Serendipity

The Red Cockatoo

Sent as a present from Annam--
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.

And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.


Po Chu-i (772--846)
from World Poetry
Arthur Waley, trans.


I wonder what kind of cage our society uses today. What takes the place of those stout bars?

Contracts?

Serendipity

Since the Fall Equinox or the First Day of Fall is September 23 this year, less than two weeks from today, this poem seemed appropriate.


Late Summer

In the gentle evening of the summer,
which is tired with the festival,
the water is clear
and the fish are at the bottom.

Holding leftover wreaths
in their languid arms,
trees are
already dreaming.

The last bird has flown by,
holding a black sound
in its beak.

Farewell, summer,
quicken your pace as you go . . .
Stars fall quietly into the water . . .

-- Tada Chimako --



from Summer: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Gary Schmidt & Susan M. Felch, editors

Serendipity

One of the poet's favorite or at least one of the most frequent themes is death. I think Emily Dickinson wrote several hundred poems on that theme. I suspect that probably every poet of some fame has written at least one or more on death. And, their treatment of death is as varied as they themselves are. Here is one I just discovered that dates back to about 1900 B. C., over four thousand years ago.

Death is Before Me Today

Death is before me today
like health to the sick
like leaving the bedroom after sickness.

Death is before me today
like the odor of myrrh
like sitting under a cloth on a day of wind.

Death is before me today
like the odor of lotus
like sitting down on the shore of drunkenness.

Death is before me today
like the end of the rain
like a man's home-coming after the wars abroad.

Death is before me today
like the sky when it clears
like a man's wish to see home after numberless years of captivity.

-- anon --
c. 1900 B. C.
W. S. Merwin, trans
World Poetry
Katharine Washburn & John B. Major, Editors


The anonymous poet's view is that death is just returning home after a long absence. Taoists say something very similar: we come out of the Void, are here for awhile, and then return to the Void.



But, there's Dylan Thomas, whom I think would not agree.


(from) Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

. . . . .

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Come. bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



And Emily Dickinson?

Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The Carriage held but just Ourselves —
And Immortality.

We slowly drove — He knew no haste —
And I had put away
My labor — and my leisure too,
For His Civility.

We passed the School where Children strove
At Recess — in the Ring —
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain —
We passed the Setting Sun —

Or rather — He passed Us-
The Dews drew quivering and chill —
For only Gossamer, my Gown —
My Tippet — only Tulle —

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground —
The roof was scarcely visible —
The Cornice — in the Ground

Since then — ‘tis Centuries — and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity.


I think she and the anonymous Egyptian poet would agree.


And the haiku poets of Japan


A saddening world:
Flowers whose sweet blooms must fall . . .
As we too, alas . . .
-- Issa --



Death-Song

Leaf alone, fluttering
Alas, leaf alone, fluttering . . .
Floating down the wind.
-- anon --


Death-Song

I have known lovers . . .
Cherry-bloom . . . the nightingale . . .
I will sleep content.
-- anon --

Death-Song

If they ask for me
Say: he had some business
In another world
-- Sukan --


Traditionally, haiku poets would, if they were able, write one last haiku, which then became their death song. Ideally it would express their feelings about their impending death.


As for me, well, death is in the future for all of us. It approaches at its own speed and will meet us at its own choosing. There's no need, though, to rush forward to greet it. It will come. Perhaps between now and that day, I may agree with the anonymous Egyptian poet or Emily Dickinson.

But not today.



The haiku are from
A Little Treasury of Haiku
Peter Beilenson, trans.

Serendipity: Nietzsche

Quotations taken from Human, All-Too-Human



83
The sleep of virtue. When virtue has slept, she will get up more refreshed.

I guess a little sinnin' is good for you, at least according to Nietzsche. But, I wonder--are people really more virtuous after engaging in an sinful escapade, or two, or three, or . . .?




184
Untranslatable. It is neither the best nor the worst in a book that is untranslatable.


I included this because I don't understand why he thinks this should be so.



