{"id":20494,"date":"2018-08-03T09:53:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T13:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20494"},"modified":"2018-09-21T06:23:37","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T10:23:37","slug":"getting-there-being-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/getting-there-being-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting There, Being Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “New York Public Library #5,” by Tom Waterhouse. (Found it on Flickr<\/a>, and used here under a Creative Commons license; thank you!) Interestingly, this is the second image I’ve used here; the first one also accompanied a <\/a><\/em>whiskey river Fridays<\/a> post<\/a>, in May of 2017. I have no idea if I’ve used any other photographer’s work more than once — and no idea how to find out, if I have. The shortcomings of technology (especially in the hands of the lazy, ha)!]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Mostly the animals understand their roles, but man, by comparison, seems troubled by a message that, it is often said, he cannot quite remember, or has gotten wrong. Implied in this is our feeling that life demands an answer from us, that an essential part of man is his struggle to remember the meaning of the message with which he has been entrusted, that we are, in fact, message carriers. We are not what we seem. We have had a further instruction.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Nocturne II<\/strong><\/p>\n

August arrives in the dark<\/p>\n

we are not even asleep and it is here
\nwith a gust of rain rustling before it
\nhow can it be so late all at once
\nsomewhere the Perseids are falling
\ntoward us already at a speed that would
\nburn us alive if we could believe it
\nbut in the stillness after the rain ends
\nnothing is to be heard but the drops falling
\none at a time from the tips of the leaves
\ninto the night and I lie in the dark
\nlistening to what I remember
\nwhile the night flies on with us into itself<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(W. S. Merwin [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Nightingale in Badelunda<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the green midnight at the nightingale’s northern limit. Heavy leaves hang in trance, the deaf cars race towards the neon-line. The nightingale’s voice rises without wavering to the side, it is as penetrating as a cock-crow, but beautiful and free of vanity. I was in prison and it visited me. I was sick and it visited me. I didn’t notice it then, but I do now. Time streams down from the sun and the moon and into all the tick-tock-thankful clocks. But right here there is no time. Only the nightingale’s voice, the raw resonant notes that whet the night sky’s gleaming scythe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

August Morning<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s ripe, the melon
\nby our sink. Yellow,
\nbee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
\nthe house too sweetly.
\nAt five I wake, the air
\nmournful in its quiet.
\nMy wife’s eyes swim calmly
\nunder their lids, her mouth and jaw
\nrelaxed, different.
\nWhat is happening in the silence
\nof this house? Curtains
\nhang heavily from their rods.
\nFicus leaves tremble
\nat my footsteps. Yet
\nthe colors outside are perfect—
\norange geranium, blue lobelia.
\nI wander from room to room
\nlike a man in a museum:
\nwife, children, books, flowers,
\nmelon. Such still air. Soon
\nthe mid-morning breeze will float in
\nlike tepid water, then hot.
\nHow do I start this day,
\nI who am unsure
\nof how my life has happened
\nor how to proceed
\namid this warm and steady sweetness?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

The Dogs at Live Oak Beach, Santa Cruz<\/strong><\/p>\n

As if there could be a world
\nOf absolute innocence
\nIn which we forget ourselves<\/p>\n

The owners throw sticks
\nAnd half-bald tennis balls
\nToward the surf
\nAnd the happy dogs leap after them
\nAs if catapulted—<\/p>\n

Black dogs, tan dogs,
\nTubes of glorious muscle—<\/p>\n

Pursuing pleasure
\nMore than obedience
\nThey race, skid to a halt in the wet sand,
\nSometimes they’ll plunge straight into
\nThe foaming breakers<\/p>\n

Like diving birds, letting the green turbulence
\nToss them, until they snap and sink<\/p>\n

Teeth into floating wood
\nThen bound back to their owners
\nShining wet, with passionate speed
\nFor nothing,
\nFor absolutely nothing but joy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

If I were prone to conspiracy theories, I would espouse one in which the shortening of the average attention span has been a conspiracy to weaken our ability to follow a long-term news story, to commit to a long-term goal, to even perceive the expansive but hardly geologic scale on which social and political change unfold. The people I meet who believe in an unchanging status quo have chopped their own trajectory into incoherence, since anyone over thirty has lived through astounding changes produced through activism.<\/p>\n

In my elementary school we used to watch nature movies in which the growth of a plant, the blooming of a flower, was sped up to transpire in less than a minute. They were helpful for understanding botanical life, but they turned flora into fauna, landscape into action movie, feeding our impatience. What we really needed was training in seeing how suburbia was spreading, one development at a time, how non-native species were proliferating, how wildlife species in our coastal region — pelicans, peregrines, coyotes, abalones — were coming back. What we really needed was practice in paying attention over long periods of time. That’s what would have given us the power to see that we can prevail, and that, thanks to the more stubborn and patient among us, we have, from time to time, and we will.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

[Image: “New York Public Library #5,” by Tom Waterhouse. (Found it on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license; thank you!) Interestingly, this is the second image I’ve used here; the first one also accompanied a whiskey river Fridays post, in May of 2017. I have no idea if I’ve used any other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":"Loren Eiseley, W.S. Merwin, Rebecca Solnit, et al.: 'Getting There, Being Here'","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":[183,247,1393,405,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[351,2801,2908,3884,4774,4775,4776,4777],"class_list":{"0":"post-20494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-nature","10":"category-art","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-ws-merwin","15":"tag-tomas-transtromer","16":"tag-loren-eiseley","17":"tag-rebecca-solnit","18":"tag-albert-garcia","19":"tag-alicia-ostriker","20":"tag-a-sense-of-place","21":"tag-a-sense-of-being","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5ky","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494","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=20494"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20585,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494\/revisions\/20585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}