{"id":17848,"date":"2016-03-25T06:21:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T10:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=17848"},"modified":"2016-03-25T06:28:50","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T10:28:50","slug":"come-back-come-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/come-back-come-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Come Back, Come Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “coming back\/remembering,” by Jane Cornwell (on Flickr<\/a>). As indicated, the quotation comes from <\/em>Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind<\/a>, by Shunryu Suzuki.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

For a Friend Lying in Intensive Care Waiting for Her White Blood Cells to Rejuvenate After a Bone Marrow Transplant<\/strong><\/p>\n

The jonquils. They come back. They split the earth with
\ntheir green swords, bearing cups of light.<\/span>
\nThe forsythia comes back, spraying its thin whips with
\nblossom, one loud yellow shout.<\/span>
\nThe robins. They come back. They pull the sun on the
\nsilver thread of their song.<\/span>
\nThe irises come back. They dance in the soft air in silken
\ngowns of midnight blue.<\/span>
\nThe lilacs come back. They trail their perfume like a scarf
\nof violet chiffon.<\/span>
\nAnd the leaves come back, on every tree and bush, millions
\nand millions of small green hands applauding your return.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Barbara Crooker [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(John Cage [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/span><\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (in part; follow the link to read the rest):<\/p>\n

Stalking the Poem<\/strong><\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/p>\n

Only one word will do. It isn’t on the tip of your tongue, but you know it’s not far. It’s the one fish that won’t swim into your net, a figure that hides in a crowd of similar figures, a domino stone in the face-down pool. Your need to find it becomes an obsession, single-minded and relentless as lust. It’s a long time before you can free yourself, let it go. “Forget it,” you say, and think that you do. When the word is sure you have forgotten it, it comes out of hiding. But it isn’t taking any chances even now and has prepared its appearance with care. It surrounds itself with new and inconspicuous friends and faces you in a line up in which everyone looks equally innocent. Of course you know it instantly, the way Joan of Arc knew the Dauphin and Augustine knew God. You haven’t been so happy in weeks. You rush the word to your poem, which had died for lack of it, and it arises pink-cheeked as Lazarus. The two of you share the wine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lisel Mueller [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Dreamwood<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the old, scratched, cheap wood of the typing stand
\nthere is a landscape, veined, which only a child can see
\nor the child\u2019s older self, a poet,
\na woman dreaming when she should be typing
\nthe last report of the day. If this were a map,<\/span>
\nshe thinks, a map laid down to memorize
\nbecause she might be walking it, it shows
\nridge upon ridge fading into hazed desert
\nhere and there a sign of aquifers
\nand one possible watering-hole. If this were a map<\/span>
\nit would be the map of the last age of her life,
\nnot a map of choices but a map of variations
\non the one great choice. It would be the map by which
\nshe could see the end of touristic choices,
\nof distances blued and purpled by romance,
\nby which she would recognize that poetry
\nisn\u2019t revolution but a way of knowing
\nwhy it must come. If this cheap, massproduced<\/span>
\nwooden stand from the Brooklyn Union Gas Co.,
\nmassproduced yet durable, being here now,
\nis what it is yet a dream-map
\nso obdurate, so plain,
\nshe thinks, the material and the dream can join
\nand that is the poem and that is the late report.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Adrienne Rich [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Returning Native<\/strong><\/p>\n

What can you say about Pennsylvania
\nin regard to New England except that
\nit is slightly less cold, and less rocky,
\nor rather that the rocks are different?
\nRedder, and gritty, and piled up here and there,
\nwhether as glacial moraine or collapsed springhouse
\nis not easy to tell, so quickly
\nare human efforts bundled back into nature.<\/p>\n

In fall, the trees turn yellower—
\nhard maple, hickory, and oak
\ngive way to tulip poplar, black walnut,
\nand locust. The woods are overgrown
\nwith wild-grape vines, and with greenbrier
\nspreading its low net of anxious small claws.
\nIn warm November, the mulching forest floor
\nsmells like a rotting animal.<\/p>\n

A genial pulpiness, in short: the sky
\nis soft with haze and paper-gray
\neven as the sun shines, and the rain
\nfalls soft on the shoulders of farmers
\nwhile the children keep on playing,
\ntheir heads of hair beaded like spider webs.
\nA deep-dyed blur softens the bleak cities
\nwhose people palaver in prolonged vowels.<\/p>\n

There is a secret here, some death-defying joke
\nthe eyes, the knuckles, the bellies imply—
\na suet of consolation fetched straight
\nfrom the slaughterhouse and hung out
\nfor chickadees to peck in the lee of the spruce,
\nwhere the husks of sunflower seeds
\nand the peace-signs of bird feet crowd
\nthe snow that barely masks the still-green grass.<\/p>\n

I knew that secret once, and have forgotten.
\nThe death-defying secret—it rises
\ntoward me like a dog\u2019s gaze, loving
\nbut bewildered. When winter sits cold and black
\non Boston\u2019s granite hills, in Philly,
\nslumped between its two polluted rivers,
\nwarmth\u2019s shadow leans close to the wall
\nand gets the cement to deliver a kiss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(John Updike [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

My child comes close to touch the imperfections of my face. Touches the flaws because they beckon. The white bumps and red bumps. Small scars. Dark spots. Counter, original, spare, strange<\/em><\/span>. He touches because he can, because I allow it, though hiding back there (it’s bubbling up, he’s capping it, tapping it back down), is this: that thrill without a name. That weird package of love and revulsion, that “glad it’s not me” layered over with real tenderness. Some forward sway. Some retraction. And him teetering on the line between. When he does this, all the soft, pink, round things, all the brown, scarred, pitted things that held me as a kid come back. I remember my own secretive glances at the compromised, familiar faces I loved as a child. The tiny, stiff hairs that made nets to catch me. How even as I twisted free, I wanted to be caught.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

[Image: “coming back\/remembering,” by Jane Cornwell (on Flickr). As indicated, the quotation comes from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki.] From whiskey river: For a Friend Lying in Intensive Care Waiting for Her White Blood Cells to Rejuvenate After a Bone Marrow Transplant The jonquils. They come back. They split the earth with their […]<\/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":"John Cage, Adrienne Rich, et al., on returning: 'Come Back, Come Back'","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":[247,1393,250,5,50,36,251,4159],"tags":[1330,2314,3250,3311,3394,4264,4283,4284,4285],"class_list":{"0":"post-17848","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-language-writing_cat","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-john-updike","15":"tag-lisel-mueller","16":"tag-lia-purpura","17":"tag-john-cage","18":"tag-barbara-crooker","19":"tag-adrienne-rich","20":"tag-jane-cornwell","21":"tag-returning","22":"tag-echoes","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4DS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17848","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=17848"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17864,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17848\/revisions\/17864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}