a different kind of breath

only your smile

2011-03-27T15:56:00.002-04:00

Often, when I translate a poem of Rilke's, I feel that the words I have written are incomprehensible & meaningless. His poems are filled with beautiful, mystical images, but the actions and meanings which they describe are often obscure & perplexing. Even this one, which is less mystifying to me, has its ambiguities. Who is the sacrifice: the speaker or his friend? What is the relationship between the two. The only aspects that I can grasp clearly are an element of transformation & an overwhelming sense of tranquility.

Opfer –Rainer Maria Rilke

O wie blüht mein Leib aus jeder Ader
dufteneder, seitdem ich dich erkenn;
sieh, ich gehe schlanker und gerader,
und du wartest nur—: wer bist du denn?

Sieh, ich fühle, wie ich mich entferne,
wie ich Altes, Blattt um Blatt, verlier.
Nur dein Lächeln steht wie lauter Sterne
über dir und bald auch über mir.

Alles was durch meine Kinderjahre
namenlos noch und wie Wasser glänzt,
will ich nach dir nennen am Altare,
der entzündet ist von deinem Haare
und mit deinen Brüsten leicht bekränzt.

I never went to Troy

2010-11-22T21:17:00.002-05:00

Euripides wrote a play in which it was revealed that Helen never went to Troy; rather, a shadow accompanied Paris to the walled city while the woman herself, the famed beauty, was hidden away in Egypt. "You mean," asks a servant of Menelaus, when the truth is revealed, "it was for a cloud, for nothing, we did all that work?"

And what came of that cloud, that nothing? The triumph of the Greeks. Odysseus' otherworldly wanderings, Agamemnon's death (and, in the rest of the Oresteia, the subjugation of the Furies, the blessing of fortune to Athens), the founding of Rome. Socrates' constant references to the works of Homer. Even a shadow can change the course of the world.

"Le nez de Cleopatre,s'il eut ete plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait change," wrote Pascal: "Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have changed."

no more rain, no more roses

2010-09-30T10:26:00.002-04:00

today the rain is coming down hard, hard, hard. the sky is a solid, impenetrable gray, & the trees are shaking furiously. I'm in my room, nibbling on chocolate, waiting for lunch & class to start.

junior year is stressful & tiring. the circles under my eyes are darkening, growing deeper. each week brings its own challenges. some, like this past week, are particularly exhausting. but I'm staying afloat, with friends and sports and relaxing weekends spent reading & listening to music.

Rescue the Dead - David Ignatow

Finally, to forgo love is to kiss a leaf,
is to let rain fall nakedly upon your head,
is to respect fire,
is to study man's eyes and his gestures
as he talks,
is to set bread upon the table
and a knife discreetly by,
is to pass through crowds
like a crowd of oneself.
Not to love is to live.

To love is to be led away
into a forest where the secret grave
is dug, singing, praising darkness
under the trees.

To live is to sign your name,
is to ignore the dead,
is to carry a wallet
and shake hands.

To love is to be a fish.
My boat wallows in the sea.
You who are free,
rescue the dead.

Stasis, Conflict

2010-06-04T00:45:00.002-04:00

I want to sleep through the next two months. I want to be silent.

I wish I could hibernate. Then I'd wake up in a new world, and remain unchanged.

A few years ago I read a poem by Kazuko Shiraishi, called "The Residents of the Cocoon." I've thought a lot about that poem since the first time I read it, about what it means to shut oneself up against the world. In some ways it's foolish, selfish, craven. But at the same time I feel jealous that I can't do that in my own life, can't step out of the world for a few months, & then return.

There's a difference, though, between hibernation and metamorphosis. And I don't know which I'd prefer. Because, as much as I'd like the world, and myself, to change, there are so many things I want to preserve.

She's Long Gone With Her Red Shoes On

2010-05-13T13:31:00.002-04:00

The Beautiful & the Good

2010-05-13T13:01:00.002-04:00

I had my don rag (a semester review) yesterday with my tutors. Despite their disappointment with my participation this year, they said I was thoughtful, well-written, & helpful in class. Overall, they were much more positive than I had expected.

Then a nice walk, an afternoon of grocery shopping with some friends. At night it started pouring rain, & I stayed in my room & packed, packed, packed. Then a movie, then sleep.

This morning I woke up, showered, & packed. On my way to lunch, I stopped by the mailbox. All of the sophomores got letters notifying them of whether they would be allowed to stay.

My letter said "you are enabled to enter the junior year."

What a beautiful day. Everything's calmed down; I know where I am & what I'm doing. I have a job waiting for me next fall, a school to go to. I'll get to see my friends this summer, & hopefully I'll come to school a week early to look out for some international students who are arriving early. Life is beautiful & good.

Up in the Air

2010-05-05T18:26:00.003-04:00

Life is a bit hectic and nervewracking at the moment.

Things that are stressing me out:

1) Next week I'll find out whether I'll be allowed to stay at St. John's. I'm hoping I will, though, because I know I have a job next year, and I've been offered one for the summer.

2) I'm going to be a resident assistant next year.

3) I'm thrilled about #2 except for the fact that the dorm I've been assigned to is a) not so nice; and b) mostly freshmen.

4) Just yesterday, when I was mostly certain I was going home for the summer, I was offered a job on campus.

5) I only have until Friday to decide if I want to take the summer job.

6) I only have until Friday to find a place to stay.

7) I only have until Friday to find a part-time job to help supplement the school job.

8) I think I have to present something for my mathematics tutorial tomorrow and I'm not sure what it is.

Things that make me less stressed out:

1) I made delicious vegan chocolate chocolate chip cookies yesterday.

2) I have a job next fall! and the assistant dean/director of student services will make for great references in the future.

3) I have an interview at a shop downtown with a manager who seems quite friendly (& somewhat reminds me of my father).

4) I might have a job (or two) this summer!

5) I might not have to be in a long distant relationship for the next three months.

6) I might have a place to live this summer! with a friendly girl & nice kitchen, & a shaded balcony.

7) I wrote a beautiful sonnet in iambic tetrameter today.

8) so far the mathematics presentation doesn't look too difficult.

Ohne die Flüchtigen wäre nichts fest.

2010-05-01T18:09:00.000-04:00

Die Verschwundenen

by Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Für Nelly Sachs

Nicht die Erde hat sie verschluckt. War es die Luft?
Wie der Sand sind sie zahireich, doch nicht zu Sand
sind sie geworden, sondern zu nichte. In Scharen
sind sie vergessen. Häufig und Hand in Hand,

wie die Minuten. Mehr als wir,
doch ohne Andenken. Nicht verzeichnet,
nicht abzulesen im Staub, sondern verschwunden
sind ihre Namen, Löffel und Sohlen.

Sie reuen uns nicht. Es kann sich niemand
auf sie besinnen: Sind sie geboren,
geflohen, gestorben? Vermißt
sind sie nicht worden. Lückenlos
ist die Welt, doch zusammengehalten
von dem was sie nicht behaust,
von den Verschwundenen. Sie sind überall.

Ohne die Abwesenden wäre nichts da.
Ohne die Flüchtigen wäre nichts fest.
Ohne die Vergessenen nichts gewiß.

Die Verschwundenen sind gerecht.
So verschallen wir auch.

2010-05-01T17:33:00.000-04:00

Suffering from inertia. Need to get up & go. Need to open my mouth so I can speak, so I can sing.

A List

2010-04-14T16:33:00.005-04:00

Ten things that make me happy:

1. discovering an excellent vegan chocolate chocolate chip cookie recipe
2. more friends & activities to fill my time
3. still having a fair amount of free time
4. the gorgeous spring
5. reading beautiful books
6. watching beautiful films
7. listening to Bach's St. Matthew Passion
8. eating as much as I want without gaining weight
9. knowing I have a job for the next school year
10. realizing that everything is going to be okay

The Wild Palms

2010-04-04T21:42:00.003-04:00

One of the most beautiful things I have read by Faulkner, one of the simplest & sweetest. Something to break the heart, yet it redeems all heartbreak:

So it wasn't just memory. Memory was just half of it, it wasn't enough. But it must be somewhere, he thought, There's the waste. Not just me. At least I think I don't mean just me. Hope I don't mean just me. Let it be anyone, thinking of, remembering, the body, the broad thighs and the hands that liked bitching and making things. It seemed so little, so little to want, to ask . . . --Yes, he thought, between grief and nothing I will take grief.

