May 14, 2013
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Each in His Own Tongue
by William Herbert Carruth
A fire-mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod, –
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden-rod, –
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in:
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod, –
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod, –
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.
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POETRY POST No.20 CAME DURING A BRUNCH AT MY PAL JOSH’S HOUSE ONE SUNDAY morning a few months ago. Once a month in Los Angeles, Josh hosts a group of pals and pals of pals for a pot-luck and invites them to ponder a question that he throws out to the group to discuss. The ad hoc guest-list always ends up being a rather spiritual and thoughtful bunch so in preparation, I scribbled out a little piece of paper asking people to write down their favorite poem and handed it out with addressed envelopes for people to mail it back to Poetry Post HQ.
One gent, who goes by the name Uncle Mark Tucker, quietly took his piece of paper and before the morning was over handed it right back to me all filled out with an eight line poem about Autumn and God. My kind of chap.
In honesty, I liked the poem, I thought it was lovely and had a light sweetness to it but it didn’t crack me open on the spot; if anything I was more excited about someone filling out the form so quickly. It was only when I went home and googled the first line to find the author that I realized there were another three stanzas to the poem and that I absolutely LOVE the full poem. Props to uncle mark tucker for being able to rattle off eight lines of a poem, and for giving me the gift of going home and discovering the rest.
It also feels somewhat poetic that in citing a poem that essentially says that the experience of something is more important than the name we give it, that Uncle Mark Tucker tells us that he didn’t remember the name of the author because “IT’S ALL THE BEAUTY OF GOD.” Clearly not intentional but a beautiful mirror nonetheless.
We now know that the poet was a certain gentleman called William Herbert Carruth and that the poem was published in 1906. I have a feeling that the kind of poet who would pen this poem would be tickled to know that his words and images had lingered in the heart of another without the need to remember who wrote it. It’s a very specific and nuanced compliment; that his words were so powerful and so transcendent that the particulars of his physical being were not important.
Which brings us perfectly to what I find so breathtaking about the poem; what it does so eloquently and majestically, when he tells us Some of us call it “Autumn, And others call it God.” is to illustrate that in some ways it’s all semantics, and when you obsess over the semantics, to some degree you lose the point. Existence and life is beautiful and miraculous and breath-taking in a multitude of ways when you take a breath and stop to look at it; whether you call it God or Evolution or Autumn or Longing, the wonder and the exquisiteness of it all remains exactly the same, regardless of the tongue that chooses to express it.
With love and constant wonder,
nicola xo
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{ Poetry Tuesdays }
IT ALSO FEELS RATHER PERTINENT THAT OVER A HUNDRED YEARS AGO…
…a poem was written with a stanza ending with the words “Some call it Evolution, And others call it God.” It just felt so modern, as though it must have been written in the last few years. Only a couple of mornings ago, I saw an article pontificating on whether science will eventually make God obsolete.
And it’s not just the debate that is so timeless, it is his description of it that sounds so modern and it reminded me how so many of the issues we think we are grappling with for the first time, thoughts we think we have for the first time, have been raging and experiencing themselves through us for centuries.NB
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{ Tidbits }
god
\ˈgäd also ˈgȯd\
noun
1. capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality:
a. the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe
b. Christian Science : the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit : infinite Mind
2. a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship; specifically : one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality
3. a person or thing of supreme value
4. a powerful ruler
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{ Wordplay }
April 30, 2013
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The Phoenix and The Turtle
by William Shakespeare
LET the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come thou not near!
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather’d king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender makest
With the breath thou givest and takest,
‘Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance, and no space was seen
‘Twixt the turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix’ sight;
Either was the other’s mine.
Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded,
That it cried, How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.
Threnos.
Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix’ nest
And the turtle’s loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:
‘Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem, but cannot be:
Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
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Why Alice loves The Phoenix and the Turtle :
“This is such a strange poem, such a curious poem. I memorized it several years ago when I wrote a term paper dissecting it in college, but it still intrigues (and puzzles) me. First printed in 1601, the stanzas mention several birds, each of which has been tied to various figures of the time in historical readings. But to tell the truth I don’t care very much about those analyses, though they’re interesting. The poem does something to me on its own, without context. Its concept is really quite silly (it’s a bird funeral, people!) but it can make me cry. While I won’t say this is My Favorite Poem (the thought of making a designation like that disturbs me greatly), it’s one I know will always be singing somewhere in my head, enchanting and confounding.”
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POETRY POST No.19 ARRIVED ON A BEAUTIFULLY MONOGRAMMED LITTLE NOTELET FROM someone names Alice White. Again, I later found out thanks to the wonders of Facebook that Alice is a pal of my pal and fellow Rebooter Alan Light, who I actually only know over email. Ah the joys of modern technology mixed with old-school-ness of handwritten letters.
I love that Alice qualified her answer by telling me that the Phoenix and the Turtle is her favorite “today”. It speaks to the notion that we are constantly changing beings in a constantly changing world and to label anything a favorite forever defies this truth.
I will admit though that when I read the poem, I struggled with it. It brought me back to Doug Rushkoff’s Poetry Post No.02, where I had been so grateful for the fact that I didn’t know that the poem had been written by the great Bard, Shakespeare himself. And coming back to The Phoenix and The Turtle, I wondered for a brief moment if I had not seen Shakespeare’s name attached, whether I would have fared better with my experience of it. But my instinct says no, I would have struggled just the same.
It’s a tough one. And for once, I will admit, I am rather defeated by it.
Feel free to share on the Facebook page if you have any illuminating thoughts.
With love,
Nicola x
PS: Once again, while recording a loud, a few lovelinesses wafted in that I had completely missed in reading only with my eyes. Still not enough to merit an understanding of the poem but the description of the love between The Phoenix and The Turtle and the pondering on what happens when two become one in love and specifically the notion of Either was the other’s mine felt quite sweet to speak.
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{ Poetry Tuesdays }
