Catching up from "before".
Time... is something that poetry beautifully explores, given its slippery nature and complexity, and the fact that poetry has a way of expressing meaning even if the words cannot say what seems to be unsayable.
So it is, I start by sharing a few things discussed -- where "past" embellishes "present":
Elmer brought in a bonsai and told us a bit more about it and left brochures. http://www.internationalbonsai.com/arboretumtour
Bertrand Russel was on our minds last week. Carolyn shared with marvelous interview from 1952. A Conversation with Bertrand Russell (1952) - YouTube As he puts it: happiness, to be truly happiness, needs a “kindly feeing”.
More Kaminsky: https://youtu.be/pgfDKdQZkLU
Tuesday, May 2 was a celebration of Linda Allardt and her poems from the posthumous poetry collection, "At the Confluence”. The poems were written between her eighty-sixth and ninety-third years, when increasingly confined to views of her backyard; she observes the changing of trees, birds, weather and light while also looking back at a life and unflinchingly toward death.
In the reading several poems contained hawks and it seemed everyone present had a "bird report". Wanda read the second poem in the line up:
Chasing Hawks by Dana Salvador
Yesterday's Hawks (p. 32 from Accused of Wisdom) by Linda Allardt (read by Wanda)
from Under Construction
In Time by Linda Allardt
The Law of Conservation by Linda Allardt (read by Polly on 5/2)
I heard Rain by Linda Allardt
from At the Confluence
Mid-March by Linda Allardt
The Opposite of Linger by Linda Allardt
It Came by Linda Allardt
Inquiry by Linda Allardt
from Stalking Reflections: sample tankas from this Renga (chain of Tanka; 5-7-5-7-7)
Accused of Wisdom by Linda Allardt (title poem I read)
NUTSHELL:
Chasing Hawks: We "coupletized" this poem with 14 people reading the 14 couplets, which allows for better appreciation of the line and stanza breaks: couplet 2: "my grandma said she wanted to go" ... stanza break landing on "home". The surprise in the 7th couplet, Suppose all these people came to say goodbye, then the unexpected conclusion next couplet, "and then I don't. How embarrassing! We assured her no one would care// and the surprise continues next couplet "if she lived."
As one person remarked, this poem has everything: humor, feeling, sorrow... It reminded some of the Hounds of Heaven.Hawks are often associated with spirit, and for sure, the end with the spirit chasing the hawk is a fitting closure, and one senses the grandma has joined them.
Yesterday's Hawks: The title at first seems to be an enigmatic metaphor for what is not there, but sensed. Linda offers suggestions: Loss? Guilt? Fear? The images of being shunned on a playground for no reason, or caught in a game with secret rules struck many with a powerful impact... From there, a meditation on fear... its ability to "echo under the threshold of hearing", the habit of it "under a sky empty of wings".
In Time: The personnification of absence (taking its hand) and silence (fed) and our relationship to them skillfully sketched with our relationship to it. We weren't sure of the last two lines.
Perhaps indeed, we sign to silence, expecting it to sign back... Perhaps the "laugh at us, like any living child" is a way to challenge our grown-up expectations about life. The "s" sounds predominate and reinforce a sense of death.
The Law of Conservation:
Judith quoted Shakespeare, "readiness is all" -- and indeed, a perfect summary of a response to this poem which meditates on the cyclical nature of life and death. We liked the use of the adjective "threadbare" for soul, as useful, having given. Everything is connected, yet also stands by itself. A lovely counterfoil to being busy-- (and response to the Sun à la John Donne: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44129/the-sun-rising
The lane: A favorite of Linda's daughter, this prompted Martin to share his idea of telling his daughter
to find him in a favorite picture of his (Paris scene) and join him. We enjoyed the "l's" of wall, until, still, you'll, full, will, lilies. Polly shared that she had seen this painting done by a local artist. Indeed, as reader, we are taken into the picture. Many associations with "paths" in woods... Kipling, Frost, and the magic of empty landscapes. We discussed the thrush... the power of imagination to add it to the painting, just as one imagines Linda adding herself inside it.
I heard the rain: There is no sight, only sound, of rain, birds, how "soundscape" changes resonance in rain. And then you realize, she is recounting a dream... the haunting last line is a fragment, as if to protest that indeed it felt real.
Mid-March: Another observation, turned into meditation and a little humor of the "newly dead, clamor from the obits"! Perhaps two-way street... the "them" could be the birds, or the newly dead... perhaps the birds not interested in wondering why they are still around... or asking Linda why she is.
The opposite of Linger: Lovely use of cliché but with a positive spin of not staying around... being in the wind!
It came: This reminded Maura of Shel Silverstein's book, The Missing Piece.
So it set off in search
of its missing piece.
And as it rolled
it sang this song—
Oh I'm lookin' for my missin' piece
I'm lookin' for my missin' piece
Hi-dee-ho, here I go,
Lookin' for my missin' piece.
https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Piece-Shel-Silverstein/dp/0060256710
That aside, the beautiful metaphor of ember banked in ash... what is hidden, but still powerful.
Inquiry: The hurry... how we respond to worry as weather...
Stalking Reflections: Polly filled us in a little more about Virginia Elson, her English teacher and Linda Allardt and life shared with them on Smith Pond. Virginia's poetry and contributions in the Renga is more concrete, Linda's more abstract.
Accused of Wisdom: title poem of her book published in 2004. What's wisdom? Is wisdom watching...? What is the underside of watching? What does she mean that her words are "accused" of wisdom? On one hand, a recognition that words cannot be pinned down, and will be just like shifts of light, the comings and goings of leaf, bird. She captures the multiplicity of living things, offering three difference tangents, all tinged with transcendence.
At the end of the session, we confesssed a sense of having spent a good hour and a half feeling loved, surrounded by a sensitive human tenderness.
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