{"id":18517,"date":"2016-11-04T09:38:51","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T13:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=18517"},"modified":"2016-11-04T09:39:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T13:39:23","slug":"season-of-marvels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/season-of-marvels\/","title":{"rendered":"Season of Marvels"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “Le Petit Prince,” by user Xava du on Flickr<\/a>. (Used here under a Creative Commons license.) The Spanish caption provided by the photographer: <\/em>Cuando el misterio es demasiado impresionante, es imposible desobedecer; the English translation of this passage (originally in French) from Saint-Exupery’s <\/em>The Little Prince is usually rendered as <\/em>When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

All Hallows’ Eve<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the great silence of my favorite month,
\nOctober (the red of maples, the bronze of oaks,
\nA clear-yellow leaf here and there on birches),
\nI celebrated the standstill of time.<\/p>\n

The vast country of the dead had its beginning everywhere:
\nAt the turn of a tree-lined alley, across park lawns.
\nBut I did not have to enter, I was not called yet.<\/p>\n

Motorboats pulled up on the river bank, paths in pine needles.
\nIt was getting dark early, no lights on the other side.<\/p>\n

I was going to attend the ball of ghosts and witches.
\nA delegation would appear there in masks and wigs,
\nAnd dance, unrecognized, in the chorus of the living.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Czesaw Milosz [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Rain<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the falling rain
\ntrickles among the stones
\nmemories come bubbling out.
\nIt’s as if the rain
\nhad pierced my temples.
\nStreaming
\nstreaming chaotically
\ncome memories:
\nthe reedy voice
\nof the servant
\ntelling me tales
\nof ghosts.
\nThey sat beside me
\nthe ghosts
\nand the bed creaked
\nthat purple-dark afternoon
\nwhen I learned you were leaving forever,
\na gleaming pebble
\nfrom constant rubbing
\nbecomes a comet.
\nRain is falling
\nfalling
\nand memories keep flooding by
\nthey show me a senseless
\nworld
\na voracious
\nworld—abyss
\nambush
\nwhirlwind
\nspur
\nbut I keep loving it
\nbecause I do
\nbecause of my five senses
\nbecause of my amazement
\nbecause every morning,
\nbecause forever, I have loved it
\nwithout knowing why.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Claribel Alegr\u00eda, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Cape Cod Pantoum <\/strong>[*<\/a>]
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tonight you’re loaning Billy your car, a brand-new
\nseal-gray Volkswagen Passat with four doors,
\nthough last week at 3 A.M., he stole your canoe,
\nand sank it in the autumn sea, then swam ashore.<\/p>\n

Tonight you’re lending Billy your car — it’s brand-new —
\nand he’s a well-meaning, blue-eyed Byronic drinking man
\nwho last week, at 3 A.M., stole your beached canoe,
\nand when it sank he blamed it on a dolphin.<\/p>\n

A well-meaning, blue-eyed, Byronic, hard-drinking man
\nwhose phone calls you take, no matter the hour,
\nwho sank your canoe and blamed it on a dolphin,
\nand the young man with him, whom the sea sadly devoured,<\/p>\n

so you’ll always take Billy’s call, no matter the hour.
\nBecause, you sigh, his mother’s dying, too, and he’s drinking again.
\nHe’s no longer a young man (he’s sad and he’s drowning),
\nand neither are you, and all friends sometimes sin.<\/p>\n

Besides, you sigh, his mother’s dying, too, that’s why he’s drinking.
\nShe wasn’t a beauty — she came on to you long ago.
\nAnd he’s not a young man; he’s drunk and he’s drowning.
\nSo you press the phone to your cheek, stare out the dark window.<\/p>\n

Who hasn’t come on to you? (Who wasn’t lovely long ago?)
\n(Even Billy did; his tragic need, his blank blue eyes.)
\nYou press the phone to cheek, stare out the dark window,
\nand listen to him make a mess of our peaceful lives.<\/p>\n

Now back in bed, we return to our disrupted romance.
\nAlthough last week, at 3 A.M., he stole your canoe,
\nyou set a sinking man adrift in the sea of second chance:
\ntonight you’ve loaned Billy your car again, brand-new.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Maria Nazos [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

I should think we might fairly gauge the future of biological science, centuries ahead, by estimating the time it will take to reach a complete, comprehensive understanding of odor. It may not seem a profound enough problem to dominate all the life sciences, but it contains, piece by piece, all the mysteries. Smoke: tobacco burning, coal smoke, wood-fire smoke, leaf smoke. Most of all, leaf smoke. This is the only odor I can will back to consciousness just by thinking about it. I can sit in a chair, thinking, and call up clearly to mind the smell of burning autumn leaves, coded and stored away somewhere in a temporal lobe, firing off explosive signals into every part of my right hemisphere. But nothing else: if I try to recall the thick smell of Edinburgh in winter, or the accidental burning of a plastic comb, or a rose, or a glass of wine, I cannot do this; I can get a clear picture of any face I feel like remembering, and I can hear whatever Beethoven quartet I want to recall, but except for the leaf bonfire I cannot really remember a smell in its absence. To be sure, I know the odor of cinnamon or juniper and can name such things with accuracy when they turn up in front of my nose, but I cannot imagine them into existence.<\/p>\n

…we should be hanging on to some of the few great smells left to us, and I would vote for the preservation of leaf bonfires, by law if necessary. This one is pure pleasure, fetched like music intact out of numberless modular columns of neurones filled chockablock with all the natural details of childhood, firing off memories in every corner of the brain. An autumn curbside bonfire has everything needed for education: danger, surprise (you know in advance that if you poke the right part of the base of leaves with the right kind of stick, a blinding flare of heat and fragrance will follow instantly, but it is still an astonishment when it happens), risk, and victory over odds (if you jump across at precisely the right moment the flare and sparks will miss your pants), and above all the aroma of comradeship (if you smell that odor in the distance you know that there are friends somewhere in the next block, jumping and exulting in their leaves, maybe catching fire).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lewis Thomas [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/a>____________________________<\/p>\n

* See this page<\/a> at the Academy of American Poets site for information about the poetic form known as the pantoum<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[back to top<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Le Petit Prince,” by user Xava du on Flickr. (Used here under a Creative Commons license.) The Spanish caption provided by the photographer: Cuando el misterio es demasiado impresionante, es imposible desobedecer; the English translation of this passage (originally in French) from Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince is usually rendered as When a mystery is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18524,"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":true,"_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":"Czeslaw Milosz, Lewis Thomas, et al.: 'Season of Marvels'","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":[1045,2023,4431,4432],"class_list":{"0":"post-18517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-reading","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-czeslaw-milosz","16":"tag-lewis-thomas","17":"tag-maria-nazos","18":"tag-claribel-alegria","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/lepetitprince_xavadu_sm.jpg?fit=1024%2C584&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4OF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18517","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=18517"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18525,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18517\/revisions\/18525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}