The Bear

The Bear
by Ted Hughes

In the huge, wide-open, sleeping eye of the mountain
The bear is the gleam in the pupil
Ready to awake
And instantly focus.

The bear is glueing
Beginning to end
With glue from people’s bones
In his sleep.

The bear is digging
In his sleep
Through the wall of the universe
With a man’s femur.

The bear is a well
Too deep to glitter
When your shout
Is being digested.

The bear is a river
Where people bending to drink
See their dead selves.

The bear sleeps
In a kingdom of walls.
In a web of rivers.

He is the ferryman
To dead land.

His price is everything.

…and damned if I look back

One of my favourite poems for the deft use of old myth –

The Underground
Seamus Heaney

There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,
You in your going-away coat speeding ahead
And me, me then like a fleet god gaining
Upon you before you turned to a reed

Or some new white flower japped with crimson
As the coat flapped wild and button after button
Sprang off and fell in a trail
Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.

Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,
Our echoes die in that corridor and now
I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones
Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons

To end up in a draughty lamplit station
After the trains have gone, the wet track
Bared and tensed as I am, all attention
For your step following and damned if I look back.

The Intricate Room

I love sonnets. They are little and nifty and clever. When they are Donne’s, they are even Holy. Today I am doing the ho-hum job of scanning in all the academia I’ve done in the last 5 years so that I don’t have to hang on to the hard copies. It’s slow going. But I rediscovered an essay I wrote on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet sequence, and I still like it very much (unlike my sophomore essays, which were, well, sophomoric. Also I was in denial about the fact that I was incorrigibly an English major – a new historicist perhaps, but still, an English major, not some kind of History and English hybrid.) Here is the introductory paragraph:

There is something about a sonnet sequence that invites you into a sophisticated number game. Certainly one reason is that the sonnet is one of the most tightly defined forms in English poetry, one most easily described in terms of numbers: a sonnet has fourteen lines, five feet per line, spanning itself out in iambic pentameter; a sonnet has two parts, before and after that mysterious thing, “the turn”. A sonnet most often has a rhyme scheme, which gives us yet another set of numbers that interlock along it; a sonnet is a little, intricate problem: thus we often find it addressing love, one of the most intractable of human experiences. Add to all this mathematical sophistication an additional superstructure – the sonnet sequence – and the possibilities multiply exponentially. Indeed, it is no coincidence that Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most famous line which begins her most famous sonnet, the second-to-last (43^rd) in her Sonnets from the Portuguese, is an explicit invitation to a number game:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

What is the nature of this number game? What sort of sequence is it: what are the secret rules that govern whether we read it as 1, 2, 3 or 1, 4, 9? Is this a game where numbers supersede each other, where even alternates with odd? If there were a blank at the end of the sequence, what would be the answer? To understand the nature of this sequence, we must ask: why does it end the way it does?

We can begin with this last question, by examining the very end of the sequence. Let us look again at the famous number 43: the mathematical allusions do not stop with the first line; the very next lines places us onto Cartesian plane axes (x,y and z) –

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

Indeed, what is so remarkable about this immortal poem, quoted so often unconsciously by generations of lovers, is how there is not a single solid object in the whole thing. Her imagery is entirely abstract: we get depth and breadth and height, but nothing more tactile than that. And yet this poem comes across as anything but ungraspable – it is deeply intimate, and clearly it has resonated. Perhaps she has achieved this feat by referring movingly to experiences so universal they take the place of solid objects – “my old grief’s … my childhood’s faith….the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!” It is never too abstract; it is sublime. I think it is, in itself, quite perfect. But remember: the Sonnets from the Portuguese is a sequence, a number game, and we need to ask why Barrett Browning, who probably knew the power of this sonnet and its wonderful potential as a summary coming after 43 other sonnets, placed it second-to-last rather than last. For the answer, we need to look at 44.

Ah, but I won’t bore you with 12 pages of an academic essay. Here is the whole poem – the rest of it is just as good as the first immortal line:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
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 a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

And here are my doodles on my favourite poems in Sonnets from the Portuguese:

My Wandering Wanderings

IO:
O, O, O,
There it is again, there again – it stings me,
the gadfly: the ghost of earth-born Argos:
keep it away, keep it away, earth!
I’m frightened when I see the shape of Argos,
Argos the herdsman with ten thousand eyes.
He stalks me with his crafty eyes: he died
but the earth didn’t hide him, still he comes
even from the depths of the Underworld to hunt me:
he drives me starving by the sands of the sea.

