{"id":20174,"date":"2018-04-13T10:39:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T14:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20174"},"modified":"2018-04-13T10:39:05","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T14:39:05","slug":"of-crabapples-clarets-and-clarinets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/of-crabapples-clarets-and-clarinets\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Crabapples, Clarets, and Clarinets"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “Masks,” by Gus Mayer. (Found on Flickr<\/a>; used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!) The photographer’s caption\/description didn’t mean anything to me, and may not mean much of anything to anyone except the person in whose honor he posted the photo. But I liked the photo in its own right, especially for an accompaniment to this week’s selections.<\/em>]\n

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

Instructions on Not Giving Up<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
\nof the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
\nalmost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
\ntheir cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
\nsky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
\nthat really gets to me. When all the shock of white
\nand taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
\nthe pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
\nthe leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
\ngrowing over whatever winter did to us, a return
\nto the strange idea of continuous living despite
\nthe mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
\nI’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
\nunfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ada Lim\u00f3n [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A poet once said, “The whole universe is in a glass of wine.” We will probably never know in what sense he meant it, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflection in the glass, and our imagination adds atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth’s rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe’s age, and the evolution of stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization; all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts—physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on—remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Trees<\/strong><\/p>\n

They stand in parks and graveyards and gardens.
\nSome of them are taller than department stores,
\nyet they do not draw attention to themselves.<\/p>\n

You will be fitting a heated towel rail one day
\nand see, through the louvre window,
\na shoal of olive-green fish changing direction
\nin the air that swims above the little gardens.<\/p>\n

Or you will wake at your aunt’s cottage,
\nyour sleep broken by a coal train on the empty hill
\nas the oaks roar in the wind off the channel.<\/p>\n

Your kindness to animals, your skill at the clarinet,
\nthese are accidental things.<\/p>\n

We lost this game a long way back.
\nLook at you. You’re reading poetry.
\nOutside the spring air is thick
\nwith the seeds of their children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

<\/p>\n

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

Auguries of Innocence<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

Every morn and every night
\nSome are born to sweet delight.<\/p>\n

Some are born to sweet delight,
\nSome are born to endless night.<\/p>\n

We are led to believe a lie
\nWhen we see not thro’ the eye,
\nWhich was born in a night to perish in a night,
\nWhen the soul slept in beams of light.<\/p>\n

God appears, and God is light,
\nTo those poor souls who dwell in night;
\nBut does a human form display
\nTo those who dwell in realms of day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

Community is created when people seek the same spiritual reality. The key to community is the discovery that we are all looking for, but we find what we are looking for only by being looked for<\/em>. Our fellow seekers comprise what Ignatius of Antioch first termed “the company of the saints.” In such company, one is likely to find friends who are also guides; wise women and men who listen well, who offer advice and support, who help us clarify our questions, to recognize our options and to make our choices, and who seek and find in us the same realities<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Tiger Mask Ritual<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you put on the mask the thunder starts.
\nThrough the nostril’s orange you can smell
\nthe far hope of rain. Up in the Nilgiris<\/span>,
\nglisten of eucalyptus, drip of pine, spiders tumbling
\nfrom their silver webs.<\/p>\n

The mask is raw and red as bark against your facebones.
\nYou finger the stripes ridged like weals
\nout of your childhood. A wind is rising
\nin the north, a scarlet light
\nlike a fire in the sky.<\/p>\n

When you look through the eyeholes it is like falling.
\nNight gauzes you in black. You are blind
\nas in the beginning of the world. Sniff. Seek the moon.
\nAfter a while you will know
\nthat creased musky smell is rising
\nfrom your skin.<\/p>\n

Once you locate the ears the drums begin.
\nYour fur stiffens. A roar from the distant left,
\nlike monsoon water. You swivel your sightless head.
\nUnder your sheathed paw
\nthe ground shifts wet.<\/p>\n

What is that small wild sound
\nsheltering in your skull<\/p>\n

against the circle that always closes in
\njust before dawn?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

[Image: “Masks,” by Gus Mayer. (Found on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!) The photographer’s caption\/description didn’t mean anything to me, and may not mean much of anything to anyone except the person in whose honor he posted the photo. But I liked the photo in its own right, especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20184,"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":"","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":[247,1393,250,5,36,251,4159],"tags":[623,661,1123,4440,4714,4715,4716,4717,4718],"class_list":{"0":"post-20174","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-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-william-blake","15":"tag-masks","16":"tag-richard-feynman","17":"tag-ada-limon","18":"tag-mark-haddon","19":"tag-chitra-banerjee-divakaruni","20":"tag-ernest-kurtz","21":"tag-katherine-ketcham","22":"tag-superficial-vs-deep","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/masks_gusmayer_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C442&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5fo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20174","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=20174"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20183,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20174\/revisions\/20183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}