To thine own self be true

After supper we
play ball in the yard
embraced by shadows                                                                                                                                           of gathering dusk.

My cousin wears
a John Deere cap,
the one his father
might have worn
in a previous game.

The children giggle:
it’s them against us
as it was 20 years before.
Small nervous offspring
testing their uncertain powers
on a makeshift diamond:
shoes and chairs for bases.

Dad hits a long fly
into the tall trees that
sprang from saplings
planted long ago.
He pauses for a moment
to savour the ball’s high arc—-                                                                                            thru the clean August air.

The adults move
to make a play on my son.
“Get him–get him” cries
my mother, reliving the time
she tried to catch
my dodgy youth.

Double-play:
my aunt waits at first
with outstretched arms
to tag her granddaughter,
the two of them lost
in private ecstasy.

Like 20 years before though,
the sky turns to velvet
and the grown-ups tire first.
The children plead
for extra innings
but umpires have deaf ears.

Played out, we all retire
from the field
our ritual of the summer lawn
postponed because of dark.

Walking toward our twilight cars
we dream of being
around in time
for the next unscheduled game.

**************************************************************************************************************************

“The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”–Robert Frost, “The Figure a Poem Makes”

A poem about memory (one key form of consciousness), the passing of time, and the human and family rituals that repeat themselves briefly giving meaning and purpose to our lives and activities. It is fairly clear that the poet’s consciousness takes in a lot including the various consciousnesses and unfolding experiences of the individual players.

Nature often plays a role or is the backdrop to the many moments of being in our lives. In a sense, it is as much a character as any of the humans in this scene. Every moment of consciousness takes place in a specific moment or unique context. And as you read the poem, you are also aware of what that some of the characters may not be conscious of, too. And so it may be that perspective may also have a significant role to play in whatever process, event, or emerging consciousness.

Seven years
& standing alone
in the thick brown reeds
of an afternoon marsh
I came across
death
& cradling my burden
in youth-thin arms
walked slowly back
to the faded barn

The yellow straw
turned crimson
as the duck lay
quite still, not moving
Tall & all-knowing
my uncle glanced away
& said “She won’t
live long, son–”

I hugged my friend
fiercely
the cool stately feathers
so real to a city boy’s touch
rocking & repeating
“Don’t die please
God save my bird
I know you can”
stroking the limp body
until I knew…

At seven though,
it hardly seemed
that boys
like birds of heaven
were ever meant
to fall

**************************************************************************************************************************

Much of what we learn and eventually become conscious of occurs through encounters with nature. Who can forget the moment one realized that all life dies or one day ‘falls’? There, too, may occur those moments of disillusionment which may be associated with beliefs we have been brought up with, which have to be reconciled with the facts of our personal experience.

The leaf that is
contemplating
its turn
to fall.

************************************************************************************************************************************

And what also of plant, tree, flower consciousness? C.f. Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird’s classic book The Secret Life of Plants, sections like the one on plants and music. Yes, instances of indifferent or hostile nature aside, what of the possibility that consciousness simply informs much of the earth and much of nature.

Dressed hurriedly
in darkness, you wonder why
life must be this way.

*************************************************************************************************************************

(written in the 1990s)

Of consciousness at an early age. Likewise, one cannot help thinking of all that young children may learn from quarreling parents. For a humorous take on waiting in a car from a dog’s point of view, c.f. Alex Colville’s “Dog in Car, 1999”. Yes, indeed, what of family dog or animal consciousness, quite apart from that of celebrated dolphins and chimps?

“Oh, the glory of growth, silent, mighty, persistent, inevitable! To awaken, to open up like a flower to the light of a fuller consciousness!”–Emily Carr, “Hundreds and Thousands”. The Journals of Emily Carr

What is it that makes ‘you’ uniquely you, quite apart from your soul, spirit, and heart? You were born with a brain and sensibility to perceive and experience this world. Ever since you were young, you have experienced this world and everything in it in terms of consciousness. That is how you understand yourself, others, situations, and the world at large. Generally speaking, you are conscious of various things and experiences, or not. You have acquired a fair bit of consciousness (and subconsciousness) already, though sometimes there are things you choose to put ‘out-of-mind’, out-of-consciousness.

