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August 27, 2007
Another, with a couple to come
[as yet untitled]
Words have no weight
no heft, no meaning
unless you are there
to make them mean.They say what others
say they say and so
they say nothing at all
of what you intended.But should that stop you
from saying at the start?
Should the novel rest unwritten
the poem unpenned?What weight words have
will gives them, intent
imbues with purpose;
a sentence unsaidfor fear it will be
resaid, misunderstood
is a tragedy and a selfishness--
depriving all.
I wrote this upon reading Harold Bloom's comments on W.B. Yeats. He typified Yeats as "virulently anti-Christian," and yet, one can read Yeats very much within a Christian context and have it make perfect sense. In a sense, this must be enormously frustrating (for Yeats, who is in a position to no longer care). But for me it is one of the great wonders of the written world. What I write will mean differently as it is encountered by different people who read the poem from the poem they are.
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Another Poem
Writ in Water
Who you are changes
with the day.
Yesterday's poet is long gone
replaced now
by the accountant, husband,
father, unquiet man,
disturbed soul, unrested in his
rest with all this change.
Changed and changeable
look around
for the person you remember.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 28, 2007
Providing Insight
Praying the Psalms
Words on paper, meaning in black and white
and I wonder how to transform static
image into heartfelt prayer.
[--------------------------------] A pause
a silent moment thickening into
a knot that hardens in the throat. What once
I prayed eagerly, I pray now as dust.
The overfamiliar words stumble out
of my mouth, overflow my lips, and when
they mean, they mean lightly, barely denting
the lips, barely weighing on the tongue, now
falling off, vanishing in weeds that choke
what wheat sprouts.
[----------------]And yet isn't there something
in obedience? Is there no merit
in doing what you've been charged to do? In
saying the words and joining the torrent
that flows through the centuries, baptising
the world anew in each generation? But
beautiful words and bright blossoms don't change
a landscape of ash--the bitter ashes
of obedience, humility, and
duty.
{----} The good that is done is buried
with us, words not ours have refreshed the world
and borne us to the grave with no sign of
any difference. We're told that our words do
untold good, sanctifying the hours and
redeeming the unredeemed day. Weary
and tired of prayer's trying toil, I try
to remember how much worse all might be
if I did not pray, and for a brief time
I'm on fire again. This moment dies in
an ashy sirocco, a dust-devil
through the solitary inner desert
landscape of prayer when the wadi's dry.
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Another Observation
[untitled]
To stand for just an evening moment
and see the oak, spanish-moss tufted, pinned
against a still blue but fading sky, scraggly,
mostly naked branches, knobbed and curled, spiky
balls of bromeliad, pierced through on twigs--
sea urchins on a thread--is to know with
some assurance how strange we really are.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Next to Last for the Day
Study in Red
Not a shred of it--
not in the rolling river
or mid-day sun-drenched
sky or trees limned against
the etched and eerie never-ending horizon,
or in the grass-bleached, burnt brown
by rainless days and dewless evenings
nor in the road that threads
the landscape, nor in the wildflowers
relentlessly blue, so blue, so sky-blue deep
blue they tip the scales
and roll into purple.There in purple petaled blossom
splendor it hides, the only tinge
the only suggestion of it in
the whole world.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Wonders of Waiting
Sam has three hours of dance classes on Monday night. As a result there is much waiting. Last night as I was pacing up and down in front of the strip mall where the dance classes occur, a middle aged, probably Vietnamese lady emerged from a nail salon. As she opened the door and turned to lock it, I caught a whiff of acetone and it resulted in this:
Nail Salon
A life of volatile organics--of
making life better by painting the stuff
of beetle wings bright red, soft pink, polished
orange, dusty cherry, hot brick, beryllium
blue, cobalt, aster, seafoam, or buffing
them to high gloss shine and making them as
nature intended, flesh and pale off-white.
Who's to say if it could be lived better?
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More Crossover Wisdom
More derived from reading Buddhist books. I should note a caution here--Buddhism is not something that everyone should approach or that the person young in his or her Christian vocation should look into extensively. There is a seductiveness to doctrine and idea, and particularly to the very appealing notions in Buddhism that allow us to overlook certain intrinsic difficulties with the dogmatic side of the religion.