-from The Wild Palms, William Faulkner

Χριστός ἀνέστη

2010-04-04T21:22:00.003-04:00

Lately I have been becoming the person I always was. It feels silly, almost like artifice: the painted face, the outfits, the long listless days spent reading & alone, & the dark nights dancing & talking with friends. But if it's artifice, it fits so well, so painlessly. & I realize now that it isn't artifice, but what I've always been. The thought gives me a secret pleasure, & a sudden astonishment at my own capability.

I woke up ill this morning with a pounding headache, & without thinking I dressed myself all in black: skinny jeans, a halter top, sunglasses. & then I went outside & saw spring: the flowering magnolias, the girls in bright dresses, the vast blue sky. I forgot today was Easter; I didn't go to church last night. I don't go to church at all these days, though I want to, just not with the church group at my school. Here was the bright world, alive & alive & alive, & I, all in black like a dead thing, a weed.

I'm more myself than I ever was. & still I feel so dark, so strange. I'm happy with myself, dizzy with living, giddy from it; yet, I still can't stand the sight of my smile in photographs. I don't recognize myself, not without that dark expression, without that faint air of sadness & solitude. What does that mean? I don't think I want to know.

Essay Update

2010-03-16T17:47:00.002-04:00

I'm quickly approaching the conclusion of my paper. This morning, when I started working on it, I had about eight pages that I wrote the previous week. Now, I have thirteen and a half, which means only one and a half pages left. I've also found a way to incorporate a bit that I've wanted to use, but have been having trouble with, from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, which inspired the subject of the paper in the first place, about the preaching of the Crucifixion.

When I was at seven or eight pages, I was still overwhelmed by the amount of points I hadn't even presented in my paper yet, but now that I'm coming to the end, I'm worried that it will be a bit difficult to meet fifteen pages. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed. After all, I still have to finish my conclusion, which I scrapped when I wasn't yet sure of the order of my paper. And I still need to finalize my conclusion. Plus, I have over a week before the paper is due, and I have time to meet with my adviser and make sure everything is coherent.

Back to writing.

Sunlight

2010-03-03T19:11:00.002-05:00

I go home on Friday. Home for two weeks, home to work on my paper. & I'm ready.

The cold has been breaking me down, slowly & steadily. All winter I've had trouble keeping myself together against the wind & the snow. & lately the sky has been a depthless gray, everything is moist & chill & cold. I can't ignore it, & it makes me feel tired & worn.

I'm ready for spring, for sultry summer. More than anything, I need sunlight.

You & I are human beings

2010-02-19T09:32:00.001-05:00

I just rediscovered this:

Introduction

The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople
-it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike.
Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootof-
minusone. You and I are human beings;mostpeople are snobs.
Take the matter of being born. What does being born mean to most-
people? Catastrophe unmitigated. Socialrevolution. The cultured
aristocrat yanked out of his hyperexclusively ultravoluptuous super-
palazzo,and dumped into an incredibly vulgar detentioncamp swarming
with every conceivable species of undesireable organism. Mostpeople
fancy a garanteed birthproof safetysuit of nondestructible selflessness.
If mostpeople were to be born twice they'd improbably call it dying-
you and i are not snobs. We can never be born enough. We are human
beings;for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery,the mystery of
growing:the mystery which happens only and whenever we are faithful
to ourselves. you and i wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it
becoming. Life,for eternal us,is now;and now is much too busy being a
little more than everything to seem anything,catastrophic included.
Life,for mostpeople,simply isn't. Take the socalled standardofliving.
What do mostpeople mean by "living"? They don't mean living. They
mean the latest and closest plural approximation to singular prenatal
passivity which science,in its finite but unbounded wisdom,has suc-
ceeded in selling their wives. If science could fail,a mountain's a mammal.
Mostpeople's wives can spot a genuine delusion of embryonic omni-
potence immediately and will accept no subsitutes.
-luckily for us,a mountain is a mammal....
-e. e. cummings

2010-02-18T18:53:00.002-05:00

About a week & a half ago, two blizzards hit Annapolis within a span of five days.

I got sick during the second one, & spent a lot of time in my room trying to sleep & staying up as late as I could watching movies, etc. so I could fall asleep. Luckily, classes were canceled, so I didn't have to worry about missing anything.

My language class is reading King Lear. Mystical & eerie & weird, weird, weird.

For seminar we are reading the Canterbury Tales & I'm struggling to appreciate the stories we read as something beyond whimsical tales. Part of me wonders what it means to be a pilgrim, to have a journey & an intent. Does the fact that the storytellers are pilgrims influence their tales? What story would I tell on a pilgrimage?

Music is difficult, but I am starting to understand. & those brief moments of understanding make me appreciate more & more how revelatory and illuminating an education can be.

Your Clothes

2010-02-07T18:19:00.002-05:00

When I read this I think of my mother & her sisters. The last two lines strike hardest:

Your Clothes

by Judith Kroll

Of course they are empty shells, without hope of animation.
Of course they are artifacts.

Even if my sister and I should wear some,
or if we give others away,

they will always be your clothes without you,
as we will always be your daughters without you.

"I want to scream"

2010-02-07T16:37:00.003-05:00

Tragic & beautiful & frightening & strange. Each time I read this I find a new fragment that resounds in me:

To

by Franz Wright

Before you were I loved you
and when you were born
and when you took your first step
Although I did not know
good luck I want to say

lone penguin keep sturdily waddling
in the direction of those frozen mountains sister
of desolate sanctity
I want to scream
Although I did not know you

I loved you later on
as just a weedy thing
a little skeleton I loved
Both long pre-you a child myself
and as a man in retrospect

I loved and I was there
while they were raping you
I loved although
like God
that’s all that I could do—

Annual Essay

2010-02-07T15:33:00.002-05:00

Every spring term, we have to turn in an essay that demonstrates our ability to think and write about a question of our choice, to develop and sustain an argument. For sophomores, the essay is an especially important factor in deciding whether we're allowed to continue as students at St. John's, which makes me a bit nervous. I love the topic I've chosen, but I know my essay has to demonstrate that my quietness in class doesn't mean I'm slow or unaware, that I really do spend time thinking deeply about the works we study.

Last year I wrote on Thucydides' History. My essay defended the Athenian exile Alcibiades, who claimed to be a patriot, even as he betrayed his own city to the Spartans. I did surprisingly well--in my oral with my seminar tutors, we barely mentioned the paper because they had few criticisms, & my tutors nominated me from my class for the freshman essay prize.

With that past experience in mind, I should be confident. I wrote on a topic I was surprisingly fascinated by last year, even though I don't care much for politics or history. And this year, I'm writing on the Bible. But I know both of my seminar tutors are disappointed with how little I speak, so this paper may have to be even better than my freshman essay.

I also have a lot more in-depth reading to do. I'm looking at what Paul means when he says "we preach Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians), & how that relates to the human perception of the divine. What do the Apostles and followers of Christ see that the Pharisees do not? The Pharisees see a man, & Christ does appear as a mortal man who suffers a mortal death. And what does that mortal appearance mean in contrast with the Old Testament, where Adam & Eve are ashamed by their nakedness before God, where Jacob sees the face of God when wrestling with a stranger, Joseph dreams, & Moses is given the law by a burning bush? Is the human desire for nearness to God repulsed by the nearness of God to man?

The textual references, especially in relation to Christ & man, are most important. The idea of "the word become flesh"--what does it mean? And how does it shape the New Testament, the new law of liberation Is it integral to the idea of perfect love, the parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, the salvation of man?

I guess, in essence, the heart of the question is about the human perception of Christ, & how that influences the perception of God, of the Bible. & why does the human body of Christ necessitate
crucifixion? If we see Christ as a man, does that limit our understanding of God as omniscient, omnipotent, infinite? Is that why the Pharisees cannot abide the human Christ?