Think for a moment about your life. You are either alive and conscious of that aliveness, or not. You may be a few weeks old and vaguely conscious of a mother feeding you, or a teenager conscious of having done something wrong, or an old person in hospital, listening to and conscious of the machines that may be keeping you alive. Maybe at another point in your life, you hit your head, and lose consciousness. Or maybe you actually forget something and someone you used to know well, or in an extreme case, develop consciousness-damaging dementia.

Consciousness is that important, (self-)defining state in which one is aware of oneself and that which is outside of self. Essentially, it is how we experience each day and how we interact with others and our various environments. It is where we spend most of our days and time, whether we’re sleeping, remembering, or imagining. In life, consciousness always goes with the territory. It is truly who we most and each are. At any given moment, it is summarily the total of what we know, have experienced, and have learned or are learning in our busy, ephemeral, transitory lives.

***************************************************************************************************************************

In terms of what matters, is most important, or relevant to our lives as individuals would be consciousness or conscious awareness. Watch a baby in its third month starting to become aware of his toys and try to imagine how that baby might feel or how you might have felt with those same toys at that age. Recall an important lesson you learned from a favorite teacher. Remember how the death of a pet or wild animal may have affected you. Recollect your first job and how you learned to work with others.Think back to when you graduated from high school, college, or university. And all the things that stood out or are memorable to you. Perhaps you can even have some recollection of how those moments felt and what specific things you suddenly became aware of.

“Consciousness” is also a good old ’60s word. Back then, when I grew up, young people were all interested in increasing consciousness. For some, this meant a political consciousness as in women’s lib, civil rights, or gay lib. For others, it emerged through such physical things as long hair, different clothing, drugs, and a questioning of or rejection of ’50s-style adult authority. For still others, the consciousness sought was to be found in new writing of the day and different emerging genres of popular music.

But as the third paragraph of the piece states, consciousness is truly larger and more fundamental than some things that emerged in a specific decade in the western world. What I find most interesting about any other individuals is what they know and what they are aware of. Beyond whatever behavior and action, consciousness is what defines who they are, every bit as much as their values or character.

Worth noting, in passing, is that consciousness can be physical (such as in our response to massage therapy), emotional (such as in our learning from the feelings evoked in relationship conflicts), mental (such as in transcendental meditation), and spiritual (such as in our response to religion or cultural rites). Consciousness is palpable in a number of ways, on a number of levels or dimensions.

In the earliest entry on “Individual Process, Briefly”, I spoke of how so many of us seek missing information, often things we want or need to know and are curious about. That information when found, in turn, satisfies and expands our consciousness, knowledge base, and understanding of ourselves, others, and the world. When we expand our information, we expand ourselves and become ‘larger’, metaphorically speaking. The more we are conscious of, the more we grow innerly–a core manifestation of expanded consciousness.

Later, as we age and look back, we may see that our lives were not just about the things we did and the relationships we had. Instead, we might come to realize how important, basic, and significant consciousness was in defining what we essentially were and in understanding or appreciating what we learned from life and others.

Without an object of desire, he could
face down the flames of aurora borealis.
He became a poet of weather now
and carved his name on clouds.

The poles of sun and moon informed this,
his final art in a landscape of enticement.
His sense of world came from within
and he knew no cares of other.

The propositions of dream could replace
the latitudes of nuanced love.
The compensation of words
became charts of imagination.

His mind would grow large
like the stars in a living poem.
That which he loved and could value
was everything he had imagined.

Things were now as they were seen.
No longer man of flesh and bone,
he drew his breath from all of this,
the grand thoughts of re-formed experience.