I present here parallels in Buddhism. They are parallels. Buddhists and Christians do not share the same faith structure nor even, in any meaningful sense, the same cosmology. Nevertheless, we are adjured to take what is good among all the good things in the world, and Buddhism has much in it that could strengthen a Christian vocation. For example:
from Cultivating Compassion
Jeffrey HopkinsIn order to value the time we have--to cherish it--it is important to reflect on the certainty of death and the uncertainty of when death will be. In meditation, contemplate: "I will definitely die--as will all of us--but I don't know when I'm going to die. It could be at any time!" Such reflection puts a value--a premium--on the present, on the time you have.
Be prepared and aware of death which comes as the end. An awareness (though not a constant fear) of the end can inform the entire life in ways that bring forth the potential for sanctity. St. Therese of Lisieux has a passage that parallels the above, though not in its memento mori aspects. She notes that all our sorrows are in the past which cannot be rectified or in the future, which we have not seen, but the authentic Christian life is lived mindful of the present, which is all that we have. That is the "premium" of focusing on the end--a realization that every moment is precious, valuable, and important. God blesses us with time--we don't know how much--so it is better to count all the time in the moment and not to look into far futures that may not exist. Not to worry oneself over things that cannot be controlled, but to focus attention on those things which are within our control.
Before continuing to a final point, it is useful to reflect for a moment on a passage immediately preceding the one quoted above.
The actuarial tables say that males as a whole will live so many years and females as a whole will live so many more years, but such figures are irrelevant with respect to any specific individual; if you're going to die next week, it's a hundred percent chance you're going to die then. It's not a such and such percentage that you might live to be seventy-eight. If you are to die on the road today, it's a hundred percent certain you'll die on the road today.
Having quoted the first passage, in which there is nothing objectionable to Christianity, I deftly ignored the sentence that begins an exposition immediately following. I will note it below:
"Since it is obvious that the body and possessions are left behind, on need to put more emphasis on consciousness."
I'm intrigued by this statement as it seems to imply that consciousness does not pass away and if consciousness is the Buddhist equivalent of a soul, that goes without saying. But nothing I've read suggests this to be true. Consciousness is incredibly important in Buddhist thought because of karma. Every conscious act is at once the ripening of one of the potentialities of karma and the setting of new potentialities. And again, we can draw parallels, but this emphasis on what we would lightly read as aspects of the self can be misleading.
Now, to do justice, we must recognize that Buddhists do not think that Mind (consciousness) is equivalent to "self." And so to assume that what is meant by the common usage of the word consciousness is what is meant when discussing Buddhism is an error. However, it is an easy error that can easily lead astray. Hence my recommendation that Buddhist texts are not for everyone. There's too much there when read with the literalist, rational, western mind can be misread or mistaken for something other than what is actually meant. Better, if one is likely to stumble into this trap, to stay out of that forest entirely.
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August 29, 2007
The Way Words Shape Themselves
This poem started off going one direction and ended up in another entirely. It isn't particularly good and isn't presented as a sterling example of the poetic art, but rather as what happens when poetry begins to take over prose. These are essentially stray thoughts from a journal--although that wasn't the intent upon composition.
And so we're back to the observation made the other day regarding authorial intent with particular reference to William Butler Yeats. It doesn't much matter what an author intends, means, or even overtly states as he writes because meaning is, in some sense, collaborative--it is the work of the artist that brings it forth, but the work of the reader and the place of the reader at that time that gives it force. If the reader intends differently from the author, the work can likely be interpreted in that light. I often wonder about the many works of scholarship surrounding written work. I suspect there are darn few authors who would admit it, but the object of composition is not necessarily deep meaning--in fact, there may be no object at all--it may simply be that the artist cannot do otherwise; it is in the nature of the beast.
Karma
The actions put in place today
spring from seeds planted in the past.
The actions taken today
set seeds that form the future.
In the moment of movement the past
and the future are fused
to become the present.
We cannot see the present come
into being, the bridges between
seconds are burned as one
instant ticks over into another.
But in some shared space
we enter together the only
time any of us have.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Emptiness of Prayer
We have long known that Blessed Mother Teresa went through a long dark night of the soul. I don't know that anyone knew its extent or depth, and shortly we should all be privileged to be able to find out. Privileged, I say, because such things are the substance of the life of faith and if we ignore them, we do so at our peril. More importantly, they are things that any person of deep faith is likely to experience. Likewise, they are things that ordinary sinners experience all the time. The two have different causes and sources, but the end result is similar. In the case of the sinner, the darkness is troublesome and not peaceful--something fought against, struggled against. In the case of the Saint--well, I wouldn't know that yet.