I have too many questions. But too many are better than too few; this paper has to be about 15-20 pages. I've never written anything that long before--my problem with writing essays is that I tend to be too succinct, to concise. I have having to write filler or fluff, or having to use block quotes, just to make something longer. Last year I lucked out--when I finished writing I happened to have 10+ pages (just enough), & I'm hoping for something similar this year. Fingers crossed.

Blizzard

2010-02-04T13:53:00.003-05:00

Yestereday & the day before were longer & more listless than most days. The snow started Friday morning, the first day of long weekend. I woke up at a quarter to seven to work out, then showered & ran to the pharmacy before brunch to get some last-minute things before the snow got worse. A couple of friends were going to the mall, so I tagged along. I kept forgetting it was Friday, & wondered why the mall was emptier than usual. We wandered around, stopping in a few stores, got kicked out of Victoria's Secret for chatting instead of shopping. I got a cute tote bag from H&M--organic cotton, with an illustration of a girl & a rabbit--and a birthday present for Jack.

Then we stopped by Trader Joes, where people were doing last minute shopping before the storm. The produce section was raided, and they were running out of grapefruit juice & popcorn & bread. Crisis mode.

I got back to my room, went to dinner, then hung out with Jack until it was time for a friend's surprise birthday party. After an hour or so we trudged back to campus. The snow was up to my knees, & I couldn't see with the wind blowing snowflakes into my eyes. But the sight of the trees, bowed down with snow & glistening in the light of the streetlamps, was unforgettably beautiful.

Saturday was similar. I woke up & it was still snowing. After brunch I went to the communal kitchens to make ratatouille, which was warm & hearty. Then dinner, then hanging out, & another party. The seniors turned in their thesis papers last night, so the campus was filled with revelers and celebration. But I was tired from two long days, ready for bed by midnight. & today I'm in my room resting, trying to do some school work, listening to music. It's calming, peaceful, relaxing in bed & knowing that wide, white world waits outside, glistening in sunlight.

Restlessness

2010-01-10T22:40:00.003-05:00

I arrived in Annapolis tonight after a flight, a metro ride, an hour at the train station, another metro ride, & a cab drive. Being in my dorm room again is an unexpected shock; though all of my things are exactly where I left them, the room feels unfamiliar to me.

Language tomorrow. We're done studying Ancient Greek, & this semester we'll read English poetry, Shakespeare plays. We're starting with something by Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense."

Then music, then seminar. We're doing the Divine Comedy now, & discussing the first half of Inferno. It seems so different from when I first read it; those tortured souls don't terrify me as much. I feel less pity for them, less awe of Hell. But I finished Purgatorio today, & it was tender, poignant, redeeming.

I need to start working on my annual essay. I think I'm going to write about the Bible, about the necessity of the crucifixion, the human abhorrence of the divine incarnate despite desire to grow nearer to God.

Break was peaceful, but too still. I had so many things I wanted to say, & only silence emerged. I need to speak more this year, to keep fewer things secret & unspoken. & all I feel now is acute longing, nameless nostalgia for a more effortless way of being, restlessness.

Beautiful But Dumb

2009-10-25T21:24:00.000-04:00

"It was not my anger or my frustration that got in the way of my poetry but the fact that I viewed each anger and each frustration as unique—something to be converted into poetry as one would exchange foreign money. I learned this from the English Department (and from the English Department of the spirit—that great quagmire that lurks at the bottom of all of us) and it ruined ten years of my poetry. Look at those other poems. Admire them if you like. They are beautiful but dumb.

Poems should echo and re-echo against each other. They should create resonances. They cannot live alone any more than we can.

So don’t send the box of old poetry to Don Allen. Burn it or rather open it with Don and cry over the possible books that were buried in it—the Songs Against Apollo, the Gallery of Gorgeous Gods, the Drinking Songs—all incomplete, all abortive—all incomplete, all abortive because I thought, like all abortionists, that what is not perfect had no real right to live.

Things fit together. We knew that—it is the principle of magic. Two inconsequential things can combine together to become a consequence. This is true of poems too. A poem is never to be judged by itself alone. A poem is never by itself alone.

This is the most important letter that you have ever received.

Love,

Jack"
-from a letter by Jack Spicer

Scavenger Hunt

2009-10-25T13:06:00.002-04:00

I spent last night running around the rain-wet streets of downtown, in cemeteries and parking lots and shops on main street, all for a scavenger hunt that I didn't even know about until a few hours beforehand. My two teammates and I knocked on strangers' doors to carol and trick-or-treat, stole a pumpkin, broke into and scoured friends' rooms for objects we didn't already have, asked strangers to help us, and got sweaty and gross and exhausted.
And at the end of the night, when we laid out our loot and tallied up our points, we won. Eighty dollars for three people, and a celebratory grape juice drink afterward. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night.
Tonight, by contrast, is rather boring. I'm alone in my dark room, coming up with an oral topic and translating Greek and wishing I had more school work to keep me busy, and more motivation to socialize. And I have a stolen pumpkin on my bookshelf and I've eaten too much food & I am trying not to think too much about my own life, about how strange and silly it is. So instead I will translate one of Rilke's poems and try to think about beautiful things instead.

Electric

2009-10-14T21:30:00.002-04:00

I have a bad knee, whom I've (not so) affectionately named Larry. Larry came to visit me in a soccer game a little more than a week ago, when another girl's leg collided into my knee and sent my legs buckling beneath me. Two girls had to carry me off the field, but after some ice, I felt fine and played a few more games the next week. Then, over the weekend, my knee started hurting. I spent a day in bed resting it. Now, the pain doesn't seem to want to leave. I have to hobble up and down each step in McDowell one at a time to get to my classes on the third floor, and I have to sit out about half of each soccer game.

Now, fall is all about us. The leaves are brown and red and falling, and the air is drizzly and cold and gray. I've given up my summer clothes, and even started wearing my new winter jacket every now and then. Soon, I'll have to start using my umbrella. And even though the weather makes me shiver and the grayness makes me sleepy, I love Autumn in Annapolis. I love the boats bobbing languorously on the water, the sudden stillness of the downtown bustle, the sudden urge I get to take photographs and write poetry.

A friend and I planning on using the darkroom together. I want to use the pottery studio. There are papers I have to write and poems I want to read. Two of my friends are teaching pole dancing classes once a week. There are parties to go to and friends to visit. And even amid the sudden rush of things to do, there are quiet and calm evenings where I do my schoolwork and read and relax and think about how thankful I am, to be rid of summer's boredom, to have friends who keep me occupied, to have someone who cares for me most, to live in a safe and peaceful and contemplative place.

Tonight, I got electrocuted. My roommate was out, but her desk lamp kept dimming and growing brighter, and I smelled something burning. I went downstairs to turn off her light, which didn't work, and the switch was hot to the touch. So I reached down behind her desk, fumbled for the plug. When I pulled it out, a hot, buzzing, stinging sensation went through my hand, and I screamed and dropped the plug. I'm fine, but still stunned. My heart feels a little off-balance, and I keep placing my hand on my sternum to make sure I can still feel it beating. And my insides are all clenched up from the surprise of the experience.

And thus goes my second Autumn in Annapolis: lamely, lovely, and electric.

Translation as a Liberal Art

2009-10-11T17:15:00.002-04:00

In my language tutorial, we're translating Sophocles' Antigone. It's a play I've read and discussed several times, but the translation allows us to look closer at the actual text, to detect subtleties in the Greek that aren't so easily or prettily conveyed by English. And we're moving at a leisurely pace, discussing more than actually translating.

The tutor loves to pose questions that aren't always related to the text. And in our last class, on Thursday, he asked us if we thought translation was a liberal art. Does being able to transpose a work of writing from one language to another liberate us? And, if so, how?

I don't know if translating can be freeing. In many ways, it binds us. We realize the bounds of our own language, the obstacle of understanding a work in another tongue, the task of conveying meaning and retaining as much of the original work as we can. And with languages that have "died," languages with no living native speakers, something is always lost. In Greek, I notice that we tend to look at the language and the subtleties and layers of meaning without much consideration of the techne, the craft of drama and poetry. And when we're translating a work of literature, I wonder which is more necessary: the meaning or the style? What do we preserve?