******************************************************************************************************

Life in “The Living Poem” cont’d.  Beyond it, actually–life and writing being process after all. This piece began as something of a response to reading Wallace Stevens’ poems some 25 years ago. There is also something of “And so lately” in it. (cf stanza 2).

“I am large, I contain multitudes.”–Walt Whitman. Well we do. And things definitely become interesting, as in the previous poem, when the ‘outside’ had been internalized and apprehended and understood, and when life is lived more centrally from and balanced with ‘inside.’ 

Of course, as Berkeley pointed out, nothing is perceived or really exists without someone to perceive or apprehend it. All matter is, in his sense, mental or spiritual. The life of sensations Keats worshipped and lived for as internalized and then expressed by the writer or artist.

Whatever audacity you may read between the lines or the poem’s tone owes something to Stevens. This is, though, above all, a poem about human and individual  possibilities. Our dreams may very well come true sometimes and the truths of our experience will assert and express themselves without the need of others, as in the previously mentioned Dickinson poem.

This poem is ultimately about vision and the importance of seeing ‘through’ (as in mental breakthroughs) not just ‘with’ our eyes, as Blake put it. Or as I wrote in the previous poem “the peacock’s feather/an eye upon the world”–any one (or individual)eye will do! Ah, the truths of imagination, from within, of writing, of our own creations and doing!

As a footnote, if you want to read more about eyes, vision, and seeing, then treat yourself to a (re)read of Dickinson’s poems. Perhaps the greatest literary exploration ever of image meets vision.

A drowsy fly trembled on the worn wooden window screen. The April breeze was cool and, looking down to the breaking ice on the river below, I wondered how many times both my cancer-stricken parents had stood there, by day and night, contemplating the familiar, yet ever-changing panorama.

Behind me were piled some fifty boxes of packed belongings that represented their now-gone, irrelevant past. My inheritance. Ready for moving day. Lit by the sun from another window in the living room, the brilliant pink hydrangeas I`d bought her the first day I came to stay lived blithely on without my mother.

The ceiling fan stood still, though a black clock–a gift from the newspaper–ticked monotonously. On the floor, a cooler from long ago picnics inquired about the possibility of another summer. A cold heating pad sat aimlessly on a chair for her return. In the corner stood the crutches from a fall she never told me about. On the floor a dark braided oval rug my father, weak from chemo, had lain on nine years before, lovingly cleaning it with a tiny vacuum. By the window, the tv screen was clean once more, its nicotine haze wiped off.

On the wet lawn outside, two deer edged up the bank cautiously–one male, one female, nibbling the grass. Life was, indeed, tough enough though spring had chosen now to return. In the end, there was no choice, you see. I spared the fly and turned away from the window.

*********************************************************************************************

Apparently I was meant to revisit the fly and another take on death, more close and personal, two decades later. There is much that is implicit/explicit about time, the past, memory, change, process, time passing, death, and finally life, rebirth, and choices here in this piece. Nature, as always, plays a role in whatever destined moments of being. For my own part, I know the timely deer represented/were my parents.

Everything is there to be seen and observed, internalized and finally understood and appreciated. Writing has been my great luck. It embodies who and what I am and whatever truths of life and love experience. And perhaps you`ll agree that we all, like the fly, deserve another chance to live and experience another day and season.

April and a black
fly at my window
slugs his dormant buzzz
against the blue pane

heavy, fat & unloved
he was spent
from his vented life
embalmed by winter

Hibernation kept him
safe a while
& then it killed him
when he wanted out for good

Vermin of the ledge
he never found a mate
his dream smacked
impotence on that glass

No angels sing his hymn
He lies uncanonized
in a valley of bureaucrats
no monument for his shade

Leaving work I think of him
as the sun warms my soul
Breathing slow the afternoon air
I feel myself rise rise rise

**************************************************************************************

And then there is leaving work/driving home from work…. Keats thought the poet was “the most unpoetical of anything in existence; because he has no Identity–he is continually…(empathically) filling some other body.” As he said “If a Sparrow come before my Window I take part in its existence and pick about the Gravel.”

