An Afternoon in the Stacks

Closing the book, I find I have left my head
inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open
their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound,
words adjusting themselves to their meaning.
Long passages open at successive pages. An echo,
continuous from the title onward, hums
behind me. From in here, the world looms,
a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences
carved out when an author traveled and a reader
kept the way open. When this book ends
I will pull it inside-out like a sock
and throw it back in the library. But the rumor
of it will haunt all that follows in my life.
A candleflame in Tibet leans when I move. (Mary Oliver)

(photo credit: me; iPhone4s; Booth Library entrance)

”Poetry should…strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.”

- John Keats

Understanding a metaphor is as creative a process as creating the metaphor itself.

What does it mean to know something?

Thin

How anything
is known
is so thin—
a skin of ice
over a pond
only birds might
confidently walk
upon. A bird’s
worth of weight
or one bird-weight
of Wordsworth.

(Kay Ryan)

Too smart

Too tall

Too educated

Too curious

… well …

Too bad.

A Poem

Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your foot,
wouldn’t you limp a little then,
afraid to crush my kiss?…

Nichita Stãnescu

[pash-uhn]

Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night. ~Terri Guillemets

(photo credit: mine; iphone4; pogo studios during recording session)

…
And into the north room she went
Inside she found a beautiful box
The most beautiful she’d ever seen
Pandora thought that there must be
Something equally beautiful inside…

.
“Lady in the Water” Toni Frissell December 1947

I have been thinking a lot about wholeness, completeness and connectedness: The many ways we come into, and move out of, one another’s lives.

“Keeping Things Whole” is one of my favorite poems. At first read, I was drawn to the compactness of the poem and the pauses forced by the spacing. The initial images of the actual movement of the air as you pass through, and it closing behind you, captivated me.

But then, I realized that this poem is a metaphor for feeling that you have inserted yourself into the lives of others. That, by your very presence, you have upset the order of things. The only way to keep things whole is to leave.

So, I still love the poem, but I don’t agree with the basic thesis of the poem. It is by being in each other’s lives, by disturbing the air, that we breathe in the scents and exhalations and spirits of one another.

I suppose we could try to live in such a way as to always be invisible and solitary - to be the absence of the field - but to what end? We are meant to swirl in and around, under and over each other, creating new spaces to inhabit, assuring one another with our presence. We are meant to move, but together, creating new kinds of wholeness.

****
Keeping Things Whole
by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

….
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. …

She lay so still that
as she spoke

a spider spun a seamless web
upon her body

as we spoke
and then her limbs came loose

one by one
and so my own

(Michael Palmer)

Notice how something as seemingly small as changing the order of pronouns can change poetic meaning. What do you think about adding word emphasis; draws *one* voice; where none existed and without admission of editorial action?

All that aside —- one of the most sensuous and beautiful Rilke poems. (Original included for my Deutsche Freunde.)

Translation #1 (uncredited)
Love Song

How shall I hold my soul so it does not
touch on yours. How shall I lift it
over you to other things?
Ah, willingly I’d store it away
with some lost thing in the dark,
in some strange still place, that
does not tremble when your depths tremble.
But all that touches us, you and me,
takes us, together, like the stroke of a bow,
that draws one chord out of the two strings.
On what instrument are we strung?
And what artist has us in their hand?
O sweet song.

Translation #2 (uncredited)
Love Song

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn’t touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn’t resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin’s bow,
which draws *one* voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

Original

Liebeslied

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt,wenn deineTiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Spieler hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied.

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

** and if you read this far, I prefer the first translation. “Tremble” is so much more evocative than “resound.”