I suppose I also don't really know yet what a liberal art is, except that in learning and studying one, I somehow become a free adult. The best definition I can come up with on my own is that a liberal art is one that allows for genuine contemplation and consideration, one that frees us from presumptuousness and ignorance, one that we can approach of our own accord, without textbooks and manuals teaching us how to study them.

Autumn Blur

2009-09-05T21:14:00.003-04:00

Life at school has been busy. Luckily, it's long weekend & I've had a great deal of time to relax and enjoy myself. (& presumably, to do my homework, although I've only finished my seminar reading).

The weather is growing cooler, though the leaves haven't changed much. At the moment, I'm nostalgic for Autumn in the Midwest, for spiced apple cider and warmer, heartier food, for the crisp October air and sky. I miss my cross country races, the grass losing its green, the mud on my shoes.

But Annapolis is always beautiful. I go for long walks, through the old colonial houses, by the water, over the bridges. This year, there's always something to do. Trips to the supermarket, soccer games, parties, schoolwork. I stay up later, and I hag out with more people. And when I need to be alone, I go for a long walk or spend a few hours in my tower of a room, relaxing and writing and listening to music. It's a good balance, and I'm glad that I'm branching out more, finding more people to spend time with. It's a good balance =)

Return

2009-08-29T20:54:00.003-04:00

I'm back at school now, mostly settled in. My room is a lofted double; my roommate lives on the main floor & I have to climb steep, ladder-like stairs to get to my bed & desk. But we each have our own closet & dresser, our own chairs. My bed is under a small window & a bookshelf, & my desk is near the stairs. It's a little tower, a small haven, though the stairs are treacherous.

The sophomores started class with the Bible, with the first four failures of man in Genesis. The fall from grace, the first murder, the deluge, and the confusion(Babel). God in the old testament is strange & sorrowful, difficult to understand, yet sympathetic. Our discussion was a whirlwind: no silences, no time for thought. I felt my heart racing & I couldn't say much. A disheartening experience. Hopefully the next discussion will be calmer, quieter.

In mathematics, we're studying Ptolemy, the stars, the heavens. Last year we studied a bit of the same text, & my manual is full of penciled, smudged diagrams trying to express what Ptolemy must have seen & reasoned from his view of the sky. I'm also trying to understand why mathematics is considered a means of refining the soul, making it habitual & well-ordered & somehow closer to the divine. Do I want a habituated & well-ordered soul?

Then music, which is more emotionally charged & less intellectual. It's difficult to express our ideas without becoming more informal, but I'm optimistic. Everyone seems to have a different opinion, & there's a sense of confusion because we've never experienced music from its origin in humanity in the way that we've experienced the origin of language & reason.

I haven't had language yet, but we're translating Antigone. I translated some of Sophocles last year, & I didn't find it too difficult. But I'd like to try harder in Greek this year, especially since I'd like to be a Greek assistant next year.

Free time is luxurious & almost overbearing now. My friends are scattered around & off of campus & I don't have much reason to leave my room. But I've had some excellent conversations with friends, thoughts on last year & this one & what it means to study the unchanging remnants of antiquity in a modern & constantly shifting world. We talk about the books we've read & the ones we will read. One of my friends complimented me tonight when we were talking about schoolwork, & she told me that she loved my confidence & the fact that I was always on top of my work. I never realized that until she told me, because I was so different in high school, slacking off & struggling to get by. But here I do my work not long after it's assigned, & I do it as well as I can. I never was a bad student, but here I'm a better one. I'm happier with the work I do, with the things I'm learning. This place has changed me, in good ways.

My Birthday

2009-08-20T00:33:00.005-04:00

We spent my last birthday driving through God's country, the Hudson Valley, where pregnant clouds hang placid over green-blue mountains & murky river, where all the highways are scenic routes that promise secrets at every exits & even the listless, lonely towns have their charms.

We visited a lighthouse in God's country on my birthday, walking on a wooden path where trees & weeds & wildflowers flourished in sandy dirt & dirty sand. Strangers sat there, laughing & sunning & taking photographs. But no one stood where I stood, barefoot on slick rocks in the water where the current ran gently, trying to draw me into the river. & for a stunning moment I wanted to drive all of those strangers out, leave the place to ruin & destruction, & keep it for myself for a year or two. A cruel thought, but all of that beauty stopped my heartbeat, & I wanted to have it to myself until I could quell that anguish.

But the others insisted on staying & finally I had to leave, walking away until I couldn't see the water anymore. Then more driving through God's country, more watching out of windows as the world rolled by, ignorant of our passing through.

In a small town we found gravestones flanking a soft blue church, the whole place overrun with grass & abandon. I got out of the car to walk around, to get a closer look at the glass windows, pale with dust & grass. & again no one stood where I stood, no voices reached me. & again something tried to draw me in: the blue doors that I could not enter through, the interior where I might see light shining through those windows, the altar. It wouldn't be like a church I knew; it wouldn't have all that golden, dazzling splendor. But the simplicity of it would be enough, I think.

Then more driving, more watching clouds & sky & trees & mountains. We stopped in a small town with brightly colored buildings, visited a farmer's market & a flea market. We tasted foods strangers had grown & made with their own hands. We looked through old books & paintings, at old trinkets & jewelry no one wanted to own anymore, & I wondered who let them tarnish & rust & grow old, then sold them. Who did those trinkets belong to? Who loved them most? An old woman with pink hair made me shaved ice with coconut milk & cherries & dark chocolate--a sweeter treat than the birthday cake my grandmother made that I couldn't eat--& the ice turned to liquid in the August sun before I had finished eating.

We headed back to my aunt's lake house, ate dinner under setting sun. I drank wine, or tried to, & finished eating alone after my family had retreated indoors from mosquitoes. & once more, at dusk, no one stood where I stood, & all God's country was mine. I turned a year older that morning, & at day's end I felt I had grown yet another year, with all of the experience & beauty & memory, & with no wisdom to show for it.

I Want to Be a Pilot

2009-08-16T00:24:00.002-04:00

A couple of years ago I saw this film with Miranda at the Manhattan Short Film Festival. Although all of the films were excellent, this one was my favorite. The narration & the visual are raw & unforgettable, despite their simplicity:

I want to be a pilot
so I can fly very
very high
to take off and land
where my dreams are
to a place far away
where God just loves me
and churches are just
the mountains
the trees
the rivers

Poverty

2009-08-15T23:25:00.003-04:00

The week after I came back to Annapolis from winter break, I remember going for a run in town. I remember that I went down the front path to Prince George St., up to Maryland Ave., around State Circle, then Church, down Main St., and over the Eastport Bridge. I remember struggling to breathe in the winter air & gazing at the icy river below as I crossed the bridge twice. I remember that the snow had been falling lightly, almost invisibly, except for the soft white splatter it left on the brick sidewalks.

I remember that I stopped at CVS to pick up some new razors. And I remember the homeless man who stopped me before I could go inside, asking me if I could spare sixty-four cents exactly so that he could buy a sandwich.

I don't remember how much I gave him. More than he asked for, but not by much. When I walked into CVS I felt terrible, because I wanted to do something more for him, but I couldn't. & I felt guilty for living in such comfort, & not being able to share it.

I believe that excessive material wealth can be a hindrance to self-awareness & fulfillment. I also believe that poverty & hunger (physical or metaphorical) is a sort of blessing. Still, I can't deny that when so many of us insist on living in comfort, we shouldn't ignore those who are forced to go without.

Our wealth is temporal. Whatever we possess in the earthly world cannot sustain us entirely. & if those who have the most money, who live the most luxurious lives, loved their wealth & their exclusivity a little less, if they were willing to part with excess for the sake of the general welfare, there would be less want & hungering & suffering in the world. Articles like this: Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?, & videos like this: I Want to Be a Pilot would no longer be scathing social criticisms, but reminders of what damages greed & waste have caused, damages which compassion & generosity can alleviate.