All of this in preface to a marvelous little passage that says it quite succinctly.
from The Monk Downstairs
Tim FarringtonMy mind is a stretch of barren country and swirling dust; my heart has shriveled to the size of a dried pea. But this is all my private comedy. The emptiness of prayer is deeper than mere despair. Preparing us for a love we cannot conceive, God takes our lesser notions of love from us one by one.
Have you really never seen it, Brother James, somewhere in the grim efficiency of your industrial meditation? Have you never once seen all your goodness turn to dust? I tell you that until you do, all your prayer is worse than useless. It is gears of greed, grinding. Love is not fuel for the usual machinery.
What is remarkable is that this is in a work of "light" fiction-- something little more than a romance--what is it doing there? How did the author get it there without sounding preachy and overbearing? What is his point?
I suppose if I sustain my reading, I shall find out the answer and I hope I'll be pleased with it. Either way, I'll let you know.
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August 30, 2007
Stumbling into the Light
Time has always intrigued me, and the experience of time is even more fascinating. I have nothing deep or insightful to say about it. Nevertheless, to attempt to say it I shall because I have ever learned that discretion is the bitter part of valor. [No, that wasn't a typo.]
The Mystery of Time
A clock ticks, arbitrary measure
of a moment--a waterclock drips
and each tiny splash gives weight to now:
but what is now? And even as I
think the word the now of that moment
passes and the thought became memory
of what slipped by.
[______________] There is no now, each
now is gone before it can be named.
A chronic waterfall, the seconds
wash over the rock ledge and vanish
with a tumble and turn; at this joint,
poised on the brink, I can see but can't
move the water flowing to, water
cascading away; no more can I
halt it, stop it on the brink, study
it, name it, and then let it flood pst.
One moment it is the unspoken
future, trips over the rocky juncture
and then is past, but no held, not owned
not ever my present, but always
passing.
In some sense now is never. That is, by the time you recognize NOW it has already slipped by. By the time you think NOW, that now is an instant in the past. In a sense all though is memory. It happens in the moment, and people constrained to our linear experience of it, it seems like now.
The Buddhists seek to plumb this mystery by mindfulness--living in the now. And if one could truly live in the NOW one would actually be living in eternity where all the chained together nows have a meaning the transcends the sequential NOW of our experience.
Or something like that.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Morning Thoughts
You know, poetry really says it all. If you bother to listen to the voice under the voice, if you read between the lines, or if you just enjoy for the moment and let the moment linger--poetry says it all. I suppose that is one reason, one very good reason for praying the psalms. Poetry is, by its nature, closer to God. Which is not to imply that God is a poem--but God is at the heart of every good poem--just as He is waiting to surprise you in every work of art and nature, if only you are willing to be surprised.
It's amazing to me how the night
passes and the morning thoughts
born of dreams pass silently away,
unencumbered by the obligation
to teach, unaffected by the need
to nurture. They present and then fold
passing briefly into the light of memory
and fading with the stronger morning.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 31, 2007
From a Friend, Gratefully Acknowledged
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Monk Downstairs
In this novel by Tim Farrington, a monk, Michael Christopher, comes to live with Rebecca and her daughter Mary Martha in an in-law apartment that Rebecca has just refurbished.
The novel is beautifully written and seems to have moments of real insight into deep prayer. I've noted some of the here.
Alas, for those strengths, I'm afraid that what I expected did happen all too readily. Being a novel for larger public consumption, it catered to that whim. Mr. Farrington falls into the all-too-male habit of confusing satisfied lust with love and the couple no sooner brush hands with one another than they are entangled in bed.
If Michael is exemplary of the modern Catholic conscience, it is little wonder that we are facing the crisis we are in the Church today. He performs a baptism that does little more than mock the sacrament (a point he acknowledges later when he is reluctant to perform a more somber sacrament).
Rebecca, on the other hand is nearly schizophrenic in back-and-forthing regarding religion and faith. We're told she's lukewarm and seeking, and then she turns maniacal with Michael takes her daughter to a church to pray. And then she's back again asking him to perform a sacrament, although he claims to have no ability to do so (even though there is no indication that leaving the monastery has deprived him of his faculties as Priest).
Add to this various subtle errors regarding Catholicism that should not come from the mind and pen of a monk--for example, at one point, Michael speaks of "leaving celibacy" when, in fact, he has left chastity. Leaving celibacy is not a sin in itself, if the vow has been lifted; however, leaving chastity is always a sin. But then Mike isn't too clear on the notion of sin.
One is led to wonder whether Michael's dark night of prayer might not be more a result of his sinful and overweening pride and self-assurance rather than deep immersion in the life of prayer. All indications seem to point that way. I don't think it's possible to experience a dark night of deep prayer while one is in the midst of major sins. Although St. John of the Cross points out that we can't know and that God's grace is mysterious and makes all things possible.
