Poetry Friday: A Noiseless Patient Spider

This week, some lines from Walt Whitman.

A Noiseless Patient Spider
 
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

I've loved this poem for a long time, since before I could articulate how much of myself I saw in it. (Loving the poem was my way of articulating certain secret parts of myself.) Standing isolated, launching forth filament after filament into the seemingly "vacant vast surrounding." That was my sense of the universe -- vacant. And yet having an inkling that in fact, it is not all so vacant. An ocean is not a void -- it is a rich, life-giving substance. Seeking the spheres, emminating out like layers of consciousness, and seeking to connect them, and to connect myself to them. Seeking to build a bridge, to be a bridge, to something yet unseen, only mused about, but with faith that the venture will prove worthy.

This poem expresses a kind of courage that often remains hidden within myself, like a seed that needs much tender watering before it dares to venture forth a tendril. This poem waters that seed.

I see this poem as a bridge toward Right View. We (or I) start out feeling isolated, detached, surrounded yet alone; but as we (I) unreel ourselves outward, we (I) start to experience that which is "outward" as "inward" as well. Not so separate after all. "Till that bridge you will need is form'd" -- I love that phrase. Bridge or boat: either way I'll meet you on the other side.

 Hail Walt-Whitman-ishvara, Bodhisatva of Sphere Seekers!

Mud and Loot-us

When I invited folks from my sangha to visit this blog, I mistakenly typed the functional link as "mud and lootus. blogspot. com." When a few intrepid friends clicked, they received the message,

"Sorry, the blog you were looking for does not exist. However, the name mudandlootus is available to register!"

"Mud & Lootus" -- that could be an interesting blog. It puts me in mind, for some reason, of The Iliad, which opens with a dispute over loot, war loot. The Greek hero Achilles falls into a sulking rage at having one of his war prizes, a young Trojan widow called Briseis, taken from him by Agamemnon, who had had to return his own war prize, Chryseis, to her father because he was a Trojan priest for Apollo, who in his divine annoyance had beset the Greeks with a plague of arrows raining from the sky. (It's complicated, epically so.)

Achilles responds the way many of us do (at least internally) when something is taken from us that we like: he taunts and withdraws from battle ("I quit!") and he complains to his mother ("It's not fair!"). His mother happens to be the goddess Thetis, and she, very unwisely (or perhaps with very subtle wisdom?) appeals to Zeus to turn the war against the Greeks until Achilles is properly respected again. This leads to the death of Patroklos, Achilles's dear friend, as well as thousands of Greeks, which leads to the death of Hector, as well as thousands of Trojans, which leads ... well, you get the idea.

The story is full of gods and men (and goddesses and women) behaving badly. But also, at times, honorably. The best and worst of our nature. Worst of all is wrath -- wrath over loot. If that's not mud, I don't know what is.

(And as we all know, eventually Achilles, too, met his mortal fate.)
















The Wrath of Brad Pitt

Poetry Friday: Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis

Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis

by Philip Whalen

I praise those ancient Chinamen

Who left me a few words,

Usually a pointless joke or a silly question

A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled on the margin of a quick

                         splashed picture—bug, leaf,

                         caricature of Teacher

    on paper held together now by little more than ink

    & their own strength brushed momentarily over it

Their world & several others since

Gone to hell in a handbasket, they knew it—

Cheered as it whizzed by—

& conked out among the busted spring rain cherryblossom winejars

Happy to have saved us all.

I admit that this is the only Philip Whalen poem I have read. I loved this poem when I saw it in the Shambhala Sun (thank you, Shambhala Sun, for the artwork, which I scanned from your magazine -- consider this my request for permission) and I thereupon bought the Collected Poems. The book is two inches thick and runs 871 pages.

I think I could have done with a Selected Poems.

After a respectful number of days/weeks/months/years have passed, I will give the book away. Maybe to my neighbor, a poet himself whose livingroom walls are laid in poetry books, since he greeted the book with, "Hey, Philip Whalen! Great!"  (My husband is a poet as well, but I won't allow our livingroom walls to be more than partially composed of poetry books; also, he greeted the book with a calm indifference.) For now, it sits on my "Buddhist/Writing" shelf, along with One Continuous Mistake and Momma Zen.

Once upon a time, I used to write poetry myself. Now, just the occasional haiku.  However, when I write my children's books, they often take form, in my mind and on the page, as poems. Particularly Polar Bear Night and my latest, The Christmas Magic. But more on that some other time.

Propers due:

Philip Whalen, "Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis" text and art from The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen copyright © 2007 by Brandeis University Press and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press. www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

Source: The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen (Wesleyan University Press, 2007) 

P.S. When my husband read this post, he exclaimed, "Don't give away the Philip Whalen! I do want to read it. I was waiting for you to be done with it." I've turned the book over to him.

Who knew how important blogging could be to marital harmony?