{"id":19993,"date":"2018-01-26T11:55:48","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T16:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=19993"},"modified":"2018-01-26T11:55:48","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T16:55:48","slug":"water-and-sustenance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/water-and-sustenance\/","title":{"rendered":"Water and Sustenance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “Living Close to the Water,” by Andrew Smith. (Original on Flickr<\/a>; used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!)]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Despite everything, we are good people, who can hardly live in this world that continues almost entirely at our expense.<\/p>\n

The best thing is to keep on moving arms and legs, and watch the waves, almost as though moving forward.<\/p>\n

In this way, despair turns quickly over to happiness, and back to despair again.<\/p>\n

And, if you reach the beach, walk back across it like everything is fine, toward your family who would not like to see the abyss you have just swum over.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The next morning I shall get up at dawn. I shall let myself out by the kitchen door. I shall walk on the moor. I shall see the swallow skim the grass. I shall throw myself on a bank by the river and watch the fish slip in and out among the reeds. The palms of my hands will be printed with pine-needles. I shall there unfold and take out whatever it is I have made here; something hard. For something has grown in me here, through the winters and summers, on staircases, in bedrooms… Then my freedom will unfurl, and all these restrictions that wrinkle and shrivel — hours and order and discipline, and being here and there exactly at the right moment — will crack asunder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

At Least<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want to get up early one more morning,
\nbefore sunrise. Before the birds, even.
\nI want to throw cold water on my face
\nand be at my work table
\nwhen the sky lightens and smoke
\nbegins to rise from the chimneys
\nof the other houses.
\nI want to see the waves break
\non this rocky beach, not just hear them
\nbreak as I did all night in my sleep.
\nI want to see again the ships
\nthat pass through the Strait from every
\nseafaring country in the world—
\nold, dirty freighters just barely moving along,
\nand the swift new cargo vessels
\npainted every colour under the sun
\nthat cut the water as they pass
\nI want to keep an eye out for them.
\nAnd for the little boat that plies
\nthe water between the ships
\nand the pilot station near the lighthouse.
\nI want to see them take a man off the ship
\nand put another up on board.
\nI want to spend the day watching this happen
\nand reach my own conclusions.
\nI hate to seem greedy—I have so much
\nto be thankful for already.
\nBut I want to get up early one more morning, at least.
\nAnd go to my place with some coffee and wait.
\nJust wait, to see what’s going to happen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

<\/p>\n

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

The Pull of Love<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

One cold day a bearskin was floating down the river.
\nI said to a man who had no clothes,
\n“Jump in and pull it out.”<\/p>\n

But the bearskin was a live bear,
\nand the man who jumped in so eagerly
\nwas caught in the clutches of what he went to grab.<\/p>\n

“Let go of it,” I said, “Fighting won\u2019t get you anywhere.”<\/p>\n

“Let go of it? This coat won\u2019t let go of me!”<\/p>\n

Silence. Just a hint. Who needs volumes of stories?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

The Shore<\/strong><\/p>\n

So the tide forgets, as morning
\nGrows too far delivered, as the bowls
\nOf rock and wood run dry.
\nWhat is left seems pearled and lit,
\nAs those cases
\nOf the museum stood lit
\nWith milk jade, rows of opaque vases
\nStreaked with orange and yellow smoke.
\nYou found a lavender boat, a single
\nFigure poling upstream, baskets
\nOf pale fish wedged between his legs.
\nToday, the debris of winter
\nStands stacked against the walls,
\nThe coils of kelp lie scattered
\nAcross the floor. The oil fire
\nSmokes. You turn down the lantern
\nHung on its nail. Outside,
\nThe boats aligned like sentinels.
\nHere beside the blue depot, walking
\nThe pier, you can see the way
\nThe shore
\nApproximates the dream, how distances
\nRepeat their deaths
\nAbove these tables and panes of water—
\nAs climbing the hills above
\nThe harbor, up to the lupine drifting
\nAmong the lichen-masked pines,
\nThe night is pocked with lamps lit
\nOn every boat offshore,
\nGalleries of floating stars. Below,
\nOn its narrow tracks shelved
\nInto the cliff\u2019s face,
\nThe train begins its slide down
\nTo the warehouses by the harbor. Loaded
\nWith diesel, coal, paychecks, whiskey,
\nBedsheets, slabs of ice—for the fish,
\nFor the men. You lean on my arm,
\nAs once
\nI watched you lean at the window;
\nThe bookstalls below stretched a mile
\nTo the quay, the afternoon crowd
\nPicking over the novels and histories.
\nYou walked out as you walked out last
\nNight, onto the stone porch. Dusk
\nReddened the walls, the winds sliced
\nOff the reefs. The vines of the gourds
\nShook on their lattice. You talked
\nAbout that night you stood
\nBehind the black pane of the French
\nWindow, watching my father read some long
\nPassage
\nOf a famous voyager\u2019s book. You hated
\nThat voice filling the room,
\nIts light. So tonight we make a soft
\nParenthesis upon the sand\u2019s black bed.
\nIn that dream we share, there is
\nOne shore, where we look out upon nothing
\nAnd the sea our whole lives;
\nUntil turning from those waves, we find
\nOne shore, where we look out upon nothing
\nAnd the earth our whole lives.
\nWhere what is left between shore and sky
\nIs traced in the vague wake of
\n(The stars, the sandpipers whistling)
\nWhat we forgive. If you wake soon, wake me.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(David St. John [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Like the sea, we are always in motion. The waves loom in our dreams and in our nightmares through all of time, their rhythms pulsing through us. They move across a faint horizon, the rush of love and the surge of grief, the respite of peace and then fear again, the heart that beats and then lies still, the rise and fall and rise and fall of all of it, the incoming and the outgoing, the infinite procession of life. And the ocean wraps the earth, a reminder. The mysteries come forward in waves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

[Image: “Living Close to the Water,” by Andrew Smith. (Original on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!)] From whiskey river: Despite everything, we are good people, who can hardly live in this world that continues almost entirely at our expense. The best thing is to keep on moving arms and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20001,"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":"Virginia Woolf, Raymond Carver, Rumi, et al. 'Water and Sustenance'","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":[247,1393,250,5,251,3477,4159],"tags":[2312,3367,3483,4677,4678,4679],"class_list":{"0":"post-19993","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-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-fantasy-06_writing","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-raymond-carver","15":"tag-rumi","16":"tag-virginia-woolf","17":"tag-david-st-john","18":"tag-susan-casey","19":"tag-joanna-walsh","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/livingclosetothewater_andrewsmith_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C419&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5ct","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19993","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=19993"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20002,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19993\/revisions\/20002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}