May 9-10

Hymn to Timeby Ursula K. Le Guin

Adios by Naomi Shihab Nye

Being but Men by Dylan Thomas

Paradise  by George Franklin

The Two by Philip Levine

Against the Kitchen Wall  by Eleanor Ross Taylor

In a letter to my mother, not sure when, I describe to her the idea of "O Pen" as a chance 

for people to respond to how a poem is "working on them".  For me, what counts is a poem

which pries open an angle that allows a bit of light to glimmer on the complexity of being human.

Today's selection certainly provides food for thought!

Le Guin:  Peaceful tone, and a "sense of complete thoughts expressed without the benefit of grammar" as Jim phrased it.  Strings of words, familiar, like "Let there be" --

and the mind continues... "light" -- but the poem insists that time, not God, is making 

a declaration about the 4th dimension where time, light, energy swirl in being.

Both groups thought of the song, "Turn, turn, turn"-- with a thought that when a poem is set to music, usually, it is the music that takes the upper hand.  A Hymn to time -- a praise song... without

the usual trimmings or need for music... Instead, there is a subtle crafting which develops a sense

of "all-ness" :the four fragments that start with "And" and end with

a period; the repeat of radiance; the rhyme of dance/expanse/chance... the sandwich of slant rhyme of room/home/returning to "womb"... the tiny reality of gnats juxtaposed with radiance...

Le Guin is versed in the Tao, having worked on its translation and here, captures the spirit.

Comments: Round of life… Tale for the time being… Japanese Buddhist Monk… or Heidegger,

Time and Being... 

we're all "timed" beings.. 

role of time.  Story of the trapped miners and only one miner had  a watch and lied about time. 

He knew how long they had, the others didn't, and was the only one who didn't survive.

We don't understand anything until we have distance from it…

Adios:   In English "goodbye" was "God be with you" -- the final farewell... be with God...

The advice, 3rd line: Use it. Learn where it begins,-- the small alphabet : a... of departure.

The opening stanza seems to point to how we communicate... the importance of wishing
each other well... like a blessing... commending, commitment,  benediction.  
Juxtaposed with the sensual, smelliness of decay... the liquid "l" of linger, leaves, smell, mold...
how leaves is both noun and verb.  In a way, a poem of finality... 
Like the sound of earth on a coffin in the final its... followed by silence.

At first I didn't think this was one of her strong poems -- but on spending time with it, 
I admire how she treats difficult subjects lightly…with feeling.
I sense a long voyage -- she  takes us way out w/ goodbye and yet keeps you close.

Each line allows a pause… 

Being but men seems to start with our human-ness, our fears.. The role of "afraid"--

or is it merely descriptive... the w's whisper in a world of wings and cries... wonder watching the stars.  He tells the aim... but that changes nothing.  The opening line repeats as last line. 

Walk into trees, as opposed to climbing them.  Contrast of adults/children, a sort of Wordsworthian celebration of innocence, which allows "ascent" as opposed to walking into obstacles... Role of

"noiseless" and rooks -- careful not to wake up the dark... able to transcend...

We wondered if this were written about the the rumblings of world war 2 ... 

The word "soft" -- for syllables and for ascent... the sibilance repeated in bliss and stars... 

The Franklin was a delightful parody... what do we wish for with "paradise"?  We do not know

the outcome of Mephistopheles...  O Pen diverged into a long discussion about Job... Jung, Noah's Flood and John provided this link to lyrics.

https://www.google.com/search?q=before+the+deluge+lyrics&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari   

Oasis enjoyed the pokes at "perfection" where poets "mumble, make last minute revisions on the marble"  (staircase to heaven?).

The story of "The Two" is masterful in its complexity.  Who are these "two"-- a "he" and a "she"

unsure of what to become... the parallel of Fitzgerald, who started as an Ad man (hence the famous

one-liner "we keep you clean Muscatine"...  Oasis felt it was like a writing exercise... like describing a Hopper painting, making up a solution for. a problem... but addressing the mystery of love.

By the end "Can you hear all I feared and never dared to write" takes on large proportions--

life in America... what work is... what betrayal of the American Dream... 

Eleanor Ross Taylor: for me a poet I didn't know, but happy to have stumbled upon.

We are on the edge of a story -- a sense of being in a secluded prairie with a posse of evil

men about to lay waste to this woman's home... and yet, she is the one who accuses herself

of being the one who "laid waste".  The adjectives bankrupted, malpractice... give the sense

of abortion... the "gifted wheat" -- money?  Sacred pear-- "life".

A satisfying poem, even though left with unresolved mystery.