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[Image: adapted from “Mermaid birdbath closer<\/a>,” by Flickr user “orchid dude.” There are a lot of images of mermaids in concrete and stone in some kind of watery setting, but this one by far had the best representation of one of the despondent and possibly ill-tempered creatures depicted in Matthea Harvey’s poem this week…]<\/em><\/p>\n From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Cheryl Strayed [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a> (epigraph + last two stanzas):<\/p>\n The Blue Guitar<\/strong><\/p>\n “They said, ‘You have a blue guitar,<\/em> I do my best to tell it true \u2018I have,\u2019 the man replied, \u2018it\u2019s true. ‘Things as they are? Above? Below? are not the same as things that were (P. K. Page, from The Blue Guitar [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a>:<\/p>\n Under the trees, Filling the eye, (Gesshu Soko [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else… Authentic<\/em> and inauthentic<\/em> were words that Fats used often, inside his own head; they had laser-precise meaning for him, in the way he applied them to himself and others.<\/p>\n He had decided that he possessed traits that were authentic, which ought therefore to be encouraged and cultivated; but also that some of his habits of thought were the unnatural product of his unfortunate upbringing, and consequently inauthentic and to be purged.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (J.K. Rowling [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and:<\/p>\n The body and soul are like a coach and horses and a coachman. The horses are desires. The coachman is the ego, the “I” that controls the desires and looks where he’s going (and makes sure the foot doesn’t go in the wrong place). But inside the coach is a passenger. Who is riding in the coach? It’s our soul. “Coachman, would you stop, please?” “Coachman, you are going a little too fast.”<\/p>\n I am riding in my coach, and now and then my coach needs a grease job or a new bearing or a joint replaced. [While in the hospital after breaking my hip,] I’m in the coach shop for a hip joint, and they’re the coach repair experts. That’s fine as long as I know who I am—that I’m not the coach, that I am a passenger inside the coach riding along merrily, merrily, merrily.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nYou do not play things as they are.’<\/em>
\nThe man replied, ‘Things as they are<\/em>
\nare changed upon the blue guitar.'”<\/em>
\n— The Blue Guitar (Wallace Stevens)<\/p>\n
\na thing exceeding hard to do
\nor tell it slant as Emily
\nadvises in her poetry,
\nand, colour blind, how can I know
\nif green is blue or cinnabar.
\nFind me a colour chart that I
\ncan check against a summer sky.
\nMy eye is on a distant star.
\nThey said, \u2018You have a blue guitar.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe instrument I strum is blue
\nI strum my joy, I strum my pain
\nI strum the sun, I strum the rain.
\nBut tell me, what is that to you?
\nYou see things as you think they are.
\nRemove the mote within your ear
\nthen talk to me of what you hear.\u2019
\nThey said, \u2018Go smoke a blue cigar!
\nYou do not play things as they are.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n
\nIn hell or heaven? Fast or slow …?’
\nThey silenced him. ‘It’s not about
\nphilosophy, so cut it out.
\nWe want the truth and not what you
\nare playing on the blue guitar.
\nSo start again and play it straight
\ndon’t improvise, prevaricate.
\nJust play things as they really are.’
\nThe man replied, ‘Things as they are<\/em><\/p>\n
\nor will be in another year.
\nThe literal is rarely true
\nfor truth is old and truth is new
\nand faceted — a metaphor
\nfor something higher than we are.
\nI play the truth of Everyman
\nI play the truth as best I can.
\nThe things I play are better far
\nwhen changed upon the blue guitar.’<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nwelcoming spring.
\nThings take care of themselves.<\/p>\n[…]\n
\nblue, blue mountains
\nin all directions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n