At any rate, the writing is fine, many of the points about prayer are good, and the story was interesting if more than a little off-putting. It does show me that many male writers seem to have no notion of romance that does not center on the genitalia. A shame, this could have been a superb witness. As it stands, it is possible that someone who is not aware of Christianity or the power of prayer or the depths to which prayer can go may pick this up and derive from it an impetus to move further into prayer. Others will have a greater acquaintance with some good aspects of Christianity from it--so it is possible to have a good effect. Unfortunately, from point of view of faith, the novel is gravely flawed and so I can only give a half-hearted recommendation to it.
What a shame--it was building up to a superb novel--and had our main characters one iota of restraint, one moment of holding back, this novel could easily have flowed into the next in which the two get married. I've started reading that one and I only hope that it is better in matters of morals than this one.
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A Theory of Poetry
Not really. Theories of poetry are bloated, self-referential, and filled with all sorts of erroneous assumptions. Let's call this more self-referential revelations about one poet.
And there won't be many of those. I just wanted to note that while I greatly appreciate those poets who are able to use rhyme naturally and fluidly--Eliot and Frost come to mind, my own poetry doesnt' fit well into that schema. I have found over the years that I tend to prefer alliterative, assonant, and resonant poetry. I like the internal and external sounds of the words to work in more intricate ways than rhyme. I like the complexity of the music of words. And it was hammered home to me more and more as I wrote the following:
These Woods
How very easy it is to become
lost, to wonder down the wrong trail looking
for some sign of having passed by this way,
forgetting that the only motion is
forward, even when it seems like standing
still or continuous circling. Shadow
and light, the sound of leaves in wind, perhaps
a nearby stream trickling over rocks in
the late summer heat. Or, if these trees were
mangroves and the scuttling black ghosts were
crabs, the vision beyond the tangled limbs
would be the sea--blue-green immensity
stretching out to a sky that thins, becomes
transparent and lingers on the distant
horizon.
[_____] Or, these woods are a muddle
a confusion of all forests, all lands,
all times. Whatever they are, I am lost
in them, stopped by a pebble from moving
forward, transfixed by a shadow, caught out
by the sudden unsearched for splash of sun--
light in eyes more blinding than the dimness
of the domain in which I wander. Where
am I? I want to call out shattering
a sylvan stillness, thoughtless blind silence.
And within me, the echo, "Where indeed?"
Still stopped, now I stoop to touch the pebble
that seemed to bar my way and feel its cool
damp surface and it's sun-stored warmth all at
once.
[__] When will I want to move on? Is it
even a question I should ask? Still here
touching the smooth white that first distracted
me in my headstrong stomping through the gloom,
I dare now to ask what I would not know.
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Another Theory About Poetry
Sometimes I wonder if any great work of poetry actually sprang from a poet who wrote with intention rather that wrote from his or her own experience. That is not to say that there is no meaning in poetry, but those poems most fraught with meaning, most bound up in intention may be only secondarily so. That is, the poet in the composition of them followed the muse (inspiration, the Holy Spirit--you name the mysterious element that gives birth to art).
I ask because when I look around at all the earnest young artists today whose intent is to jolt, shock, and pull us out of our blase day-to-day plumbing of reality, their work is mostly of a moment. The shock wears off and the work becomes an artifact--a remnant of an era.
I look at some of the great poetry of the past and I see story telling, and yes, some kernel of a notion, some idea that gave birth to the whole--but I don't necessarily buy that the whole poem was constructed toward the end represented by the kernel. It may have been refined and perfected with the end in mind--but as I think about my poetry, I realize I don't think, "I'm going to bring this symbol and that symbol into conjunction and by their juxtaposition undermine this linguistic element. I think instead of a moment--real or imagined--a moment that means something--not in the sense of universal meaning, but in the sense of having importance in my understanding of how the world works. And thinking of that moment, I attempt to convey that understanding as best I can. There is no intent for this or that meaning. The words lead, I follow them.
And because that is the pattern, I often wonder whether all that is made of Eliot is purposive, or if rather he composed what made sense to him in all the complexity that is Eliot and we are left to divine purpose and intent where indeed the only purpose may have been to expel the irritant. When it happens we sometimes have pearls--but mostly we have dross--even in the works of the greatest poets--the discards more than likely greatly outnumber the poems that are worked to completion.
Just some thoughts, with no proof behind them.
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