I know it may be a long time before wealth loses its sway on the world & some sort of equality is reached. It may be a long time before absolute poverty is a rarity, and longer still before it is eliminated entirely. I doubt I'll ever be wealthy, but while I live in comfort I always have something I can give, whether it be time or money or food. & for now, I'll do as much as I can to help others. We may all live on this basal earth, & this world may be temporary. But while we are here, we still have all of the means to create our own utopia, our own semblance of heaven on earth.

Ten Days

2009-08-15T21:29:00.002-04:00

Ten days, give or take. Ten days & I'll be in Annapolis again, living, learning, being at work staying myself. Ten days, a two hour-flight, an hour of driving. Ten days & then I move into my new room, start setting up my home away from home.

With only ten days to prepare, I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. I have appointments, last chances to hang out with friends, errands to run. And then I have to pack all of my belongings, try to organize everything I'll need & want for the next year, pack it into as few suitcases as possible.

I've already put most of my clothes into suitcases: all of my skirts & dresses, my pants, my winter shirts, my pajamas & exercise clothes. But everything else is lying in disheveled piles on the floor & just the sight of the mess stresses me & makes me worry that I won't get everything done efficiently.

I'm also a bit anxious about seeing everyone again, about finding out who my teachers are & who my classmates will be. There's a lot I'm excited for, but I'm still nervous. What if I don't like my classmates? What if I make a fool of myself in Greek class? What if music theory puzzles me? What if I'm just as bad at soccer as I was last fall? They're trivial things, but they pop up anyway. Still, I'm just going to relax & believe that everything will be alright.

Sehnsucht

2009-08-14T00:27:00.002-04:00

"Sehnsucht versteckt
sich wie ein Insekt
im Schlafe merkst du nicht
dass es dich sticht" -Rammstein

Some of my favorite pleasures of studying languages like German & Greek are those dreamlike, fantastical words that pop up in the vocabulary. In German, they tended to be defined very dryly & as concisely as possible, but in Greek, our tutor usually shared with us all the connotations of the word & how each word's meanings & uses revealed the ancient Greeks' understanding of their world.

But I've studied German for so long that I've gleaned a much better sense of the vocabulary & its wonders. Words like heimlich, habseligkeiten, and, most recently, sehnsucht have captivated me.

Sehnsucht originally seemed rather ordinary to me. But I always identified it more with loneliness than longing, though the word itself conveys desire unfulfilled, yearning, a sort of longing that consumes. But longing is a sort of loneliness, an isolation, the irrational desire of the tragic figure whose persistent pursuit of his yearning leads him to his despair & fate.

Sehnsucht. The word strikes down with such intensity, such awe, that I feel a sort of void rushing through me when I say it, as though someone delivered a blow strong enough to render me breathless. I've felt that same sort of blow while sleeping; a sudden kick or jab to the stomach that, a sudden sensation of tripping & falling, that left me dazed & half-awake.

& all the power of that word, of sehnsucht, makes even my strongest passions seem weak & ordinary to me. The closest thing I've ever felt to what I imagine as true longing is being in a long-distance relationship this summer. Not just missing & desiring & yearning, but having the sense that the relationship is real only to me, that it might have been a dream I dreamt & told my friends about. That dream could never exist for another person in the way it does for me.

But I think I might also have a sense of longing as a yearning for another world, to live in a sort of country that appears to me only in dreams or old strange films or those mirrors that Alice & Jean Cocteau's poets sunk through like water, &, most especially, those fleeting moments of transcendence in which I manage to grasp a rare vision of paradise, of heaven on earth.

Or it might even be the yearning I feel when I hear a song or read a poem & feel that, for all its sorrow or unpleasantry, I want my whole life to be that sort of beauty & breathlessness & awe. I want my whole life to be a moment like this:

O you tender ones, every now and then
step into breath that doesn't notice you;
let it touch your cheeks, divide in two;
behind you it will tremble together again.

O you who are blessed, you who are whole,
you who seem to be the beginning of hearts,
bows for the arrows and the arrows' targets,
only tear-glazed will your smile forever glow.

Don't be afraid to suffer; replace
the heaviness back on the earth's own weight:
the mountains are heavy, so are the seas.

You couldn't support even the tress
you planted as children, they've grown so great.
Ah, but the breezes . . . ah, but the spaces . . .
-Rainer Maria Rilke (from Sonnets to Orpheus)

So Then You Turned into a Photograph

2009-07-27T22:36:00.000-04:00

During the past schoolyear, I checked out a copy of E. E. Cummings' complete poetry for the whole year. His work is so extensive & varied that there was always something new for me to read & become enamoured with. Most of them cut straight to my heart, but in a satisfying way, in a way that makes me feel whimsical & alive & free. I stumbled upon this one for the first time today, though, & it gave me such a sense of desolation & frustration & loss. It's an awful, bittersweet moment to dwell on, however poetic. & those last three lines hurt harder than anything I've ever read.

the other guineahen

died of a broken heart and we came to New York.

I used to sit at a table,drawing wings

with a pencil that kept breaking and i kept

remembering how your mind looked when it slept

for several years,to wake up asking why.

So then you turned into a photograph

of somebody who's trying not to laugh

at somebody who's trying not to cry

The Heart's Truth

2009-07-25T00:09:00.001-04:00

'There are some things He said in the Book, and some things reported of Him that He did not say. And I know what you will say now: That if truth is one thing to me and another thing to you, how will we choose which is truth? You dont need to choose. The heart already knows. He didn't have His Book written to be read by what must elect and choose, but by the heart, not by the wise of the earth because maybe they dont need it or maybe the wise no longer have any heart, but by the doomed and lowly of the earth who have nothing else to read with but the heart. Because the men who wrote his Book for Him were writing about truth and there is only one truth and it covers all things that touch the heart.' and McCaslin

'So these men who transcribed His Book for Him were sometimes liars.' and he

'Yes. Because they were human men. They were trying to write down the heart's truth out of the heart's driving compexity, for all the complex and troubled hearts which would beat after them. What they were trying to tell, what He wanted said, was too simple. Those for whom they transcribed His words could not have believed them. It had to be expounded in the everyday terms which they were familiar with and could comprehend, not only those who listened but those who told it too, because if they who were that near to Him as to have been elected from among all who breathed and spoke language to transcribe and relay His words, could comprehend truth only through the complexity of passion and lust and hate and fear which drives the heart, what distance back to truth must they traverse whom truth could only reach by word of mouth?' -from William Faulkner's "The Bear"

For whatever reason, stumbleupon has been sending me to a lot of atheist websites lately. I've read a few of the articles and comments out of curiosity, and while there's something to be said for valuing logic in discussion, quite a few of the arguments against religion struck me as deliberately contentious and condemnatory. I don't really want to argue about religion, but I think Faulkner's remarks on the Bible best explain why I believe, even when those who espouse science and logic tell me that they think religion is foolish & hypocritical.

A Wet Seed Wild

2009-07-21T15:57:00.000-04:00

"The dead air shapes the dead earth in the dead darkness, further away than seeing shapes the dead earth. It lies dead and warm upon me, touching me naked through my clothes. I said You dont know what worry is. I dont know what it is. I dont know whether I am worrying or not. Whether I can or not. I dont know whether I can cry or not. Whether I have tried to or not. I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth."

A Thought to Fade and Vanish

2009-07-21T01:53:00.000-04:00

I've just finished reading Evely Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, which was much more poignant & familiar than I'd expected. Waugh sort of reminds me of a British Fitzgerald, but his works seem less shallow than Fitgerald's, less focused on the glittering dream of wealth. There's a sense of absurdity & tragedy that I couldn't shake off when I'd finished; it cut too close to me, even though I know nothing of war, nothing of wealth, & very little of life.

Comedy:

"I had a friend at the University. We studied History. My friend was cleverer than me; a little weak fellow--I used to pick him up and shake him when I was angry--but tho clever. Then one day we said: 'What the hell? There is no work in Germany. Germany is down the drain,' so we said good-bye to our professors, and they said: 'Yes, Germany is down the drain. There's nothing for a student to do here now,' and we went away and walked and walked and at last we came here. Then we said, 'There is no army in Germany now, but we must be tholdiers,' so we joined the Legion. My friend died of dysentery last year, campaigning in the Atlas. When he was dead, I said, 'What the hell?' so I shot my foot. It is now full of pus, though I have done it one year."

