{"id":18357,"date":"2016-09-09T13:13:24","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T17:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=18357"},"modified":"2016-09-09T13:13:24","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T17:13:24","slug":"layers-of-often-of-seldom-of-never","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/layers-of-often-of-seldom-of-never\/","title":{"rendered":"Layers of Often<\/em>, of Seldom<\/em>, of Never<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'127\/365,'<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “127\/365,” by Tom Wachtel. (Found on Flickr<\/a>, used here under a Creative Commons license.) The caption provided by the photographer: “Yellow often shines in sparkling company. Red will almost never dance alone. Green is seldom seen behind the screen of might-have-been, pining softly for what words were meant to mean.” And yes: I found this image<\/em> after coming up with the post’s title.<\/em>]\n

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

Often times, a person will think they know you by piecing together tiny facts and arranging those pieces into a puzzle that makes sense to them. If we don’t know ourselves very well, we’ll mistakenly believe them, and drift toward where they tell us to swim, only to drown in our own confusion.<\/p>\n

Here’s the truth: it’s important to take the necessary steps to find out who you are. Because you hold endless depths below the surface of a few facts and pieces and past decisions. You aren’t only the ripples others can see. You are made of oceans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Victoria Erickson [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Often down here I have entered into a sanctuary; a nunnery; had a religious retreat; of great agony once; and always some terror; so afraid one is of loneliness; of seeing to the bottom of the vessel. That is one of the experiences I have had here in some Augusts; and got then to a consciousness of what I call “reality”: a thing I see before me: something abstract; but residing in the downs or sky; beside which nothing matters; in which I shall rest and continue to exist. Reality I call it. And I fancy sometimes this is the most necessary thing to me: that which I seek. But who knows—once one takes a pen and writes? How difficult not to go making “reality” this and that, whereas it is one thing. Now perhaps this is my gift: this perhaps is what distinguishes me from other people: I think it may be rare to have so acute a sense of something like that—but again, who knows? I would like to express it too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Virginia Woolf [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

All through our gliding journey, on this day as on so many others, a little song runs through my mind. I say a song because it passes musically, but it is really just words, a thought that is neither strange nor complex. In fact, how strange it would be not<\/em> to think it—not to have such music inside one’s head and body, on such an afternoon. What does it mean, say the words, that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it? What is the gift that I should bring to the world? What is the life that I should live?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

<\/p>\n

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

The Layers<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

In my darkest night,
\nwhen the moon was covered
\nand I roamed through wreckage,
\na nimbus-clouded voice
\ndirected me:
\n“Live in the layers,
\nnot on the litter.”
\nThough I lack the art
\nto decipher it,
\nno doubt the next chapter
\nin my book of transformations
\nis already written.
\nI am not done with my changes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Stanley Kunitz [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Time should seize, should haul us back, then let go, wind-sheared into now, breathlessly into the moment\u2019s hard strata. Each morning in Rome, my old friend runs in a park along the aqueduct, which breaks and restarts in yellowed fields, its arches sprouting wild grasses, its arches collapsing, the houses, apartments, roads of his neighborhood visible through it, as they have been for nearly 2,000 years. You can sit on rocks in Central Park, soft outcrops undulant as sleeping bodies, formed tens of thousands of years ago, and look up at the city skyline knowing the North American ice sheet flowed exactly that far south. Or hold in your hand a striated stone from Mauritania, abraded at the base of a glacier 650 million years ago, and touch the markings, those simple scratches so easily picked up and put down again on the touch-me table at the museum. Kick any stone beneath your foot, here, in Baltimore, and you\u2019re scuffing 300 million, even a billion years of work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

Off A Side Road Near Staunton<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some nothing afternoon, no one anywhere,
\nan early autumn stillness in the air,
\nthe kind of empty day you fill by taking in
\nthe full size of the valley and its layers leading
\nslowly to the Blue Ridge, the quality of country,
\nif you stand here long enough, you could stay
\nfor, step into, the way a landscape, even on a wall,
\npulls you in, one field at a time, pasture and fall
\nmeadow, high above the harvest, perfect
\nto the tree line, then spirit clouds and intermittent
\nsunlit smoky rain riding the tops of the mountains,
\nthough you could walk until it’s dark and not reach those rains—
\nyou could walk the rest of the day into the picture
\nand not know why, at any given moment, you’re there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Stanley Plumly [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

VII<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh you can make fun of the splendors of moonlight,
\nBut what would the human heart be if it wanted
\nOnly the dark, wanted nothing on earth<\/p>\n

But the sea’s ink or the rock’s black shade?
\nOn a summer night to launch yourself into the silver
\nEmptiness of air and look over the pale fields<\/p>\n

At rest under the sullen stare of the moon,
\nAnd to linger in the depths of your vision and wonder
\nHow in this whiteness what you love is past<\/p>\n

Grief, and how in the long valley of your looking
\nHope grows, and there, under the distant,
\nBarely perceptible fire of all the stars,<\/p>\n

To feel yourself wake into change, as if your change
\nWere immense and figured into the heavens’ longing.
\nAnd yet all you want is to rise out of the shade<\/p>\n

Of yourself into the cooling blaze of a summer night
\nWhen the moon shines and the earth itself
\nIs covered and silent in the stoniness of its sleep.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mark Strand [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

____________________<\/p>\n

Footnote:<\/strong> This post is itself something of a rarity — coming, as it does, after a Friday of no<\/em> post at all. A little thing called Hermine intervened… I did sorta-kinda make up for the silence with my movie review<\/a> on Sunday, but it’s just not the same thing<\/em>. Or so I tell myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “127\/365,” by Tom Wachtel. (Found on Flickr, used here under a Creative Commons license.) The caption provided by the photographer: “Yellow often shines in sparkling company. Red will almost never dance alone. Green is seldom seen behind the screen of might-have-been, pining softly for what words were meant to mean.” And yes: I found […]<\/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":"Mark Strand, Virginia Woolf, et al., on the things behind and beneath other things: 'Layers of Often, of Seldom, of Never'","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":[595,684,3250,3483,3910,4386,4393,4394,4395],"class_list":{"0":"post-18357","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-mary-oliver","15":"tag-mark-strand","16":"tag-lia-purpura","17":"tag-virginia-woolf","18":"tag-stanley-plumly","19":"tag-victoria-erickson","20":"tag-stanley-kunitz","21":"tag-colors","22":"tag-layers","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4M5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357","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=18357"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18381,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357\/revisions\/18381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}