{"id":19935,"date":"2018-01-05T10:45:04","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=19935"},"modified":"2018-01-05T10:45:04","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:45:04","slug":"beginnings-endings-all-the-stuff-in-between","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/beginnings-endings-all-the-stuff-in-between\/","title":{"rendered":"Beginnings, Endings, All the Stuff in Between"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: Stock photo from Pixabay\/pexels.com<\/a>, used here under a Creative Commons license. (Thanks!)]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

A very sweet light is spreading over the Earth like a perfume. The moon is slowly dissolving and a boy-sun languidly stretches his translucent arms… Cool murmurings of pure waters that surrender themselves to the hillsides. A pair of wings dances in the rosy atmosphere. Silence, my friends. The day is about to begin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Broom<\/strong><\/p>\n

To remember you’re alive
\nvisit the cemetery of your father
\nat noon after you’ve made love
\nand are still wrapped in a mammalian
\nodor that you are forced to cherish.
\nUnder each stone is someone’s inevitable
\nsurprise, the unexpected death
\nof their biology that struggled hard, as it must.
\nNow to home without looking back,
\nenough is enough.
\nEn route buy the best wine
\nyou can afford and a dozen stiff brooms.
\nHave a few swallows then throw the furniture
\nout the window and begin sweeping.
\nSweep until the walls are
\nbare of paint and at your feet sweep
\nuntil the floor disappears. Finish the wine
\nin this field of air, return to the cemetery
\nin evening and wind through the stones
\na slow dance of your name visible only to birds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and<\/a> (italicized stanzas):<\/p>\n

Year’s End<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now winter downs the dying of the year,<\/em>
\n And night is all a settlement of snow;<\/em>
\n From the soft street the rooms of houses show<\/em>
\n A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,<\/em>
\n Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin<\/em>
\n And still allows some stirring down within.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake
\nThe late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
\nAnd held in ice as dancers in a spell
\nFluttered all winter long into a lake;
\nGraved on the dark in gestures of descent,
\nThey seemed their own most perfect monument.<\/p>\n

There was perfection in the death of ferns
\nWhich laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
\nA million years. Great mammoths overthrown
\nComposedly have made their long sojourns,
\nLike palaces of patience, in the gray
\nAnd changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii<\/p>\n

The little dog lay curled and did not rise
\nBut slept the deeper as the ashes rose
\nAnd found the people incomplete, and froze
\nThe random hands, the loose unready eyes
\nOf men expecting yet another sun
\nTo do the shapely thing they had not done.<\/p>\n

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.<\/em>
\n We fray into the future, rarely wrought<\/em>
\n Save in the tapestries of afterthought.<\/em>
\n More time, more time. Barrages of applause<\/em>
\n Come muffled from a buried radio.<\/em>
\n The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

<\/p>\n

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

\u201cHow many beginnings can a story have, Daddy?”<\/p>\n

The man chuckles. It is a nice chuckle, tobacco-velvet, a chuckle that says: Oh, the questions my kid asks!<\/em><\/p>\n

“As many as you can eat, my lamb. But only one ending. Or maybe it’s the other way around: one beginning and a whole Easter basket of endings.”<\/p>\n

“Papa, don’t be silly,” the child admonishes in a voice accustomed to getting its own way. “A story has to start somewhere. And then it has to end somewhere. That’s the whole point. That’s how it is in real life.”<\/p>\n

The man laughs again. You like his laugh. I like his laugh. We cannot help but feel well disposed toward a man with a laugh like that, even though it is not really his, but a laugh he learned at university, copied meticulously from his favourite screenwriting professor as you and I might copy from our neighbour during an exam.<\/p>\n

“But that’s not how it is in real life, Rinny. Real life is all beginnings. Days, weeks, children, journeys, marriages, inventions. Even a murder is the beginning of a criminal. Perhaps even a spree. Everything is prologue. Every story has a stutter. It just keeps starting and starting until you decide to shut the camera off. Half the time you don’t even realise that what you’re choosing for breakfast is the beginning of a story that won’t pan out till you’re sixty and staring at the pastry that made you a widower. No, love, in real life you can get all the way to death and never have finished one single story. Or never even get one so much as half-begun.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Catherynne M. Valente [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

If See No End In Is<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

What none knows is when, not if.
\nNow that your life nears its end
\nwhen you turn back what you see
\nis ruin. You think, It is a prison. No,
\nit is a vast resonating chamber in
\nwhich each thing you say or do is<\/p>\n

new, but the same. What none knows is<\/em>
\n how to change.<\/em> Each plateau you reach, if
\nsingle, limited, only itself, in-
\ncludes traces of all the others, so that in the end
\nlimitation frees you, there is no
\nend, if you once see what is there to see.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Something in you believes that it is not the end.
\nWhen you wake, sixth grade will start. The finite you know
\nyou fear is infinite: even at eleven, what you love is
\nwhat you should not love, which endless bullies in-
\ntuit unerringly. The future will be different: you cannot see
\nthe end. What none knows is when, not if.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

[Image: Stock photo from Pixabay\/pexels.com, used here under a Creative Commons license. (Thanks!)] From whiskey river: A very sweet light is spreading over the Earth like a perfume. The moon is slowly dissolving and a boy-sun languidly stretches his translucent arms… Cool murmurings of pure waters that surrender themselves to the hillsides. A pair of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19943,"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":"Richard Wilbur, Catherynne M. Valente, et al: 'Beginnings, Endings, All the Stuff in Between'","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":[38,247,1393,250,5,105,251,372,3460],"tags":[308,2847,4167,4306,4667,4668,4669,4670],"class_list":{"0":"post-19935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-backwards","8":"category-ruminations","9":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","10":"category-art","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-short-fiction","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-style-and-craft","15":"category-science-fiction-06_writing","16":"tag-endings","17":"tag-richard-wilbur","18":"tag-clarice-lispector","19":"tag-jim-harrison","20":"tag-frank-bidart","21":"tag-catherynne-m-valente","22":"tag-beginnings","23":"tag-all-the-stuff-between-the-beginning-and-the-end","24":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/grapevinetendrilclimbingplantgreen-39868_pexels_thumb.jpeg?fit=600%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5bx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19935","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=19935"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19946,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19935\/revisions\/19946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}