{"id":19581,"date":"2017-09-01T10:19:13","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T14:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=19581"},"modified":"2017-09-01T10:19:13","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T14:19:13","slug":"what-well-never-leave-behind-until-we-so-often-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/what-well-never-leave-behind-until-we-so-often-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What We&#8217;ll Never Leave Behind (Until We So Often <em>Do<\/em>)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J2WilM6ljUg?rel=0\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: &#8220;September When It Comes,&#8221; by Rosanne Cash; performance by Rosanne and Johnny Cash. (<a title=\"Lyrics: 'September When It Comes'\" onclick=\"javascript:wopenScroll('http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/lyrics\/septemberwhenitcomes_rosannecash.html', 'new', 500, 600); return false;\">Lyrics<\/a>)]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: 'Lines Lost Among Trees,' by Billy Collins\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2017\/08\/lines-lost-among-trees-these-are-not.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Lines Lost Among Trees<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These are not the lines that came to me<br \/>\nwhile walking in the woods<br \/>\nwith no pen<br \/>\nand nothing to write on anyway.<\/p>\n<p>They are gone forever,<br \/>\na handful of coins<br \/>\ndropped through the grate of memory,<br \/>\nalong with the ingenious mnemonic<\/p>\n<p>I devised to hold them in place&#8212;<br \/>\nall gone and forgotten<br \/>\nbefore I had returned to the clearing of lawn<br \/>\nin back of our quiet house<\/p>\n<p>with its jars jammed with pens,<br \/>\nits notebooks and reams of blank paper,<br \/>\nits desk and soft lamp,<br \/>\nits table and the light from its windows.<\/p>\n<p>So this is my elegy for them,<br \/>\nthose six or eight exhalations,<br \/>\nthe braided rope of syntax,<br \/>\nthe jazz of the timing,<\/p>\n<p>and the little insight at the end<br \/>\nwagging like the short tail<br \/>\nof a perfectly obedient spaniel<br \/>\nsitting by the door.<\/p>\n<p>This is my envoy to nothing<br \/>\nwhere I say Go, little poem&#8212;<br \/>\nnot out into the world of strangers&#8217; eyes,<br \/>\nbut off to some airy limbo,<\/p>\n<p>home to lost epics,<br \/>\nunremembered names,<br \/>\nand fugitive dreams<br \/>\nsuch as the one I had last night,<\/p>\n<p>which, like a fantastic city in pencil,<br \/>\nerased itself<br \/>\nin the bright morning air<br \/>\njust as I was waking up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Billy Collins [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The Best American Poetry 1997,' by James Tate (ed.)\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=GZXbajdFIcAC&amp;pg=PT71#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Wu Hsin, on the relationship between *thinking* and *thought*\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2017\/08\/a-common-misconception-is-belief-that.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A common misconception is<br \/>\nThe belief that thinking is<br \/>\nThe creation\u00a0of thought.<br \/>\nRather, it is<br \/>\nThe reception\u00a0of thought from<br \/>\nA source which has no name and<br \/>\nFrom a place that cannot be found.<br \/>\nSince one can&#8217;t decide to think<br \/>\nNor can one decide<br \/>\nThoughts&#8217; contents,<br \/>\nWhy does one<br \/>\nClaim their ownership?<br \/>\nIs every sound Wu Hsin&#8217;s because<br \/>\nHe can hear them?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Wu Hsin [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The Lost Writings of Wu Hsin: Pointers to Non Duality in Five Volumes,' by Roy Melvyn (ed.)\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=yBI3CgAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT26#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Ted Hughes, on awakened vs. sleeping minds\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2017\/08\/most-of-us-find-it-difficult-to-know.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Well, the terrible fact is that though we are all more or less thinking of something or other all the time, some of us are thinking more and some less. Some brains are battling and working and remembering and puzzling things over all the time and other brains are just lying down, snoring and occasionally turning over. It is to the lazy minds that I am now speaking, and from my own experience I imagine this includes nineteen people out of every twenty. I am one of that clan myself and always have been.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Ted Hughes [<a title=\"Goodreads: Ted Hughes, on awakened vs. sleeping minds\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/8031129-well-the-terrible-fact-is-that-though-we-are-all\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We are all egocentric, and what is realest to each of us, in the end, is ourself. The realest things of all are <em>my knee, my nose, my anger, my hunger, my toothache, my sideache, my sadness, my joy, my love for math, my abstraction ceiling<\/em>, and so forth. What all these things have in common, what binds them together, is the concept of &#8220;my&#8221;, which comes out of the concept of &#8220;I&#8221; or &#8220;me&#8221;, and therefore, although it is less concrete than a nose or even a toothache, this &#8220;I&#8221; thing is what ultimately seems to each of us to constitute the most solid rock of undeniability of all. Could it possibly be an illusion? Or if not a total illusion, could it possibly be less real and less solid than we think it is? Could an &#8220;I&#8221; be more like an elusive, receding, shimmering rainbow than like a tangible, heftable, transportable pot of gold?