{"id":16833,"date":"2015-06-05T15:34:31","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T19:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16833"},"modified":"2015-06-05T15:34:31","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T19:34:31","slug":"others-spirits-others-senses-and-our-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/others-spirits-others-senses-and-our-own\/","title":{"rendered":"Others’ Spirits, Others’ Senses, and Our Own"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “Youth Culture – Mods – Late 1950s to Mid 1960s,” by Paul Townsend on Flickr<\/a>. Used under a Creative Commons license.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

I breathe in the soft, saturated exhalations of cedar trees and salmonberry bushes, fireweed and wood fern, marsh hawks and meadow voles, marten and harbor seal and blacktail deer. I breathe in the same particles of air that made songs in the throats of hermit thrushes and gave voices to humpback whales, the same particles of air that lifted the wings of bald eagles and buzzed in the flight of hummingbirds, the same particles of air that rushed over the sea in storms, whirled in high mountain snows, whistled across the poles, and whispered through lush equatorial gardens… air that has passed continually through life on earth. I breathe it in, pass it on, share it in equal measure with billions of other living things, endlessly, infinitely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Richard Nelson [source<\/a>, apparently<\/em>]<\/i>)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Of all the forms of voice and communication, a song is perhaps the least mediated by the intellect. It ropes its way through the tangle of our cautions, joining singer to listener like a vine between two trees.<\/p>\n

It attests to the life of the singer through our skin and through our muscles, through the wind in our lungs and the fact of our own beating heart. The evidence of other spirits becomes that of our own body.<\/p>\n

A successful song comes to sing itself inside the listener. It is cellular and seismic, a wave coalescing in the mind and in the flesh. There is a message outside and a message inside, and those messages are the same, like the pat and thud of two heartbeats, one within you, one surrounding. The message of the lullaby is that it’s okay to dim the eyes for a time, to lose sight of yourself as you sleep and as you grow: if you drift, it says, you’ll drift ashore: if you fall, you will fall into place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Kevin Brockmeier [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Horses at Midnight Without a Moon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
\nOur dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
\nBut there’s music in us. Hope is pushed down
\nbut the angel flies up again taking us with her.
\nThe summer mornings begin inch by inch
\nwhile we sleep, and walk with us later
\nas long-legged beauty through
\nthe dirty streets. It is no surprise
\nthat danger and suffering surround us.
\nWhat astonishes is the singing.
\nWe know the horses are there in the dark
\nmeadow because we can smell them,
\ncan hear them breathing.
\nOur spirit persists like a man struggling
\nthrough the frozen valley
\nwho suddenly smells flowers
\nand realizes the snow is melting
\nout of sight on top of the mountain,
\nknows that spring has begun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jack Gilbert [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

[Computer “architect” Steve] Wallach had now spent more than a decade working on computing equipment. He\u2019d had a hand in the design of five computers — all good designs, in his opinion. He had worked long hours on all of them. He had put himself into those creatures of metal and silicon. And he had seen only one of them come to functional life, and in that case the customer had decided not to buy the machine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Tracy Kidder [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

We Have Trees Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

more so than we did before, but now we know what to do with
\nthem.<\/span>
\nWe hang our troubles on them and wipe our shoes against them.
\nWe go lethargic on the porch, we tear the bark with spindly fingers.
\nWe soak up the sun with restless hunger.
\nSo much sky<\/em> we say in unison, where does it go, do we follow it?
\nDo we let it get away?<\/span>
\nFor months we splay without a fence, door wide open—
\nblue and brash inside and out. Because we can, we keep saying,
\nbecause we can.<\/span>
\nWe face a lush sense of life that we have nothing to do with.
\nWe face our cravings and journey with a new kind, our new people<\/em>;
\nThey all possess smiles and frowns, but more windswept
\nexpressions—no permanent downwardness of spirit,
\nthe way it was back east.
\nAnd since we’ve left the city to be ourselves,
\nwe still must face our needy souls—
\nfull of want, compulsions.
\nWere we proud of this? The way we turned away?<\/p>\n

But we’ve protected these habits, forgone others in return.
\nWhat is the profession of the culture-hoarder?
\nWho are the gatekeepers? Do we grace them with our backs?
\nMoreover our chests remain empty yet seductively warmed,
\nburning by the fire, our asses cold and exposed.
\nAll the wood, crisp birch to shield our lazy lobes, rounded bodies,
\nour cerebrums and other parts.
\nAre we awaiting cheerless ambivalence to greet us in the West?
\nCavernous and cloudless, unaffected by beauty. Let’s be petulant,
\nthis is us now<\/em>, we say. We can’t help but find ourselves lustful;
\ncrying alligator tears with pails to our eyes, we didn’t know we were
\nhere<\/span><\/em>
\nwe kept saying, we don’t know how it happened<\/em>. We thought and
\nthought,<\/span>
\nand finally we closed our doors on the trees
\nto hide what we grew temperate for
\nbut resolve didn’t find us,
\nnot alive with force, we flew out of their arms<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Prageeta Sharma [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Grandfather’s Cars<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every two years he traded them in (“As soon
\nas the ashtrays get full,” he said with good humor);
\nalways a sedate four-door sedan, always a Buick,
\nalways dark as the inside of a tomb.<\/p>\n

Then one spring Grandfather took off to trade,
\nreturned, parked proudly in the driveway.
\n“Shave-and-a-haircut, two bits!” blared the horn.
\nGrandmother emerged from the kitchen into day-<\/p>\n

light, couldn’t believe her eyes. Grandfather sat
\nbehind the wheel of a tomato-red Lincoln
\nconvertible, the top down. “Shave-and-a-haircut,
\ntwo bits!” “Roscoe, whatever are you thinking?”<\/p>\n

she cried. Back into the kitchen she flew.
\nNo matter how many times he leaned on that horn,
\nshe wouldn’t return. So he went inside,
\nfound her decapitating strawberries with scorn.<\/p>\n

“Katie, what’s wrong with that automobile?
\nAll my life I’ve wanted something sporty.”
\nHe stood there wearing his Montgomery Ward
\nbrown suit and saddle shoes. His face was warty.<\/p>\n

She wiped her hands along her apron,
\nsaid words that cut like a band saw:
\n“What ails you? They’ll think you’ve turned fool!
\nAll our friends are dying like flies—all!<\/p>\n

You can’t drive that thing in a funeral procession.”
\nHe knew she was right. He gave her one baleful
\nlook, left, and returned in possession
\nof a four-door Dodge, black, practical as nails.<\/p>\n

Grandfather hated that car until the day he died.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

[Image: “Youth Culture – Mods – Late 1950s to Mid 1960s,” by Paul Townsend on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.] From whiskey river: I breathe in the soft, saturated exhalations of cedar trees and salmonberry bushes, fireweed and wood fern, marsh hawks and meadow voles, marten and harbor seal and blacktail deer. I […]<\/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":[247,1393,250,18,5,36,251],"tags":[3015,4011,4058,4059,4060,4061,4062,4063,4064],"class_list":{"0":"post-16833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-computers","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-jack-gilbert","14":"tag-kevin-brockmeier","15":"tag-richard-nelson","16":"tag-paul-townsend","17":"tag-tracy-kidder","18":"tag-prageeta-sharma","19":"tag-robert-phillips","20":"tag-mods","21":"tag-the-1960s","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4nv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16833","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=16833"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16841,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16833\/revisions\/16841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}