{"id":13039,"date":"2013-04-05T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=13039"},"modified":"2013-04-04T05:57:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T09:57:00","slug":"its-a-matter-of-leaning-the-right-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/its-a-matter-of-leaning-the-right-way\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Matter of Leaning the Right Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"No<\/a><\/p>\n

[I have no idea where this sculpture is located, or who created it. Anyone know???]<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Thirst<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Oliver [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

On Living: I<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

Living is no laughing matter:
\nyou must live with great seriousness<\/span>
\nlike a squirrel, for example–<\/span>
\nI mean without looking for something beyond and above living,<\/span>
\nI mean living must be your whole occupation.<\/span>
\nLiving is no laughing matter:
\nyou must take it seriously,<\/span>
\nso much so and to such a degree<\/span>
\nthat, for example, your hands tied behind your back,<\/span>
\nyour back to the wall,<\/span>
\nor else in a laboratory<\/span>
\nin your white coat and safety glasses,<\/span>
\nyou can die for people–<\/span>
\neven for people whose faces you’ve never seen,<\/span>
\neven though you know living<\/span>
\nis the most real, the most beautiful thing.<\/span>
\nI mean, you must take living so seriously
\nthat even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees–<\/span>
\nand not for your children, either,<\/span>
\nbut because although you fear death you don’t believe it,<\/span>
\nbecause living, I mean, weighs heavier.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(N\u00e2zim Hikmet<\/a> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river:<\/p>\n

The Garbo Cloth<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Marybelle<\/span><\/p>\n

Her daughter wrote back to say my friend had died
\n(my friend to whom I wrote a letter maybe twice a year).<\/span>
\nFrom time to time I’d pictured her amid strange foliage
\n(and in a Mongol yurt, for she was fond of travel).<\/span>
\nWhy not a flock of something darkening the sky, so we would know
\n(ah, so-and-so is gone!)?<\/span>
\nFor a woman from the city, this might perhaps be pigeons
\n(blacking out the sun).<\/span>
\nOr else a human messenger, as once when she was fabric shopping
\n(bolt of green silk furled across her body)<\/span>
\nGarbo passed, and nodded. At Macy’s years ago
\n(when I was not a creature in her world).<\/span>
\nOf course she bought the cloth, but never sewed the dress
\n(“a massive stroke, and I take comfort in the fact<\/span>
\nshe felt no pain.”)<\/span>
\nLogic says we should make omens of our Garbos and our birds
\n(but which one bears the message? which one just the mess?)<\/span>
\nFrom the kayak, I’ve seen pigeons nesting underneath the pier
\n(a dim ammoniated stink)<\/span>
\nwhere one flew into my face. I read this as a sign
\n(that rancid smash of feathers)<\/span>
\nbut couldn’t fathom what it meant, trapped in the lag-time
\n(of an oracle’s translation).<\/span>
\nFoolish mind, wanting to obliterate the lag and why\u2014
\n(let memory wait to catch up to its sorrow).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lucia Perillo [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Science<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then it was the future, though what’s arrived
\nisn’t what we had in mind, all chrome and
\ncybernetics, when we set up exhibits
\nin the cafeteria for the judges
\nto review what we’d made of our hypotheses.<\/p>\n

The class skeptic (he later refused to sign
\nanyone’s yearbook, calling it a sentimental
\ndegradation of language) chloroformed mice,
\nweighing the bodies before and after
\nto catch the weight of the soul,<\/p>\n

wanting to prove the invisible
\nreal as a bagful of nails. A girl
\nwho knew it all made cookies from euglena<\/em><\/a>,
\na one-celled compromise between animal and plant,
\nshe had cultured in a flask.<\/p>\n

We’re smart enough, she concluded,
\nto survive our mistakes, showing photos of farmland,
\npoisoned, gouged, eroded. No one believed
\nhe really had built it when a kid no one knew
\nshowed up with an atom smasher, confirming that<\/p>\n

the tiniest particles could be changed
\ninto something even harder to break.
\nAnd one whose mother had cancer (hard to admit now,
\nit was me) distilled the tar of cigarettes
\nto paint it on the backs of shaven mice.<\/p>\n

She wanted to know what it took,
\na little vial of sure malignancy,
\nto prove a daily intake smaller
\nthan a single aspirin could finish
\nsomething as large as a life. I thought of this<\/p>\n

because, today, the dusky seaside sparrow
\nbecame extinct. It may never be as famous
\nas the pterodactyl or the dodo,
\nbut the last one died today, a resident
\nof Walt Disney World where now its tissue samples<\/p>\n

lie frozen, in case someday we learn to clone
\none from a few cells. Like those instant dinosaurs
\nthat come in a gelatin capsule—just add water
\nand they inflate. One other thing this
\nbrings to mind. The euglena<\/em> girl won first prize<\/p>\n

both for science and, I think, in retrospect, for hope.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Alison Deming [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it’s very brightly colored, and it’s very loud, and it’s fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, “Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?” And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, “Hey, don’t worry; don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.” And we\u2026 kill those people. “Shut him up! I’ve got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.” It’s just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok\u2026 But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a ride.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Bill Hicks [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

The Missus and I will be down at Florida’s southern end for a couple of day, while The Pooch keeps The Stepson company at our place. (Hence, no Music Break this week.) Hope you have a lovely weekend yourselves!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[I have no idea where this sculpture is located, or who created it. Anyone know???] From\u00a0whiskey river: Thirst Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,95,250,5,251],"tags":[595,1813,2971,3210,3431,3432],"class_list":{"0":"post-13039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-science-medicine","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-mary-oliver","13":"tag-nazim-hikmet","14":"tag-lucia-perillo","15":"tag-sculpture","16":"tag-alison-deming","17":"tag-bill-hicks","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3oj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13039"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13079,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13039\/revisions\/13079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}