{"id":17171,"date":"2015-09-04T06:34:56","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T10:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=17171"},"modified":"2015-09-04T06:34:56","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T10:34:56","slug":"exquisite-creatures-singular-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/exquisite-creatures-singular-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"Exquisite Creatures, Singular Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “Al otro lado del reflejo” (lit., “To the other side of the reflection”), by Oiluj Samall Zeid on Flickr<\/a>. (Used under a Creative Commons license.)]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

This summer, of all I’ve read and copied out, because I wanted to keep the words close and to feel them come from my own hand, here’s this little passage from Proust: “To reach the end of a day, natures that are slightly nervous, as mine was, make use, like motorcars, of different ‘speeds.’ There are mountainous, uncomfortable days, up which one takes an infinite time to pass, and days downward sloping, through which one can go at full tilt, singing as one goes.”<\/p>\n

That’s me in my motorcar dress, windows open, hair flying.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I am grateful he knows. (And that he knew me before I was born! And that the words awaited me all these years!)<\/p>\n

Sometimes I feel stripped bare and found out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lia Purpura [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Recovery<\/strong><\/p>\n

And when at last grief has dried you out, nearly
\nweightless, like a little bone, one day,
\nno reason in particular, the world decides to tug:
\ntwinge under the breastbone, the sudden thought
\nyou might stand up, walk to the door and
\nkeep on going… And in the seconds following,
\nlike the silence following the boom under the river ice, it all
\nseems possible, the egg-smooth clarity of the new-awakened,
\nrising, to stand, and walk… But already
\nat the edges of the crack, sorrow
\nstarts to ooze, the brown stain spreading
\nand you think: there is no end to it.<\/p>\n

But in the breaking, something else is given — not
\nthat glittering jumble, shrieking and churning in the blind
\ncentre of the afternoon,<\/span>
\nbut something else — a scent,
\nlike a door flung open, a sudden downpour
\nthrough which you can still see the sun, derelict
\nin the neighbour’s field, the wren’s bright eye in the thicket.
\nAs though on that day in August, or even July,
\nwhen you were first thinking of autumn, you remembered also
\nthe last day of spring, which had passed
\nwithout your noticing. Something that easy, let go
\nwithout a thought, untroubled by oblivion,
\na bird, a smile.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jan Zwicky [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (italicized passage):<\/p>\n

What do you mean by you<\/em>? If you are the universe, in the greater context that question is irrelevant. You never were born and you never will die, because what there is, is you. That should be absolutely obvious, but from an egoistic perspective it is not obvious at all. It should be the simplest thing in the world to understand that you, the ‘I’, is what has always been going on and always will go on, coming and going forever and ever…<\/p>\n

What I am really saying is that you don’t need to do anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Alan Watts [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Today it rained hard for much of the afternoon. It got dark fast, let go a hard, final downpour, and now the streets are clear and sharp-smelling. The light, these long last days of summer, is low enough to jewel and yellow, blur, and now, if I tilt my head, rainbow all the drops hanging from the phone line. The colors weight the drops, slick them with fire and sea greens in shifts.<\/p>\n

I read, for sustenance, more sustenance than my own lemonbeaded raindrops on the high wire can give, Proust on asparagus:<\/p>\n

tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink which ran from their heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible changes to their white feet, still stained a little by the soil of their garden-bed: a rainbow-loveliness that was not of this world. I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form, who, through the disguise which covered their firm and edible flesh, allowed me to discern in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue evening shades…<\/p>\n

I walk through this rain thinking at one time I would point this all out to you, hold these drops somehow against that astral asparagus, iridesce the water, roll a pearly drop toward you, fray and sift asparagal light. But now you live in another city, and you, in another country, or you (who have not yet even made an appearance here) and I no longer speak of such things.<\/p>\n

But I want the shine to live. And before I know it, I am offering, tilting into the light and bringing forth… something: fine beads aloft, an abacus of pearls<\/em>, say. I’m sowing some new green, but it’s for you, Reader, whom I both know and do not know, who both exist and do not exist, who constitute an elsewhere far, further than I can imagine, years, maybe centuries away.<\/p>\n

Whose elsewhere is a balm and a comfort.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lia Purpura [source:<\/em> ibid.])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

\n

You Are Standing at the Edge of The Woods<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are standing at the edge of the woods
\nat twilight
\nwhen something begins
\nto sing, like a waterfall<\/p>\n

pouring down
\nthrough the leaves. It is
\nthe thrush.
\nAnd you are just<\/p>\n

sinking down into your thoughts,
\ntaking in
\nthe sweetness of it—those chords,
\nthose pursed twirls—when you hear<\/p>\n

out of the same twilight
\nthe wildest red outcry. It pitches itself
\nforward, it flails and scabs
\nall the surrounding space with such authority<\/p>\n

you can\u2019t tell
\nwhether it is crying out on the
\nscarp of victory, with its hooked foot
\ndabbed into some creature that now
\nwith snapped spine
\nlies on the earth—or whether
\nit is such a struck body itself, saying
\ngoodbye.<\/p>\n

The thrush
\nis silent then, or perhaps
\nhas flown away.
\nThe dark grows darker.<\/p>\n

The moon,
\nin its shining white blouse,
\nrises.
\nAnd whatever that wild cry was<\/p>\n

it will always remain a mystery
\nyou have to go home now and live with,
\nsometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence,
\nfor the rest of your life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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

[Image: “Al otro lado del reflejo” (lit., “To the other side of the reflection”), by Oiluj Samall Zeid on Flickr. (Used under a Creative Commons license.)] From whiskey river: This summer, of all I’ve read and copied out, because I wanted to keep the words close and to feel them come from my own hand, […]<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,36,251,4159],"tags":[595,1211,3250,3266,4151],"class_list":{"0":"post-17171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-reading","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-essays","13":"tag-mary-oliver","14":"tag-alan-watts","15":"tag-lia-purpura","16":"tag-marcel-proust","17":"tag-jan-zwicky","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4sX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17171","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=17171"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17178,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17171\/revisions\/17178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}