Once Only, Again

I know I already posted this one, but I read it last night while watching the sunset over the Olympic Mountains, and I think it's worth talking about. 
For some reason, I tend to be rather inept at living in the present. I have been extraordinarily blessed with some spectacular experiences, and I tend to be disappointed when things aren't spectacular all the time. I get bored because nothing too exciting is happening around me, so I disconnect until something interesting happens. I don't know how to handle the "dreary intercourse of daily life". But, as usual, Levertov has managed to eloquently slap me in the face. 


Once Only - Denise Levertov
All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we'd do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every initiation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
             did happen in our lives, our stories
             are not drab with its absence: but don't
expect now to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.


Denise Levertov herself said that poetry is "intrinsically revolutionary"; that it is "an ecstasy and a giving of life" (From the essay, "Great Possessions", in The Poet in the World). And that, my friends, is why I read poetry. 
I'm constantly looking back and trying to bring bits of my past into the present, and it just doesn't work. I try to "do, be, revisit" all of those beautiful pieces of my life, while denying the truth that whatever I'm clinging to existed just "once, only". And I can't "expect now to return for more". I realize how disappointing that may sound, but I think it's rather freeing. It doesn't mean that I have to let go completely, just that I can't expect to go back. I can gather up my memories, and move forward to "the next song" which is "utterly present"; which is "now or never". Because this moment exists just "once, only".

Shake the Dust

I apologize for being a terrible blogger!
Anyway, here's a spoken word poem from slam poet Anis Mojgani. His stuff is POWERFUL, and I strongly suggest spending some time watching several of his performances!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDtHdloK44

SHAKE THE DUST.

Open Secret

Open Secret - Denise Levertov

Perhaps one day I shall let myself

approach the mountain –

hear the streams which must flow down it,

lie in a flowering meadow, even

touch my hand to the snow.

Perhaps not. I have no longing to do so.

I have visited other mountain heights.

This one is not, I think, to be known

by close scrutiny, by touch of foot or hand

or entire outstretched body; not by any

familiarity of behavior, any acquaintance

with its geology or the scarring roads

humans have carved in its flanks.

This mountain’s power

lies in the open secret of its remote

apparition, silvery low-relief

coming and going moonlike at the horizon,

always loftier, lonelier, than I ever remember.

Notes:

No, you're wrong, Denise Levertov! That mountain is to be "known by close scrutiny"! I have known that mountain by "familiarity of behavior". I have known it "by touch of foot or hand", and especially "entire outstretched body"! I have "touch[ed] my hand to the snow", and there was a time when I wandered those "flowering meadows" daily. I have lied beneath its stars countless times and have known its massive silhouette in the darkness. I have dug my toes into its sand, and immersed myself in its lakes. I have its mud still on my boots, and its fir needles in my socks...

You may laugh at my sentimental nostalgia, but I will not stop loving that mountain. Many of you know as well as I do, that mountain is magnetic. It has gotten under my skin, and there it will stay. And I sincerely hope that you will one day let yourself "approach the mountain", and understand, if only a little, the hold that it has over me.

Sojourns in the Parallel World

I’m on a major Denise Levertov kick right now. Her poetry is so exquisitely lovely and true, while simultaneously heartbreaking. She gets down to the root of the “deep down things” (Hopkins, God’s Grandeur). Thus, I offer you another Levertov poem.

Sojourns in the Parallel World

We live our lives of human passions,

cruelties, dreams, concepts,

crimes and the exercise of virtue

in and beside a world devoid

of our preoccupations, free

from apprehension--though affected,

certainly, by our actions. A world

parallel to our own though overlapping.

We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly

admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.               

Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,

our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,

an hour even, of pure (almost pure)

response to that insouciant life:

cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing

pilgrimage of water, vast stillness

of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,

animal voices, mineral hum, wind

conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering

of fire to coal--then something tethered

in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch

of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.

No one discovers

just where we've been, when we're caught up again

into our own sphere (where we must

return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)

--but we have changed, a little.

For the love of poetry

Firstly, I would like to apologize for my inconsistency as a blogger. I blame it on the lack of a clear theme or purpose in my last blog. But I have an idea. I'm forming an entirely new blog focused entirely on POETRY. I've had so many conversations with people in which I get ridiculously excited about poetry, and they tell me something along the lines of, 'I wish I could be that passionate', or 'I never know where to start', or 'How do you even find good poetry?'  Pssh. Good poetry. What is good poetry? Let's not go down that rabbit trail, though...
My point is this: I love poetry, and I want other people to love it, too. I wish I could write beautiful things for all of you, but I would rather share with you the poetry which I've found and which I feel brings such a richness and fullness to the "dreary intercourse of daily life" (for those of you who read that quote and knew immediately what it was from, you know me well. Wordsworth, by the way.)
Egads! My writing is not flowing well today. This is exactly why I would like to share poetry written by people more brilliant than myself, in the hopes that it will enrich your life, as it has profoundly changed and shaped the way I think and feel about so many things! (That sentence almost ran away from me...)
Thus, I give you....

Once Only - Denise Levertov
All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we'd do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every initiation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
             did happen in our lives, our stories
             are not drab with its absence: but don't
expect now to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.

Notes:
I will not tell you what I think this is about, because that is always up for interpretation. I could talk forever about the significance that I read into this poem personally, but I won't do that. I would like to hear your thoughts on it. This is another facet that I would like to bring into this blog. I want to encourage anyone who reads this to think about the poem and comment any thoughts, reactions, emotions, compulsions, or whatever may arise upon close reading. (I realize that not everyone can comment on blogs, but please comment on my facebook links to my blog posts!)

Ok, go.