrections intertwining, happiness
at last arises, none the worse for wear
—but bourgeois pleasures rankle and delight.
Drop sophistries, opt for optimal truths,
secure the flowered fields, that neighbors sleep
contented with the evening song of frogs.
And that’s not all: back in the cave the wine
laid down (as though for all eternity)
beckons, but still the audience assumes
its musical bewilderments will clear
at last, like evening rain. The quartet has
to elevate its game, con brio, as
the rest of us observe and interfere
by not paying attention, not enough
to give the group its due, what with the winds
not being invited. I say let all come
to understand, just like the rest of us,
this weather is a trial, but life is good
out in the forest, huge roomfuls of light
among the sacred trees. Cathedral Pines,
we call the place, though there are lots of oak
and ash, and not a few willow and beech
in great riparian areas reclaimed
by those who came before us.
I think you were there, at least, I am sure
you were not not there, as the spring greened up
just prior to laying gold over the hills
in preparation for late autumn’s rain.
And wind. Like we were saying in the cave,
Adagio ma non troppo is one way
to let the ripening happen, then to play
toward Andante con moto, taking time
out of your day to make sure that the bow
is rosined, so to speak. You know the drill
I left out in the rain? Last week? That thing
is shot. Worse than useless. The gears seized up,
pawls slipped, the clutch completely ruptured. Well,
so much for my building our new dream house.
The funny thing is, you can carry back
a whole hell of a lot of what is lost
way back in that deep wood, infinity,
and piece your notes together, as they fray,
tying the lines, each to the next. A “string”
in geeky lingo or
(some say) a poem,
a story. It’s annoying when the ends
match up exactly, making one suspect
some trick. Life just is not that neat, I think.
I put it down to the existence of God
being provable only mathematically.
V.02.2009
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