Dreaming about Eternity
Month: June 2007
Oppen “wakes us together out of sleep”
Although I confess too many of Oppen’s later poems leave me confused and frustrated, I keep reading because I also find a considerable number of poems that I love, poems like this one:
THE POEM
how shall I light
this room that measures years
and years not miracles nor were we
judged but a direction
of things in us burning burning for we are not
still nor is this place a wind
utterly outside ourselves and yet it is
unknown and all the sails full to the last
rag of the topgallant, royal
tops’l, the least rags
at the mast-heads
to save the commonplace save myself Tyger
Tyger still burning in me burning
in the night sky burning
in us the light
If
in the room it was all
part of the wars
of things brilliance
of things
in the appalling
seas language
lives and wakes us together
out of sleep the poem
opens its dazzling whispering hands
Although I’d personally prefer different line breaks, the ambiguity provided by the arrangement often adds another dimension, a level of ambiguity, to the ideas. For instance, I still find myself wondering whether Oppen really intended to say, â€?”a direction of things in us burning, burning, for we are not still†as I read the poem.
Perhaps I respond to that line because I continue to write because I have something inside of me saying, â€?”I may not be important, but This is important, this needs to be told before it is too late, before it is irrevocably gone.
I might say â€?”I’m Satisfied,†and I am satisfied with my own life and where I’m at, but I’m not satisfied with the world I see around me, nor can I totally separate myself from my world, â€?”for we are not still nor is this place a wind utterly outside ourselves.â€
If I cannot â€?”save the commonplace,†then how can I â€?”save myself?â€
The language of all great poetry, all great literature, â€?”lives and wakes us together out of sleep.â€
Expect the Unexpected
I really had a dental appointment in Vancouver yesterday, and no lunch date, so I decided to try to get to Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge early in the morning because the last time I was there almost all the pictures I took had the sun behind the subject.
As it turned out, of course, most of the Cinnamon Teal had disappeared and the only Ruddy Ducks I saw
were so far out in the center of the pond that I could barely see them to focus the camera, with no hopes of even coming close to getting as good of pictures as I did two weeks before.
I spent the most time watching American Coots and their babies. These members of the rail family repeatedly dove and fed their chicks. I thought this was unusual duck behavior, but then I read that Coots are not ducks, but, rather, members of the rail family, not that I know anything about the rail family.
While focused on a pair of coots feeding chicks this duck floated into the scene. At first I ignored it, thinking it was yet another female Mallard. When I noticed that the tail feathers were black, though, I knew this was something I hadn’t seen before.
It turned out to be a male Gadwall, which became perfectly obvious when the two took flight.
I also spent considerable time pursuing song birds to photograph, but had even less luck getting decent shots in the trees. Still, I rather liked this shot of a male American Goldfinch, radiant in the mid-morning sunlight.
Pt. Defiance Rose Garden
The last time I was at the Point Defiance Rose Garden a few weeks ago, there was virtually no flowers to be seen. What a difference yesterday. If you live near Tacoma and like Roses, you owe it to yourself to get here soon, as this looks like the peak of the season for roses . Almost every variety had some flowers in full bloom,
but it was clear that there were a number of ladies-in-waiting when these beauties started to fade. Luckily the Rose Garden has a long season.
But, judging from the Irises I observed, you’d better get there soon if you want to see beauties like this
as the iris seem to be disappearing quickly.