Amazed always at flies that hatch out of nowhere, so to speak, and forever enthralled at the story (described by Thoreau) of the bug that one day hatched from an egg embedded in a 60 year-old apple-tree table, I once wrote my own way to a winged life on wings of poesy and imagination. What the soul or spirit wants or needs most, it will create under the ribs of death.

This poem was also an alternate take on Katherine Mansfield`s story “The Fly”. Thus, it is and has been the possibilities and intimations that have long interested me as I have literally and figuratively written myself into existence. Certainly if one finds one is or has been living what Eliot called the “buried life”, one may still find escape, hope, and new life through the sheerness of will and the potentially indefatigable, undefeatable human spirit.

There are animals here
who have rubbed themselves
raw on mornings like these
recalling robinsong
& lovesap before
the decibels of jets.

They peer thru gauze
at the cool desired blue.
Shaved & alarmed
into daylight
they weigh their lives
against the balance-sheet of sky
draw breath & drive deadlined
into forests of stone.

****************************************************************************************

Retired for a decade now, I remember it too well–what a soulless work-day and rush-hour are like. At odds with necessity are nature’s beauty and the bright blue dream of love. Instead, a certain mechanical/automated response called “making a living” and a hardness (c.f. “Concrete Sea”, an old tune by The Poppy Family) and a numbing alienation within. Might have also called this The Ruts of Our Lives.

Aristotle wrote that “Man is by nature a social animal.” Similarly, poet John Donne wrote, that “No man is an island entire of itself.” And there is, indeed, truth that we are connected to others, living in social contexts daily. Often we do things for others or the approval of others. We are prone to seeking validation through connection and relationships from others. The opinions of others often influences us and guides or prevents us from doing or saying things we would not otherwise do.

And, so it is, that we go through life being praised, complimented, validated, criticized, and corrected by others. There are many other opinions of who we are as individuals, as persons. But what of our own views of self and who we really are? How many others, whether family, friends, or workmates do you feel really know, understand, accept, and appreciate you as you likely or truly are?

If you have seen the classic movie Citizen Kane, you may recall that the reporter Thompson collects different opinions about who the reclusive millionaire really or essentially was. He is left finally with many jigsaw-like pieces (that resemble Susan’s large puzzles) each of them possibly true and significant, incidentally. But it is left to the lonely, weary old protagonist himself to sum up the personal meaning of his life as he once desired, lived, and loved it. He confers the meaning of his entire life in one word–a name, a single image.

We are mostly conscious of what others think and say about us, and what we say and think, often differently, about ourselves. The famous Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, concluded that, as individuals, we must answer for our own lives and find our own meanings through actions, values, suffering, and sacrifice. We each of us have the option of choosing and creating an “immortal footprint in the sands of time.”

And like Kane, we may have ‘the final say’, so to speak, in defining ourselves, the essence or significance of who we are, and the core personal, and perhaps privately understood, meanings of our own lives. Like him, we, too, may choose to confer the meanings of our own lives upon ourselves.

*******************************************************************************************************************************************************

As in Emily Dickinson’s poem “The soul selects her own Society”, we, too, might ultimately come to know and understand the mystery and meaning of our own lives if we are blessed with understanding, luck, and opportunity via self-knowledge.

(Spoiler) “Rosebud”–the power of word, image, and memory. To be able to say concisely in one word what we essentially are or once were, what our lives meant, what our romantic innocent childhood dreams once were.

(Self-) knowledge and language. Memory and language. Consciousness and language. Meaning and language. Purpose and language. Dreams and language.  And one could substitute the word “image’ in the above statements as easily. A life and Life boiled down to two things, two words, receptively and expressively–language (or word/s) and image. How could one know and understand oneself/one’s own life without the communication or expression via either?