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Douglas Hofstadter [<a title=\"Google Books: 'I Am a Strange Loop,' by Douglas R. Hofstadter\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=bfIWBQAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA92#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To understand the Well you have to have an idea of the layout of the Great Library. The library is where all published fiction is stored so it can be read by the readers in the Outland; there are twenty-six floors, one for each letter of the alphabet. The library is constructed in the layout of a cross with the four corridors radiating from the center point. On all the walls, end after end, shelf after shelf, are books. Hundreds, thousands, millions of books. Hardbacks, paperbacks, leather-bound, everything. But the similarity of all these books to the copies we read back home is no more than the similarity of a photograph to its subject; these books are <em>alive<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Beneath The Great Library are twenty-six floors of dingy yet industrious sub-basements known as The Well of Lost Plots. This is where books are constructed, honed and polished in readiness for a place in the library above&#8212;if they make it that far. The failure rate is high. Unpublished books outnumber published by an estimate eight to one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Jasper Fforde [<a title=\"Google books: 'The Well of Lost Plots: A Thursday Next Novel,' by Jasper Fforde\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=XN_V-qyFibMC&amp;pg=PT16#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Dispatches from an Unfinished World<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A leaf the green that a child would choose<br \/>\nif asked<br \/>\nto draw a leaf.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>This heavy-petalled rose<br \/>\nis humid as the accent<br \/>\nof my current correspondent.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>Trees unberried by bird.<br \/>\nTrees unleafed by beetle.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>My correspondent<br \/>\nis a tentative man and I<br \/>\nam unaccustomed to tentative men.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>White rose blossom<br \/>\nbrowning at the edges.<br \/>\nPaperback book.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>Inside, my mother humming<br \/>\na song I&#8217;ve never heard.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>Kinds of holiness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>Trees unbarked by winter deer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>My correspondent<br \/>\nwill not let me love him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>Green things make<br \/>\nsuch mild noise.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>I uncross my legs<br \/>\nto find, with a bare foot,<br \/>\nthat sun has warmed the stone.<br \/>\nI partake of the sun.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">*<\/p>\n<p>And the stone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Rebecca Lindenberg [<a title=\"Poetry Foundation: 'Dispatches from an Unfinished World,' by Rebecca Lindenberg\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/55527\/dispatches-from-an-unfinished-world\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: &#8220;September When It Comes,&#8221; by Rosanne Cash; performance by Rosanne and Johnny Cash. (Lyrics)] From whiskey river: Lines Lost Among Trees These are not the lines that came to me while walking in the woods with no pen and nothing to write on anyway. They are gone forever, a handful of coins dropped through [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19595,"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":"Rosanne (and Johnny) Cash, Billy Collins, Rebecca Lindenbery, et al.: 'What We'll Never Leave Behind (Until We So Often Do)'","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":[247,1393,426,74,5,251,4159],"tags":[1141,1819,3256,3937,4022,4098,4587],"class_list":{"0":"post-19581","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-celebrities","10":"category-music","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-billy-collins","15":"tag-jasper-fforde","16":"tag-douglas-hofstadter","17":"tag-rebecca-lindenberg","18":"tag-ted-hughes","19":"tag-wu-hsin","20":"tag-rosanne-cash","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/rosannejohnnycash.png?fit=542%2C406&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-55P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19581","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=19581"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19597,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19581\/revisions\/19597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}