& Tragedy:

"Perhaps, I thought, while her words still hung in the air between us like a wisp of tobacco smoke--a thought to fade and vanish like smoke without a trace--perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; a hill of many invisible crests; doors that open as in a dream to reveal only a further stretch of carpet and another door; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us."

Over the Black Earth

2009-07-14T02:57:00.000-04:00

The only remaining work by the Greek poet Sappho believed to be a complete poem:

Dapple-throned, deathless Aphrodite,
Child of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I beseech you,
Do not with cares and pains oppress,
Lady, my heart,

But come here; if ever at another time,
Hearing my cries from far away,
You heeded them, and leaving the [ ] home of your father,
[Golden] you came,

Yoking up your [ ] chariot. Fair swift
Sparrows drew you over the black earth
Thickly beating their wings from heaven,
Through the middle air,

And at once they arrived. But you, O Blessed One,
Smiling with your immortal face,
Asked what again I was suffering and why
Again I called you,

And what I most want to befall me
In my raging heart. "Whom must I again persuade
To take you back again into her friendship? Who,
Sappho, is wronging you?

For if now she flees, soon she will pursue;
If she does not take gifts, soon she will give them;
If she does not love, soon she will love
Even if unwilling."

Come to me now again, and free me from harsh
Care, and whatever my heart yearns to
Achieve for myself, achieve it; and you be
Yourself my ally.

New Blog

2009-07-14T02:12:00.000-04:00

When I started this blog, I thought it would be my only one. But I've been thinking a lot about my vegan diet lately, about recipes I want to try & about what foods I put into my body, & I thought that these musings merited a blog of their own:

http://sunlitsustenance.blogspot.com/

I'm not sure how often I'll update this one, but it's a good (& hopefully resourceful) organizational method for me. I'll try to post recipes & reviews & veganism propaganda in order to convert the masses. After all, what's good for you, tastes good too.

Fragments

2009-07-14T00:14:00.000-04:00

One of the difficulties of studying Ancient Greek language & literature last year was working with the understanding that we were looking only at the best & most complete fragments of a culture. For every work we read & interpreted & translated, we learned of another that had been lost forever. The poems of Heraclitus & Sappho existed only in fragments. Two small portions of my favorite tragedy, Euripides' Bacchae, were lost, leaving the translators to speculate & create their own versions. We learned that the plays we read by Aeschylus, as moving as they were, supposedly were inferior to some of his works which had vanished.

How do we study what we have, when we realize how much we've lost, when we can't look on the works we're given with the same context of the time they were written in? The preservation of Greek works was left to others, but nature & time & other circumstances intervened & some works, possibly the greatest of their time, disappeared. Everything is fragmented, broken apart, in as many ruins as the Acropolis.

The historian Thucydides, in his recordings of the Peloponnesian Wars, predicted that Sparta's fate would be like Mycenae's. The greatness of the warrior state would, like that of Agamemnon's home, recede until nothing was left to remember it. And Sparta today possesses no monuments to its own glory, unlike Athens. The distinction is one that characterized the two cities: both flourished, both possessed great power, but one valued glory & grandeur, the other strength & sustainability.

Some of these Greek works suffered the same fate as Sparta. But Thucydides also wrote that the actions that ocurred in Greece--specifically, the action of the struggle between the Greek city-states--would be the greatest actions, not only of Ancient Greece, but of all time, of all the world. Something about the struggle of the Greeks, about Greek culture, was monumental, transcendental. Empires often are.

And from the works we've read, from the works we know we may never read, this transcendence is evident. Thucydides' history isn't about Greece alone, but the nature of empire, of struggle, of human character & government. "The whole earth," he wrote, "is the monument of famous men." And the western world became a sort of monument to the greatness of Greek culture. Because, despite all the works that we've lost, the ones that remain are introspective & thought-provoking &, somehow, universal.

Make Like an Ape Man

2009-07-09T19:44:00.000-04:00

I like to think the world would be a much more peaceful place if everyone listened to the Kinks.

I dont feel safe in this world no more
I dont want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore
And make like an ape man.

Als du mich einst

2009-07-07T01:15:00.000-04:00

I was flipping through a book of W.D. Snodgrass' poems the other day when I discovered two beautifully translated poems by Rainer Maria Rilke that I'd never read before: "Slumbersong" and"Als du mich einst". Both poems share a common theme, a lover speaking to his beloved with a deep tenderness and sincerity, as though the world was made for only two, to shelter and cultivate one another. The images are haunting and poignant and all too lovely.

Als du mich einst gefunden hast

Als du mich einst gefunden hast,
da war ich klein, so klein,
und blühte wie ein Lindenast
nur still in dich hinein.

Vor Kleinheit war ich namenlos
und sehnte mich so hin,
bis du mir sagst, dass ich zu groß
für jeden Namen bin:

Da fühl ich, dass ich eines bin
mit Mythe, Mai und Meer,
und wie der Duft des Weines bin
ich deiner Seele schwer...

A Girl Gets Sick of a Rose

2009-07-06T01:58:00.000-04:00

a song in the front yard

by Gwendolyn Brooks

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.

I want a peek at the back

Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.

A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now

And maybe down the alley,

To where the charity children play.

I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.

They have some wonderful fun.

My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine

How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.

My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae

Will grow up to be a bad woman.

That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late

(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.

And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,

And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace

And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

Verticals That Never Meet

2009-07-04T01:21:00.000-04:00

from Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Eire

"Saint John of the Cross who fervently desired not to desire anything but God, also failed. Poor Saint John, fellow spic, at least he was honest. He admitted his failure. He knew that the shortest distance between two beings is always a labyrinth, and that its very design is desire. He also knew that his passion for God was not different in kind from any other love and that desire itself was the ultimate proof for the existence of God."

from "The Upright Posture", Erwin W. Straus

"In upright posture we find ourselves 'face to face' with others, distant, aloof--verticals that never meet. On the horizontal plane, parallel lines converge toward a vanishing point. Theoretically, the vanishing point of parallel verticals--to which we are comparable, standing vis-a-vis--is in infinite distance . . . Therefore, the strict upright posture expresses austerity, inaccessibility, decisiveness, domination, majesty, mercilessness, or unapproachable remoteness, as in catatonic symmetry. Inclination first brings us closer to another."

Erwin Straus' "The Upright Posture" was the last biology reading in my laboratory tutorial. When I first started reading, I was surprised by--and a bit skeptic of--Straus' florid language, especially in comparison to the more technical texts we'd read. Most of his conclusions about upright posture and the roles it plays in our ways of life and interactions with the world around us seemed far fetched. But when I'd finished reading the essay, I found Straus' arguments well-reasoned, poetic, and compelling.

Of course, being able to stand upright on two feet isn't the only reason humans are so different from other animals. We have the capability of thought, an ability to comprehend our desires and pleasures and pains. We think not in terms of "I want that", but "I want that because it gives me pleasure." And we have the capability for contemplation, an activity Aristotle linked with the "divine" in his Nichomachean Ethics.

But Straus' analysis of the upright posture adds another dimension to the uniqueness of the human experience. Our experiences aren't linked simply to our wiring and genetics and environment, but in the way we carry ourselves.

Instead of crawling, we must teach ourselves to walk. Straus argues that "In getting up, in reaching the upright posture, man must oppose the forces of gravity. It seems to be his nature to oppose nature in its impersonal, fundamental aspects with natural means . . . we first become our true selves in waking opposition to nature."

This opposition to nature enables society, convention, religion. We resist the natural world and create our own. The ability to stand upright, to overcome gravity, allows us kinship with other men. And the ability to move our arms around ourselves, to extend our hands or pull them away, allows us our own protection and privacy.

The prominence upright posture grants our eyes, the way we carry ourselves, characterizes our language. Bodies have their own language: touch or lack thereof, facial expressions, gesticulations, etc. Our physical conduct may be the most primary means of expressing ourselves. Language clarifies, extensifies, allows for the expression of ideas and potentials.