189
Thoughts in a poem. The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm: usually because they could not walk.

I've often thought the same about many contemporary music groups: those with the spectacular light shows, colored smoke, strange costumes and hairstyles, and bizarre behavior usually are trying to hide that they are, at best, mediocre performers and/or singers. I guess they hope the audience won't notice how truly bad they really are.


All quotations from Human, All-Too-Human are taken from The Portable Nietzsche, translations by Walter Kaufmann.

Serendipity: John Fowles, Wormholes

I have never really wanted to be a novelist. For me the word carries a load of bad connotations--like author and literature and reviewer, only worse. It suggests something factitious as well as fictitious, insipidly entertaining; train-journeyish. One can't imagine a "novelist" 's ever saying what he actually means or feels--one can hardly even imagine his meaning or feeling.

These words have had connotations because they suggest that in some way writing and being a writer aren't central human activities.

I've always wanted to write (in this order) poems, philosophy, and only then novels. I wouldn't even put the whole category of activity--writing--first on my list of ambitions. My first ambition has always been to alter the society I live in; that is, to affect other lives. I think I begin to agree with Marx-Lenin: writing is a very second-rate way of bringing about a revolution. But I recognize that all I am capable of is writing. I am a writer. Not a doer.

Society, existing among other human beings, challenges me, so I have to choose my weapon. I choose writing; but the thing that comes first is that I am challenged.

--John Fowles --
from Wormholes


Wormholes is a collection of John Fowles' non-fiction writings: "essays, literary criticism, commentaries, autobiographical statements, memoirs, and musings." The quotation is the very first lines of the work. It's quite a surprise to read that one of the premiere English novelists (or so I regard him) "never really wanted to be a novelist." He's a revolutionary who doesn't believe the pen is mightier than the sword, yet found that his best weapon is the pen.

Are his novels really the response to challenges from society?


Some novels by John Fowles: The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Magus, The Collector, The Ebony Tower, and Daniel Martin.

Serendipity

Here's an old favorite that I haven't read in years. And, now that I've just encountered my 73rd birthday, it's becoming a bit more personal.


With Rue My Heart Is Laden

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had.
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.




And another which I hadn't read before but which also seems to fit a melancholy mode.


Far In A Western Brookland

Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By ponds I used to know.

There, in the windless nighttime,
The wanderer, marveling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
How soft the poplars sight.

He hears: long since forgotten
In fields where I was known,
Here I lie down in London
And turn to rest alone.

There by the starlit fences,
The wanderer halts and hears
My soul that lingers sighing
About the glimmering weirs.


Both poems are by Alfred E. Houseman (1856--1936). They seem more appropriate for a late gloomy fall day, rather than a blistering hot day in summer.

Serendipity

I think I would vote for him.

Montaigne quotes King Seleucus: "'he who knows the weight of a sceptre would not stoop to pick it up if he found it lying on the ground.'

Montaigne then goes on to say: "he [King Seleucus] said it thinking of the heavy and painful duties which are incumbent on a good king. Surely it is no small matter to have to govern others, when so many difficulties present themselves in governing ourselves. In this matter of commanding, which seems so delightsome, I am strongly of the opinion, --in view of the frailty of man's judgement and the difficulty of choice among novel and doubtful things, --that it is much easier and pleasanter to follow than to lead, and this it is great peace for the mind to have simply to pursue a beaten track and to be responsible for oneself alone.'"

Michel de Montaigne
Chapter XLII, Of the Inequality Between Us
The Essays of Montaigne
trans. George B. Ives


Who would be the ideal candidate? I would choose one who didn't want the job, but who would do his or her best, and then try to get out as quickly as possible.

Serendipity

This is something new I've decided to try out. Some might call it blog clutter, but I prefer "Serendipity," which one source defines as "Good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries." What this means here is that during my reading, I frequently come across poems, comments, quotations, even an occasional fact or two that I find interesting, and so I will post them here, more or less regularly.


My first Serendipity entry is a poem by Alexander Pope:


Ode on Solitude

Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Bless'd who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day;

Sound sleep by night: study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
With Meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

-- Alexander Pope --

He's not asking for too much, is he? Just the simple things in life, the basic necessities.