To thine own self be true

“That is happiness, to be dissolved into something complete and great.”–Willa Cather, My Antonia

The river runs 24/7
eternally, beside
the rocks.
It is only when
you get close
to someone
or something,
that you truly
know it, intimately.

Excited voices
as geyser mist rises
over the white
noise of waterfall.
Continuous turbulence.
The Wild pouring itself
down, like a final flood.

Timeless strata
standing by
to witness.
A prognathous rock-face,
some scared old man
his mouth open,
staring far down
to the abyss of bowl
where the water
roils and crashes
like a washer gone mad.

It is only on the other
side of river, though,
that a rainbow arcs
its soft message
upon the rocks,
as everywhere else
the falls thunder down
to your deep inner self.

The best of human beings in daily life remains live in-person presence coupled with the sharing and mutual exchange of the gifts of self. When these are, maximally, the best gifts of self, then there is nothing greater, finer, or more selfless or more truly loving.

As I wrote earlier this summer:

Give all, give all for love
Our maximal gifts of self.
Hold nothing back
And never question why.

“And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we call meaning.”–Anthony Burgess, Enderby Outside

pushing a laughing 20-month-old grandson with his small giraffe and his pet Bichon-Shitzu in a laundry basket across rugs and floors on a showery Saturday afternoon.
Like so much of the best, one starts with imagined possibilities which then materialize in humorous juxtapositions. It is in inspired, creative moments like this, that so many special moments of being and memories are made. Very much Calvin & Hobbes stuff.

Civilized

Refined

Dignified

Cultivated

Elegant

‘”Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.’–Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland                                                       

First posed in 1865, this question has been the central preoccupation of twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers and poets–the central question of personal identity.

When we write, it goes without saying that we create something out of nothing. As artists or makers, we make something new and original each time we write. Although our poem may contain feelings, ideas, a story, a social comment or criticism, humor or satire, it is first and foremost our expressive writing on a topic. When readers encounter our poem, they not only form some response to the work as well as the voice, mask, or persona ‘speaking’, but also to the individual person responsible for its composition.

I believe we ‘write ourselves into existence’, into the awareness or consciousness of others, into our social context or times whenever we write. Each poem says something about who we are as people in process–our views, attitudes, values, character, and sensibilities. “I write, therefore I become.” (That is, when we write, we move from being to becoming, thereby expressing our unique personal identity.)

Quite apart from our desire to entertain and share thoughts, feelings, and perspectives with others, we also write to clarify ourselves–that is, our deepest most innermost selves to ourselves and to others–readers or an audience. In that sense, the creative writing of poetry can be seen as a means for answering the Caterpillar’s question, ‘the Big One’–as to who we really are. And in that process, we actualize our creative and expressive potential, simultaneously identifying and realizing ourselves each time, with each new poem.

“The goal of the [life or writing] journey is to discover yourself as consciousness.”
-Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion

A most unusual process. In previous sleeps, I have met Dylan, Lightfoot, on and on…Last night Leonard Cohen and Sinclair Ross–separate meetings, visits.

Cohen was 45, looking much as he did in Harry Rasky’s never-released-on-DVD documentary “The Song of Leonard Cohen”. It is a very puzzling, disappointing, and somewhat unflattering portrait of both men as Rasky tries to schmooze and get close to Cohen who becomes a role more than anything else, only becoming more open when his old friend Irving Layton barges into his apartment with his usual flamboyance like a circus wagon.

The Cohen I met admitted there were some problems with the documentary, but ultimately didn’t know why Rasky had withheld it from release today. He was fairly low key and cooperative. One interesting discovery was of a little-known album Cohen had recorded for an older label like Folkways in which he crooned a number of older songs along the lines of “The Tennessee Waltz” which he late put on a live album.

We talked of poetry and eventually I spoke a little about how I wrote. It was only then that his ‘crap detector’ emerged as he asked me questions about why this or that worked for me. I could see that nothing was ever easy or fixed about the way he himself approached his craft which probably accounted for the duality and irony of his poems and songs.

It was a brief meeting, but much more friendly and instructive than the cat-and-mouse, ‘put-on’ documentary that Rasky had once spent many months on.

………………………………..

Sinclair Ross was a shorter encounter. He was soft-spoken and somewhat cautious about revealing details of his life. He was a more reserved man, most likely with a stranger in this case. “Why would anybody ever want to know about me?” was his most telling remark.

…………………………

The previous day had been one of household and outdoor work. A day concluding with a Bailey’s mini-glass of Caramel Bailey’s and a viewing Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes in “The Abbey Grange”–the only mystery, I believe, in which Holmes let the killer and his love go. The only one in which a woman caught him off-guard, suddenly embracing him. Her gesture had shocked him with its spontaneous intimacy, leaving him thoughtful and rationalizing with Watson about why he let the couple escape.

It was a day in which irony emerged as a central theme (of education in general and my own life), something which I shared with my good writing friend. It was a day when I received e-flowers and then the real thing–orange lillies–from my daughter who popped in for a surprise morning visit. My birthday.

Way often leads unto way in larger process. Anyway such day episodes later gave way to the relaxed encounters with two favorite Canadian writers. As in Keats’ Negative capability, there is no longer any reaching after reason and explanation, only acceptance of what continues to be a rather odd, benevolent, peaceful flow to my days.

“Do I dare to eat a peach?”–T.S. Eliot, “The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

What goes around, comes around. Sometimes the life one long vicariously and imaginatively led.

Had my first-ever peach daquiri last week. It was fantastic and changed the quality of my day.

As has the basket of B.C. peaches which I have been eating cold from the fridge with Life and Cheerios the past few days. Something about peaches…

Peach cobbler, peach jam…the alternate sensuous possibilities reawakening yet again.

(photo of poster on study door; Malcolm MacDowell in film: O Lucky Man!)

My grade 5 teacher sent me beautiful flowers via e-mail. (She had no idea what day this was for me.) Ah, the world of minor miracles and happy accidents.

Just to say my19th Symphony under the Stars (attended every one) was splendid last evening, accompanied by my daughter. VIP treatment courtesy of the symphony–wine, special eats and desserts. An excellent program–Mozart and two Tchaikovskys! And an amazing 40 minute Dvorak sounding like nothing I’d ever heard before played by cello virtuoso Denise Djokic (how’s that for destiny?) Can music and life get any better?

Apparently it can. I ordered my own birthday present–a 60 CD set of Tchaikovsky! My old friend Ken once shook his head and said to me, “My, you sure know how to live.” And he was absolutely right. 22,360+ days. So far, so good.