{"id":17564,"date":"2015-12-18T12:14:01","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T17:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=17564"},"modified":"2015-12-18T12:15:35","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T17:15:35","slug":"the-world-is-not-your-vision-let-alone-your-description-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/the-world-is-not-your-vision-let-alone-your-description-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Is Not Your Vision, Let Alone Your Description of It"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Photo: “This Disembodiment,” by Dee Ashley (user dionnehartnett) on Flickr<\/a>. Used under a Creative Commons license.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Am I Not Among the Early Risers<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is an amazement — once I was twenty years old and in
\nevery motion of my body there was a delicious ease,<\/span>
\nand in every motion of the green earth there was
\na hint of paradise,<\/span>
\nand now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Monday<\/strong><\/p>\n

The birds are in their trees,
\nthe toast is in the toaster,
\nand the poets are at their windows.<\/p>\n

They are at their windows
\nin every section of the tangerine of earth—
\nthe Chinese poets looking up at the moon,
\nthe American poets gazing out
\nat the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.<\/p>\n

The clerks are at their desks,
\nthe miners are down in their mines,
\nand the poets are looking out their windows
\nmaybe with a cigarette, a cup of tea,
\nand maybe a flannel shirt or bathrobe is involved.<\/p>\n

The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong
\ngame of proofreading,
\nglancing back and forth from page to page,
\nthe chefs are dicing celery and potatoes,
\nand the poets are at their windows
\nbecause it is their job for which
\nthey are paid nothing every Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Which window it hardly seems to matter
\nthough many have a favorite,
\nfor there is always something to see—
\na bird grasping a thin branch,
\nthe headlights of a taxi rounding a corner,
\nthose two boys in wool caps angling across the street.<\/p>\n

The fishermen bob in their boats,
\nthe linemen climb their round poles,
\nthe barbers wait by their mirrors and chairs,
\nand the poets continue to stare
\nat the cracked birdbath or a limb knocked down by the wind.<\/p>\n

By now, it should go without saying
\nthat what the oven is to the baker
\nand the berry-stained blouse to the dry cleaner,
\nso the window is to the poet.<\/p>\n

Just think—
\nbefore the invention of the window,
\nthe poets would have had to put on a jacket
\nand a winter hat to go outside
\nor remain indoors with only a wall to stare at.<\/p>\n

And when I say a wall,
\nI do not mean a wall with striped wallpaper
\nand a sketch of a cow in a frame.<\/p>\n

I mean a cold wall of fieldstones,
\nthe wall of the medieval sonnet,
\nthe original woman’s heart of stone,
\nthe stone caught in the throat of her poet-lover.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Billy Collins [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

What I Know<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

7. I know that I live not in the world, but in the shadow of the world. I know that I go through the world the way an insect goes through its entire life in the shadow of a bank.<\/p>\n

8. I know that nothing is simple. Or more, that what\u2019s simple is never truly, never completely, so. I know that everything adds up and that every element of this total depends on the whole.<\/p>\n

9. I know that everything around me is nothing but a mass of contingency. I know that every word props itself up on an immense architecture of contingency.<\/p>\n

20. I know that, seen from the border between language and the world, the universe is in increasing entropy. But I no longer know what it is if I climb to the top of a tree (one of these trees on the border between language and the world), from where you can see far into language and far into the world at the same time.<\/p>\n

21. Because I have scaled a tree, I know that beyond language is a huge plain, with dark flowers and little mazy footpaths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Patrick Dubost (translation by Fiona Sampson) [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold, lost as it is in the depths, small, isolated, a pin-point, brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it: nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Victor Hugo [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Things<\/strong><\/p>\n

A man stood in the laurel tree
\nAdjusting his hands and feet to the boughs.
\nHe said, “Today I was breaking stones
\nOn a mountain road in Asia,<\/p>\n

When suddenly I had a vision
\nOf mankind, like grass and flowers,
\nThe same over all the earth.
\nWe forgave each other; we gave ourselves
\nWholly over to words.
\nAnd straightway I was released
\nAnd sprang through an open gate.”<\/p>\n

I said, “Into a meadow?”<\/p>\n

He said, “I am impervious to irony.
\nI thank you for the word…
\nI am standing in a sunlit meadow.
\nKnow that everything your senses reject
\nSprings up in the spiritual world.”<\/p>\n

I said, “Our scientists have another opinion.
\nThey say, you are merely phenomena.”<\/p>\n

He said, “Over here they will be angels
\nSinging, Holy holy be His Name!
\nAnd also, it works in reverse.
\nThings which to us in the pure state are mysterious,
\nAre your simplest articles of household use—
\nA chair, a dish, and meaner even than these,
\nThe very latest inventions.
\nMachines are the animals of the Americans—
\nTell me about machines.”<\/p>\n

I said, “I have suspected
\nThe Mixmaster knows more than I do,
\nThe air conditioner is the better poet.
\nMy right front tire is as bald as Odysseus—
\nHow much it must have suffered!
\nThen, as things have a third substance
\nWhich is obscure to both our senses,
\nLet there be a perpetual coming and going
\nBetween your house and mine.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Louis Simpson [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photo: “This Disembodiment,” by Dee Ashley (user dionnehartnett) on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.] From whiskey river: Am I Not Among the Early Risers (excerpt) Here is an amazement — once I was twenty years old and in every motion of my body there was a delicious ease, and in every motion of […]<\/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":[247,1393,250,5,36,251,3477,4159],"tags":[595,1141,3903,4232,4233],"class_list":{"0":"post-17564","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-fantasy-06_writing","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-mary-oliver","15":"tag-billy-collins","16":"tag-patrick-dubost","17":"tag-louis-simpson","18":"tag-victor-hugo","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4zi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564","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=17564"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17580,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564\/revisions\/17580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}