Straus' essay is extensive and abundant, too much for me to sum up in one post. Most of what I've mentioned isn't even the heart of the work, nor the main idea. Straus only summarizes his work by claiming that, since upright posture is so great a theme in the human experience, no dichotomy exists between our minds and our bodies. The theme he traces covers so many examples, each more poetic and inspiring than the one before. Some may be far fetched, but they offer a sort of poetry which pure science rarely does, an analysis not of the physical or effects of standing upright, but, rather, an exploration of the ways our upright posture influences our perspective of and interactions with the world around us.

"Human physique reveals human nature."

Ich brauch' dich doch auch nicht mehr als du mich

2009-06-28T00:58:00.000-04:00

shooting stars, falling objects

2009-06-25T02:29:00.000-04:00

Love - Pablo Neruda

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the
perfumes of spring.
I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands;
how did your lips feel on mine?
Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks,
the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.
I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten
your eyes.
Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of
you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will
do me irreparable harm.
Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.
I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every
window.
Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because
of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting
stars, falling objects.

Passage over Water -Robert Duncan

We have gone out in boats upon the sea at night,

lost, and the vast waters close traps of fear about us.

The boats are driven apart, and we are alone at last

under the incalculable sky, listless, diseased with stars.

Let the oars be idle, my love, and forget at this time

our love like a knife between us

defining the boundaries that we can never cross

nor destroy as we drift into the heart of our dream,

cutting the silence, slyly, the bitter rain in our mouths

and the dark wound closed in behind us.

Forget depth-bombs, death and promises we made,

gardens laid waste, and, over the wastelands westward,

the rooms where we had come together bombd.

But even as we leave, your love turns back. I feel

your absence like the ringing of bells silenced. And salt

over your eyes and the scales of salt between us. Now,

you pass with ease into the destructive world.

There is a dry crash of cement. The light fails,

falls into the ruins of cities upon the distant shore

and within the indestructible night I am alone.

Once I wasn't always so plain

2009-06-16T04:19:00.001-04:00

I'm not as well-acquainted with Lorna Dee Cervantes' poems as I'd like to be. But her language is stunning, & this poem has such a vivid energy that strikes me every time I read it:

"Love of My Flesh, Living Death"

after García Lorca

by Lorna Dee Cervantes

Once I wasn’t always so plain.

I was strewn feathers on a cross

of dune, an expanse of ocean

at my feet, garlands of gulls.

Sirens and gulls. They couldn’t tame you.

You know as well as they: to be

a dove is to bear the falcon

at your breast, your nights, your seas.

My fear is simple, heart-faced

above a flare of etchings, a lineage

in letters, my sudden stare. It’s you.

It’s you! sang the heart upon its mantel

pelvis. Blush of my breath, catch

of my see—beautiful bird—It’s you.

Insomnia

2009-06-16T03:59:00.000-04:00

At night, in the summer, I have enough trouble sleeping to begin with. Not enough diversions for my energy in the day, which makes me restless at night. And tonight there's this awful Midwestern thunderstorm, with lightning every two seconds & constant thundering. Luckily, I'm not tired, otherwise I'd have a horrible night's sleep. Instead, I don't get tired until three or four in the morning, then I sleep until almost noon. It's not insomnia; my internal clock is just off for whatever reason. Still, I hate being sleepless at night & wasting half of every day.

At school, I didn't have this problem. Most college students are prone to staying up late, & I had a few very late nights, especially when I had two or three papers due at once. But for most of the year, I went to bed as early as I could, & tried not to sleep in past nine. Part of the reason I valued sleep so much was because I had evening classes twice a week, from 8:00 to 10:00, & I always ran errands in the morning before lunch & my afternoon classes. At home, unfortunately, I don't have that sort of regimen.

For now I have to resign myself to my odd schedule, but I can't wait until school starts & I can keep proper hours again.

is it August yet?

2009-06-13T22:20:00.000-04:00

I finally got my driver's permit yesterday, which means I'll actually have to start learning how to drive now. But the prospect of driving terrifies me. I don't trust myself behind the wheel of a car at all, & a permit doesn't do much for me now, when I spend nine months of the year at school (in a small town), & only three at home.

Then again, learning to drive gives me something more to do at home. Summer vacation is relaxing, but I don't have the same structure or focus as I do at school: no job, no pressing chores, few social activities. I feel lazy, unmotivated, & unproductive. At night I get too restless, in mind and body both, to sleep, & I stay up too late & sleep in too late.

I need to start reading more, studying more to tire out my mind. I should be focusing on Greek & German, should finish translating Plato's Meno so I'll have a better grasp of Greek in the fall. And German, I need to keep reading Rilke, start reading prose. I don't want a language that I studied for six years to slip away from me so easily.

I need to start running again, to tire out my body. The summer heat always drags me down when I go outside, but my body has gotten so used to the rhythm & motion of running that the thought of it seems effortless, like dreaming. Just one foot in front of the other, & repeat. I know I can go long distance; so much of my life is long distance.

Monday, I'll start. Running & cleaning my room & reading/studying. Those things can fill my days well enough until August comes at last, when I can visit family, start packing up my belongings again, and go back to school at last.

“Now the command is: send him back in haste.
His life may not in exile go to waste.
His destiny, his homecoming, is at hand,
when he shall see his dearest, and walk on his own land” -Homer, Odyssey

the poet as radio: a poem by Jack Spicer

2009-06-08T23:44:00.000-04:00

Sporting Life

The trouble with comparing a poet with a radio is that radios

don’t develop scar-tissue. The tubes burn out, or with a

transistor, which most souls are, the battery or diagram

burns out replaceable or not replaceable, but not like that

punchdrunk fighter in the bar. The poet

Takes too many messages. The right to the ear that floored him

in New Jersey. The right to say that he stood six rounds with

a champion.

Then they sell beer or go on sporting commissions, or, if the

scar tissue is too heavy, demonstrate in a bar where the

invisible champions might not have hit him. Too many of

them.

The poet is a radio. The poet is a liar. The poet is a

counterpunching radio.

And those messages (God would not damn them) do not even

know they are champions.

I have to admit that I know very little about the lives of my favorite writers & poets. As much as I love their writings, I'm rarely compelled to know much about their histories. Partly because the mystery of some unknown history is alluring, partly because I don't have much curiosity to begin with. Though a writer's life may influence his writing, I'm hesitant to allow it to influence my own understanding of the work itself.
But at the same time, I'm fascinated by the nature of art & the characteristics of writers. What sort of character is a poet? Is he born with a poetic disposition, or is it cultivated in him? Are Homer and Sappho, Eliot and Bishop, Whitman and Rilke, inherently the same sort of person? Or did they all happen to be poets by coincidence? Spicer's description of a poet as "a counterpunching radio" is troubling, in a way, because radios are man-made, machines designed to channel messages from sender to receiver. They act without thinking, without self-control.
But, as Spicer says, "radios don't develop scar-tissue". A poet may have characteristics of a radio, absorbing all of the white noise, his surroundings and experiences, channeled through him, extracting the messages he wants to transmit. But at the same time, he "takes too many messages". He lives & breathes, he has a soul, he knows joy and sorrow, and sometimes he rages. Sometimes he fights, grows scar-tissue.
The notion of poetry & radio appears also in Jean Cocteau's film Orphee:

The older poet listening to a younger one transmitting from the afterlife, hoping to pass off the phrases as his own. "We were dead and we didn't notice," he tells his wife. An exaggeration, perhaps. But poetry seems often to come to us from the dead, or the timeless. If the poet doesn't fight, doesn't develop scar-tissue, he might as well be dead, an automaton, merely conducting the music of the heavenly spheres. Perhaps scar-tissue adds something concrete, a sort of tangibility to the messages the poet is transmitting. The poetry becomes explosive, almost threatening, "counterpunching".
Or perhaps not. Defining the nature of an art is elusive in itself, & describing the character of the artist is more elusive still.

a poem, & music

2009-06-02T01:27:00.000-04:00

“Mahler in New York” by Joseph Fasano

Now when I go out, the wind pulls me
into the grave. I go out
to part the hair of a child I left behind,

and he pushes his face into my cuffs, to smell the wind.
If I carry my father with me, it is the way
a horse carries autumn in its mane.