The reed woven pipe drones on in a hum
and drones and drones its sleep giving strain:
O, O, O,
Where are you bringing me, my far wandering wanderings?
Son of Kronos, what fault, what fault
did you find in me that you should yoke me
to a harness of misery like this,
that you should torture me so to madness
driven in fear of the gadfly?
Burn me with fire: hide me in earth: cast me away
to monsters of the deep for food: but do not
grudge me the granting of this prayer, king.
Enough have my much wandering wanderings
exercised me: I cannot find
a way to escape my troubles.
Do you hear the voice of the cow-horned maid?

PROMETHEUS:
Surely I hear the voice, the voice of the maiden, gadfly-haunted, the daughter of Inachus? She set Zeus’ heart on fire with love and now she is violently exercised running in courses overlong, driven by Hera’s hate.

from Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus, trans. David Grene

image source

The Crew Have Killed Their Captain

David Bazan is a bit of a rock star – he used to be a big hit as a Christian singer, and now self-identifies as agnostic. His lyrics are painfully real. I particularly love this verse of his, from “In Stitches” -

photo from Chicago Reader

I might as well admit it
Like I’ve even got a choice
The crew have killed the captain
But they still can hear his voice
A shadow on the water
A whisper in the wind
On long walks my with daughter
Who is lately full of questions
About you
About you

and this -

Wait just a minute
You expect me to believe
That all this misbehaving
Grew from one enchanted tree?
And helpless to fight it
We should all be satisfied
With this magical explanation
For why the living die
And why it’s hard to be
Hard to be, hard to be
A decent human being?

“The curse of a godless man can sound more pleasant in God’s ears than the Hallelujah of the pious” – Martin Luther

Two Poems on Childhood

from Clearances 3
In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives–
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

-Seamus Heaney
Coming

On longer evenings,
Light, shill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice

Astonishing the brickwork.
It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon -
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.
- Philip Larkin

Valediction: Song

Valediction: Song
by Judith Huang

O my sweet
Penelope
I do not mean
to go

But til I go
I will not be
the me
of twenty years ago.

Odysseus & Penelope, by Francesco Primaticcio

image source

Adam’s Days

Adam’s Days
by Judith Huang

God put me in a garden
And Oh, it was so nice!
He walked past in the grass
And it sufficed!

Look, everything was new!
The tree, the dew -
And my wonderful companions
A giant petting zoo!

And O, my tongue was loosed
Each time I opened eyes
Every single time
I raised mine to the skies

This was the sky
I don’t know how to say it -
It was one whole -
I couldn’t but obey it -

O children, children
You do not understand
There’s nothing lame or boring
About this time!

Get to the good part?
You’re always clamoring!
No! This was the good part -
the only amor-ing!

O children, you don’t know
What I mean by truly tired
Tired – truly, deeply,
and desired.

O that small breath
between a rib extending
Beneath a sun
The grief of losing bearing -

Grief in the garden?
Theologically unsound!
But how else should I put it?
I fell on ground

And slept and slept for days
As though my God
had struck me down!
And when I woke, my God!

My wedding dawned!
Who ravishes at once
the gauze between two tombs?
O death, O death

I tasted you right then -
A foretaste of the bitter
Tasted then -
O Eve -

O Eve of me, O Eve, O Eve -
O Eve of day!
O Eve!
O Eve of night’s delight!

How can it be?
I taste her fruit voluptuous
Voluptuous her fruit -
and feel, idolatry -

For who, O who
Seduces like your mum?
I’m explaining this so badly!
Here, hold up your palm -

Look how it fits in mine
A perfect glove?
No, it doesn’t fit exactly
but touch it: perfect love -

Embodied, for those
lovely, endless days -
She could convince me
O, to mend my ways -

Trouble was, I would
do anything -
Kill, be killed -
Couldn’t refuse one thing -

Is she not a goddess?
I’m getting soppy;
Yeah, those thorns are a bother, huh.
And watch it, Cain, till properly!

Listen to old Dad -
Cos he has things to say
Things you will want
To hear one future day

When hunting in the wild
wet orange rocks -
You’re startled by
Some strange Assyrian’s locks -

Or, sowing in your green
precarious fields,
You turn around
and fall into some well

Where some strange goddess’ song
Begins to swell
You don’t like girls?
Hah! Only time will tell

Where’s mum?
Well, I guess she’s still back in the cave?
She tells better stories?
O, forgave!

Yeah…..

Until she forgives your father
I’m afraid
We’ll just have to wander
here instead

What, I should bring her flowers?
O, what use!
A chicken, or a new wineskin’s
better use!

