{"id":18942,"date":"2017-02-17T09:42:24","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T14:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=18942"},"modified":"2017-02-17T09:42:24","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T14:42:24","slug":"spirit-within-reach-overlooked-unrecognized-disregarded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/spirit-within-reach-overlooked-unrecognized-disregarded\/","title":{"rendered":"Spirit Within Reach — Overlooked, Unrecognized, Disregarded"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'Dryad's<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “Dryad’s Saddle – Untouched Macro,” by “LadyDragonflyCC.” (Found on Flickr<\/a>, and used here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!) Dryad’s saddle<\/a> is a mushroom, scientific name <\/em>Cerioporus squamosus; the photographer’s note on this photo says: “The mushroom’s shape and lateral stem make it look suitable for woodland spirits, the dryads of Greek mythology, to ride. I’ve found plenty of dryad’s saddle in the woods, but I’m still looking for the nymph!”]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

You never hear people put it this way, and I don’t intend to start a trend, but when we consider the ever-evolving process of a person’s thinking, the way a person imagines and organizes the world, it could almost seem appropriate to ask each other from time to time, How’s your religion coming along? How’s it going? Born again, or the same old, same old? Did you successfully distinguish darkness from light in the course of your day? Is there a fever in your mind that won’t go away? Mind if I prescribe a poem?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(David Dark [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I Have News for You<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are people who do not see a broken playground swing
\nas a symbol of ruined childhood<\/p>\n

and there are people who don’t interpret the behavior
\nof a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.<\/p>\n

There are people who don’t walk past an empty swimming pool
\nand think about past pleasures unrecoverable<\/p>\n

and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians.
\nI have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings<\/p>\n

do not send their sinuous feeder roots
\ndeep into the potting soil of others’ emotional lives<\/p>\n

as if they were greedy six-year-olds
\nsucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;<\/p>\n

and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without
\ndebating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.<\/p>\n

Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon?
\nThere are some people, unlike me and you,<\/p>\n

who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as
\nunattainable as that moon;<\/span>
\nthus, they do not later
\nhave to waste more time<\/span>
\ndefaming the object of their former ardor.<\/p>\n

Or consequently run and crucify themselves
\nin some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.<\/p>\n

I have news for you—
\nthere are people who get up in the morning and cross a room<\/p>\n

and open a window to let the sweet breeze in
\nand let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Tony Hoagland [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

A Well Runs Out of Thirst<\/strong><\/p>\n

A well runs out of thirst
\nthe way time runs out of a week,
\nthe way a country runs out of its alphabet
\nor a tree runs out of its height.
\nThe way a brown pelican
\nruns out of anchovy-glitter at darkfall.<\/p>\n

A strange collusion,
\nthe way a year runs out of its days
\nbut turns into another,
\nthe way a cotton towel’s compact
\nwith pot and plate seems to run out of dryness
\nbut in a few minutes finds more.<\/p>\n

A person comes into the kitchen
\nto dry the hands, the face,
\nto stand on the lip of a question.<\/p>\n

Around the face, the hands,
\nbehind the shoulders,
\nyeasts, mountains, mosses multiply answers.<\/p>\n

There are questions that never run out of questions,
\nanswers that don’t exhaust answer.<\/p>\n

Take this question the person stands asking:
\na gate rusting open.
\nYes<\/em> stands on its left, no<\/em> on its right,
\ntwo big planets of unpainted silence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jane Hirshfield [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

“In Kyoto…”<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Kyoto,
\nhearing the cuckoo,
\nI long for Kyoto.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

Inky Flourish
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than one hundred years after his death, it was found that a manuscript by Charles Baudelaire, upon close inspection, bore not just an inky flourish between poems, the way today’s poet might type an asterisk between paragraphs, but that each inky flourish was in fact a floating swan, an aquanaut of gracefully curving neck and carefully upturned tail feathers. And it was following this discovery that a later manuscript was examined, and upon closer inspection was clearly seen to contain not just an inky flourish between poems, but floating cellphones, the Starship Enterprise, and American hot dogs in white buns with a caterpillar of yellow mustard slinking lengthwise along the dog. But none of these things had yet been invented!<\/em> was the cry of the critic. Ah, Charles Baudelaire, the visionary visionary, who once said<\/a> Paris may change; my melancholy is fast<\/em>, you have crawled from the depth of antiquity, by means of your own inky flourish, straight into the heart of our present day turmoil. What say you now, Charlie?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

In the Winter of My Thirty-Eighth Year<\/strong><\/p>\n

It sounds unconvincing to say When I was young<\/em>
\nThough I have long wondered what it would be like
\nTo be me now
\nNo older at all it seems from here
\nAs far from myself as ever<\/p>\n

Walking in fog and rain and seeing nothing
\nI imagine all the clocks have died in the night
\nNow no one is looking I could choose my age
\nIt would be younger I suppose so I am older
\nIt is there at hand I could take it
\nExcept for the things I think I would do differently
\nThey keep coming between they are what I am
\nThey have taught me little I did not know when I was young<\/p>\n

There is nothing wrong with my age now probably
\nIt is how I have come to it
\nLike a thing I kept putting off as I did my youth<\/p>\n

There is nothing the matter with speech
\nJust because it lent itself
\nTo my uses<\/p>\n

Of course there is nothing the matter with the stars
\nIt is my emptiness among them
\nWhile they drift farther away in the invisible morning<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(W. S. Merwin [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Dryad’s Saddle – Untouched Macro,” by “LadyDragonflyCC.” (Found on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!) Dryad’s saddle is a mushroom, scientific name Cerioporus squamosus; the photographer’s note on this photo says: “The mushroom’s shape and lateral stem make it look suitable for woodland spirits, the dryads of Greek mythology, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18952,"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":"Tony Hoagland, Jane Hirshfield, et al.: 'Spirit Within Reach -- Overlooked, Unrecognized, Disregarded'","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":[247,1393,405,250,5,50,251,4159],"tags":[270,351,793,2599,2728,3075,4493,4494,4495],"class_list":{"0":"post-18942","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-nature","10":"category-art","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-language-writing_cat","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-jane-hirshfield","16":"tag-ws-merwin","17":"tag-attention","18":"tag-basho","19":"tag-tony-hoagland","20":"tag-mary-ruefle","21":"tag-david-dark","22":"tag-inattention","23":"tag-missing-the-trees-for-the-forest","24":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/dryadssaddle_LadyDragonflyCC_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C453&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4Vw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18942","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=18942"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18954,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18942\/revisions\/18954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}