If I remember my brother,
it is as if a buck had knelt down
in a room I was in.

I kneel, and the wind kneels down in me.
What is it to have a history, a flock
buried in the blindness of winter?

Try crawling with two violins
into the hallway of your father’s hearse.
It is filled with sparrows.

Sometimes I go to the field
and the field is bare. There is the wind,
which entrusts me;

there is a woman walking with a pail of milk,
a man who tilts his bread in the sun;
there is the black heart of a mare

in the milk—or is it the wind, the way it goes?
I don’t know about the wind, about the way
it goes. All I know is that sometimes

someone will pick up the black violin of his childhood
and start playing—that it sits there on his shoulder
like a thin gray falcon asleep in its blinders,

and that we carry each other this way
because it is the way we would like to be carried:
sometimes with mercy, sometimes without.

Next year, in lieu of science tutorials, I'll have to study music. The prospect more than slightly terrifies me because, despite having studied three musical instruments (violin, piano, and flute), I don't understand musical theory at all. I know what I like listening to, I have a sense of what sounds musical and what doesn't. Rhythm makes sense to me. But I don't know why one chord is better than another in a certain piece, when a flat or a sharp is necessary. And even if I did learn the elements of music, how they work, I could never possess an innate sense & understanding of it.

In a way, my limited understanding of music is helpful. I'll have a lot of questions to ask in tutorial. What is tone? What sort of an art is music? What is its aim, its potential? What does it express? Why does Socrates deem it "the best education" in Plato's Republic, and why does he censor certain styles of music? Can music really be described or expressed verbally?

But when it comes to writing my own music, to writing essays on the subject, I think I'll have a great deal of trouble. I don't understand music the way I do writing & poetry--it can never make sense to me that way.

Yet I've heard countless times that poetry is the closest thing in writing to music. It's true: poetry (even free verse) has a lyrical, rhythmic aspect similar to music that isn't so easily found in prose. Good poetry & good music are alike: pleasing to the ear, satisfying to the soul.

Despite the relationship between poetry & music, I'm worried my understanding of the former may make it all the more difficult for me to comprehend the latter. Poetry gives me the luxury of words, of definition and language. Music, and musical notes, are more elusive to me. I can hear the difference between one note and another, but I can't make sense of it. Words, however, are easy for me; they 'click'. That's a luxury I won't have when studying music, and it frightens me.

Hopefully, studying music won't be as difficult as I imagine. But I think it will still be a struggle, and one I'm not entirely sure yet that I'll benefit from. Fingers crossed.

Phaedrus

2009-05-29T00:12:00.001-04:00

Phaedrus, the last Platonic dialogue on the program, was the only work I've read of Plato's that offended me. Symposium, Crito, and Phaedo were beautiful; Gorgias and The Republic were less engaging, yet provocative; and Theatetus, Sophist, and what we read of Timaeus were perplexing. But none of them ever offended me.

I still don't understand entirely why Phaedrus is so bothersome for me. Maybe I'd acquired a preference for Aristotle over Plato. Maybe Socrates' flair for the dramatic had gotten on my nerves. Maybe I didn't quite understand the dialogue. Maybe I was just tired of reading and ready for summer vacation.

The first half of the dialogue wasn't too troublesome. Socrates may have told a ridiculously fantastical tale about the "winged" soul, but his speech on mania and divine possession was fascinating: "If madness were simply bad, all would be fine. But as it is, the greatest of all good things come to us through madness, provided that the madness is divinely given" (244a). The themes of piety and atheism, Socrates' prayer at the end, and Phaedrus' final remark that "friends have things in common", all evoke a tension in the relationship between the two speakers. Stylistically, Phaedrus is stunning.

What Socrates has to say in the second half, though, unsettles and vexes me. He warns Phaedrus against the imitative art (writing), telling him that it is inferior to rhetoric:

"Can anything really be valuable and beautiful that is undertaken in an artful way but has omitted the dialectical method?" (266d)

"those who put trust in writing recollect from the outside with foreign signs, rather than themselves recollecting from within by themselves" (275a)

"if you ask them about anything in the text in hopes of learning something, the words signify only one thing, and only one thing. And once something is written down every speech is whirled about every which way, picked up as well by those who understand as by those who have no business reading it, a speech having no idea to whom it should speak and to whom it shouldn't" (275d,e)

When he speaks about the imitative, Socrates warns Phaedrus not against potential weaknesses, but evils. To Socrates, writing is not only an inefficient model of learning, but a corruption. Writing becomes akin to pornography: a depiction of the most private things available to anyone who will pay for it. Like pornography, writing (or the imitative) creates a superficial relationship between the reader and the speech, a relationship which the reader alone controls, and in which the speech is rendered powerless.

Socrates is right in this regard: writing is available to anyone. A written speech belongs more to the masses than to the writer. It is weak, indefensible. It speaks to everyone, even those undesirable.

And a strange paradox arises: though Socrates and Phaedrus speak against written speech, the dialogue is transcribed by Plato, preserved forever in written text. A formerly private conversation now belongs to even the undesirables. Philosophical pornography!

Though Socrates is correct in what he says about written speech and the imitative, I'm disagree with what he believes to be a weakness. True, anything written belongs to anyone who can read it. But there's a certain strength, perhaps even a nobility, in writing something, in permitting one's own thoughts to be viewed by anyone and everyone, in allowing it to speak "to whom it should . . . and to whom it shouldn't"

Dialectic may be stronger than writing, in the regard that it is a shared and private and privileged experience. A conversation between indiviuals can never belong to anyone else, it can never be misinterpreted or attacked or maligned. It has a sacred nature. (Thus, the tension between Socrates' piety and Phaedrus' atheism?)

But writing, the imitative, art in general. Something is liberating about its pornographic nature, about its lack of privilege. Take a popular poem, say, Cummings' "i carry your heart". How many times has that poem been read? Not just silently in private, but out loud in public, from one person to another, at weddings, at funerals, at gatherings of friends and strangers? How many people does that one poem belong to? How many interpretations has it gone through? How many emotions and memories is it associated with? Perhaps that sort of popularity gives the writing a sort of negative credence, but it also establishes its resonating and enduring nature.

In that way, art and writing and the imitative have a sort of strength that dialectic may never possess; though writing may not have the defense of its author that spoken speech boasts of, it does not require such defenses. In spite of time and decay, in spite of flux and change, art remains unchanged and eternal. Interpretations and experiences themselves may alter, but the work itself remains the same. And in this way the creator of imitations has a certain power over the speaker of speeches: while the latter creates for the sake of the individual alone, the former creates both for the sake of the individual and of the whole.

There's much more I wanted to say on the subject, more arguments I could have made, more gaps I could have filled. But I wrote what mattered most, what I needed to release. I've written this and now it belongs to whoever cares to read it. Enjoy.

Introduction

2009-05-27T17:47:00.000-04:00

Decided to start a new blog, to post musings and new discoveries. Not a journal--I already have one of those. Nothing about my life, but my interests, my thoughts, my feelings. Boring things, really.

To kick things off, here's a poem from Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus. It's a beautiful and bewildering series of poems about a poet as man and artist, as hero and victim; about the nature of poetry and life. I don't know if I'll ever understand the true meanings of Rilke's poems, but the pleasure they give is more than enough to make up for their incomprehensive nature.

Sonnets to Orpheus I, 3 - Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. A. Poulin, Jr.

A god can do it. But tell me, will you, how
a man can trail him through the narrow lyre?
His mind is forked. Where two heart's arteries
intersect, there stands no temple for Apollo.

Singing, as you teach us, isn't desiring,
nor luring something conquered in the end.
Singing is Being. For a god, it's almost nothing.
But when do we exist? And when does he spend

the earth and stars on our being? Young man.
your loving isn't it, even if your mouth
is pried open by your voice--learn

to forget your impulsive song. Soon it will end.
True singing is a different kind of breath.
A breath about nothing. A gust in the god. A wind.