{"id":14163,"date":"2013-07-05T10:19:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T14:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=14163"},"modified":"2013-07-08T06:22:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T10:22:16","slug":"you-dont-have-to-look-for-everything-to-find-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/you-dont-have-to-look-for-everything-to-find-it\/","title":{"rendered":"You Don’t Have to Look for Everything to Find It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: Where the Baker was last seen. Plate 10 of Henry Holiday’s original illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s
\n<\/em>The Hunting of the Snark. For an interesting report on some of the (possible) sources for Holiday’s
\nillustrations, see this paper<\/a> (3.6MB PDF) by Goetz Kluge.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

There are poems
\nthat are never written,
\nthat simply move across
\nthe mind
\nlike skywriting
\non a still day;
\nslowly the first word
\ndrifts west,
\nthe last letters dissolve
\non the tongue,
\nand what is left
\nis the pure blue
\nof insight, without cloud
\nor comfort.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Linda Pastan)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The journey is there and every single one of us has got to go through it, and you can’t dodge it, and the purpose of everything and the whole of existence is to equip you to take another step, and another step, and another step, and so on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jesse Watkins)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hope<\/strong><\/p>\n

It hovers in dark corners
\nbefore the lights are turned on,
\nit shakes sleep from its eyes
\nand drops from mushroom gills,
\nit explodes in the starry heads
\nof dandelions turned sages,
\nit sticks to the wings of green angels
\nthat sail from the tops of maples.<\/p>\n

It sprouts in each occluded eye
\nof the many-eyed potato,
\nit lives in each earthworm segment
\nsurviving cruelty,
\nit is the motion that runs the tail of a dog,
\nit is the mouth that inflates the lungs
\nof the child that has just been born.<\/p>\n

It is the singular gift
\nwe cannot destroy in ourselves,
\nthe argument that refutes death,
\nthe genius that invents the future,
\nall we know of God.<\/p>\n

It is the serum which makes us swear
\nnot to betray one another;
\nit is in this poem, trying to speak.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lisel Mueller)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

My father had an idea. “Let’s take the subway to Greenwich Village. We can see the beatniks,” he said.<\/p>\n

“What are beatniks?” I asked, my head cocked to one side.<\/p>\n

“They wear black turtleneck sweaters, smoke cigarettes, and read poetry in front of jazz bands,” my father explained.<\/p>\n

“What’s jazz?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“Some terrible, noisy music,” my mother chimed in.<\/p>\n

“Oh,” I nodded.<\/p>\n[…]\n

We walked around Greenwich Village and weren’t sure if we saw beatniks or not. As we walked, my father added another clue.<\/p>\n

“They also wear goatees,” he said, and showed us with his gloved finger on his own face the shape of a goatee.<\/p>\n

We nodded. My sister was not that interested. She ran open-armed after pigeons in Washington Square, hoping to hold one. They flew ahead of her. Jo Ann’s feet were getting blisters from her party shoes. She wanted to sit down on a bench, but I was intent on finding a beatnik. I walked around and stared into men’s faces — it never occurred to me, or to my father, that women could be beatniks. I thought I almost found one, but he was wearing a tan overcoat. I couldn’t tell if he was wearing a black turtleneck underneath, but he did have a goatee and was carrying a satchel. Maybe it contained a poem. He flicked the last bit of a Camel into a garbage container.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Natalie Goldberg [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

We seek other conditions because we do not understand the use of our own, and go out of ourselves because we do not know what it is like there. Yet there is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk on our own legs. And on the most elevated throne in the world we are still sitting only on our own ass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Michel de Montaigne [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Hunting of the Snark<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

Fit the Eighth<\/span>
\nThe Vanishing<\/span><\/p>\n

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
\nThey pursued it with forks and hope;
\nThey threatened its life with a railway-share;
\nThey charmed it with smiles and soap.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They shuddered to think that the chase might fail,
\nAnd the Beaver, excited at last,
\nWent bounding along on the tip of its tail,
\nFor the daylight was nearly past.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“There is Thingumbob shouting!” the Bellman said,
\n“He is shouting like mad, only hark!
\nHe is waving his hands, he is wagging his head,
\nHe has certainly found a Snark!”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed
\n“He was always a desperate wag!”
\nThey beheld him—their Baker—their hero unnamed—
\nOn the top of a neighbouring crag,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Erect and sublime, for one moment of time,
\nIn the next, that wild figure they saw
\n(As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,
\nWhile they waited and listened in awe.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s a Snark!” was the sound that first came to their ears,
\nAnd seemed almost too good to be true.
\nThen followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:
\nThen the ominous words “It’s a Boo—“<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air
\nA weary and wandering sigh
\nThat sounded like “-jum!” but the others declare
\nIt was only a breeze that went by.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They hunted till darkness came on, but they found
\nNot a button, or feather, or mark,
\nBy which they could tell that they stood on the ground
\nWhere the Baker had met with the Snark.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
\nIn the midst of his laughter and glee,
\nHe had softly and suddenly vanished away—
\nFor the Snark was<\/em> a Boojum, you see.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lewis Carroll [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: Where the Baker was last seen. Plate 10 of Henry Holiday’s original illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. For an interesting report on some of the (possible) sources for Holiday’s illustrations, see this paper (3.6MB PDF) by Goetz Kluge.] From whiskey river: There are poems that are never written, that simply […]<\/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":[247,1393,250,36,251],"tags":[1812,1824,2314,2690,3541,3542,3544],"class_list":{"0":"post-14163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-reading","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"tag-linda-pastan","12":"tag-lewis-carroll","13":"tag-lisel-mueller","14":"tag-natalie-goldberg","15":"tag-henry-holiday","16":"tag-jesse-watkins","17":"tag-michel-de-montaigne","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3Gr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14163","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=14163"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14178,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14163\/revisions\/14178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}