But she likes flowers?
Even if they die?
Well, you know what, li’l Abe?
I’ll give it a try -

Adam and Eve working after the fall

image source

The Birth of Eve

The Birth of Eve
by Judith Huang

You, and you alone
can lock the box
of my death -

You, and you alone
can put your mouth
to my breast -

You, and you alone
can part my lips
with your fingertips -

O God
O God
Adam is dead
O God Adam is dead
And there are only
blackened birds all here
Instead.

on the doors of Cathedral at Monreale, Sicily

image source

Elephantine

The Leveler -

entry in The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. Andrew Hurley

Between 1840 and 1864, the Father of Light (who is also called the Inner Word) afforded the musician and pedagogue Jakob Lorber a series of protracted revelations concerning the humanity, the fauna and the flora of the celestial bodies that make up our solar system. One of the domestic animals that those revelations apprised us of is the Leveler, or Tamper-Downer (Bodendrucker), which renders incalculable services on the planet Miron (identified by the current editor of Lorber’s work as Neptune).

The Leveler is ten times larger than the elephant, which it greatly resembles. It has a shortist trunk, long straight tusks, and pale green skin. Its legs are very thick, and they are conical; the points of the cones seem to fit into its body. The Leveler is a plantigrade animal that labors for bricklayers and builders to level the ground: it is led to a plot of uneven ground, and with its legs, its trunk, and its tusks, it levels it.

The Leveler feeds upon grass and roots and has no enemies, save a few species of insects.

.

Illustration of the Leveler by Peter Sis. Photo by Judith Huang.

.

I have been fascinated by elephants for a long time. I am slowly amassing a collection of representations of the elephant. I’ve gotten up to four so far.

This fellow is from Ghana. It was given to me by my friend Lois who was a reporter there for a summer. It’s made of wood.

This little guy was blown out of glass by a third-generation glassblower in Murano, Venezia. I remember this guy because he is a True Artist. We had a long conversation and he showed me his best piece, which he doesn’t even bother displaying, which is of a little deer being carried off by an eagle while his mother watches on in panic – a scene from Bambi. He has loved Disney movies since he was a child, and so this fellow was modeled after Dumbo. He doesn’t like tourists, and literally ducked onto the floor when he saw a crowd pass by the store so he wouldn’t have to serve them, as he preferred to show me how he made the glass baubles he was working on. His brother, who makes jewelry a few doors down, is better at earning money than him, but he isn’t too bothered. He is very annoyed that crass little Disney figures made in China are displayed all along the storefronts that are closest to the main island. He has promised, if I’d like, to teach me glassblowing if I should ever return to Venice.

I can’t for the life of me remember how I got this elephant.

This colourful fellow was carved out of wood in San Martin Tilcajete, Oaxaca, Mexico, a village that specializes in the craft. The little figures are called alebrijes.  The wood is extremely light. I also have a really big wooden tiger from one of the artisans there who looks like something out of Picasso. The state of Oaxaca is a puzzling and delightful demonstration of the goods and ills of specialization. You have one village specializing in red pottery, one village specializing in black pottery, one village specializing in a carpets, one in wooden animals, one in cochineal dyes. And you have to wonder if this is the secret to the preservation of craft. The problem is, when the economy is down, craftsmen’s livelihoods are precarious. They pour into Oaxaca City to sell their wares in the market, they turn up in D.F. – Mexico City, and just the word “Oaxaca” is enough to give them instant credibility, a kind of brand signifying quality. But can one rely entirely on tourism?

After all, the sadness of Venice is that there is almost nothing else.

.

Treatise on the Prosepoem

by Judith Huang

But it was Baudelaire who launched the genre, giving it a local habitation and a name. Of course, we had to do that visionary work of appropriating that old and sagacious institution – the sentence, and make it our own: The New Sentence, like the New York or the New England. The New Sentence is the Liberated Sentence in prose that works like poetry. Not a unit of logic. But an Independent. Entity that relates. To the sentences before. And after. (In multiple, complex, and ambiguous ways.) But then, like all appropriated things, before long we had to set it loose. We had to let it stride in long strides across the continents. The sentences became a paragraph, and dwelt amongst us. It was akin to the elephant, that most sagacious of beasts, humble enough to be funny and princely enough to be beautiful. It now roams the earth upon its pillared legs, its huge heart spanning acres of cedars, falling in its mellifluous gallop.

.

Basically one of my ambitions in life is to grow up to be an elephant. I’m working on it.