Category: Poets

Simon Ortiz’s “Wisconsin Horse”

One of Ortiz’s reoccurring images is first found in â€?”Wisconsin Horse.” Considering his Indian heritage, it’s a rich symbol, one often identified with Indians, though perhaps less so with the Pueblo Indians. The image is usually found in poems where the narrator is commenting on â€?”America building something,” and, in the process, destroying nature.

Wisconsin Horse

It is late at night, lying
drunk on the floor, hearing
a church bell across the
street, remembering that
Wisconsin Horse
this Spring.

One step at a time to return.

The horse across the road
stands within a fence,
silent in the hot afternoon.

A mile north is some construction.
I tell the horse,
“That’s America building something.”

A mile further through a clump of trees
is a river.

The Wisconsin Horse is silent.

The bell clamors
against the insides of my skull,
It has nothing to do with sound
that can comfort.

The clamor wants to escape
its barriers.
I want it to escape.
I have no defenses.

I should be an eager Christian
hungry for salvation,
or at the very least accept smugness
bound tightly in plastic.

Yet, at this single point in my life,
I know only a few bare things:
the floor, the walls around me,
that bell across the street,
that despair is a miserable excuse for emptiness,
that I should echo louder
that call for salvation
which at this point I know
is a need to fill the hollows
and pockets of my body.

Despair is such a poor excuse
to exclude things from my life,
to allow them to slip
from safe places.

But now, and not too soon,
in, this dark night,
having gotten up to write,
I make this offering:
that Wisconsin Horse I saw
standing in that hot afternoon,
staring through a chainlink fence
at the construction going on
only a mile away,
I wonder now if the horse still stands
silent in the dark night,
dreamless and stifled,
having no recourses left
except to hope his silence
will soon go away
and the meaningfulness enter .

This poem has several of Ortiz’s major themes beginning with the opening note. Alcoholism, seemingly a reflection of his alienation and despair, plays a large part in his early poems. The bell that clamors inside his skull seems to be the church bell, the church that wants to convince him that he should be â€?”hungry for salvation.”

It’ s obvious that what he’s really hungry for, though, is some sort of meaning to â€?”fill the hollows and pockets” of his body. At this early stage of his career all he has, though, is an image that has stuck with him. Like the Wisconsin horse, he is fenced in and incapable of articulating what he really feels. All he can do is â€?”hope his silence/will soon go away/ and the meaningfulness enter.”

Simon Ortiz’s Woven Stone

It’s been quite awhile since I blogged about poetry, though I have been reading intermittently. It’s just that I have several volumes partially read and won’t write about them until I’ve finished the entire work. But the rainy season seems to have finally set in giving me more time to read.

After my recent trip on the Columbia River it seemed appropriate that I finish Simon J Ortiz’s Woven Stone, a poet I discovered through reading Joan Halifax’s The Fruitful Darkness . Though I was unaware of his work, Ortiz is apparently a well-known Native American poet. I’ll have to admit that at times I found his Native-American â€?”philosophizing” intrusive and I preferred his concrete, narrative poems where his beliefs were implied, rather than stated, even though I tended to identify with his beliefs.

His best poetry reminds me of Gary Snyder’s poetry. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have made this connection if I hadn’t gone back and read the introduction after I finished reading the poems ( I avoid introductions before finishing a work so I can draw my own conclusions before comparing them to others’ perceptions.)

Because I was pretty impressionable then, when I came across the writings of the Beat Generation, especially those of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, I was struck as if by a revelation. It was “experience” I noticed, the idea of experience, writing from and about experience, and writing as experience. Snyder’s poetry particularly had aspects of Zen Buddhist philosophy I related to because they were similar in many ways to Native American spiritual knowledge and belief; reading the poetry and having in mind writing as experience, it was as if I’d know Buddhism all my life. And the revelation that was brought to light for me was that as an Acoma person I also had something important, unique, and special to say. I did not, however, express myself in writing immediately about it; then I recognized it and gladly shared a sense of comradeship and association with the philosophy, literature, and the poet.

Of course, it was precisely this similarity between â€?”Zen Buddhist Philosophy” and â€?”Native American spiritual knowledge and belief” that I admired in Halifax’s book. I’ve actually bookmarked a lot of poems in Ortiz’s book, but here’s one of the earliest ones I’ve admired:

BUCK NEZ

“a birthday pup present for
me from friends; I was
taking him home for my son

Ten miles
the other side of Nageezi,
we stopped a mile south of the highway.

I built a fire big enough
to signal the gods.

You slept against my neck,
curled by my soul. Once,
I awoke to a tiny whimper,
and I worried
that I should feed you
when I had nothing to eat
myself.

It rained that night, and it got cold.
In the morning,
I woke up to find
a puppy, you, yapping
like the original life,
a whole mystery crying
for sustenance.

We prayed.

What I want is a full life
for my son,
for myself,
for my Mother,
the Earth.

What I most admire about the poem is the concrete narrative, concrete details that recreate a simple moment that reveals much about the narrator, probably climaxing with the lines â€?”and I worried/ that I should feed you/when I had nothing to eat/ myself.” It’s easy to like someone who puts a puppy’s needs before his own.

Personally, though, I would have deleted everything after â€?” a whole mystery crying/for sustenance” because it undercuts the rest of the poem and seems to be implied in the phrases â€?”like the original life” and â€?”a whole mystery crying/for sustenance.”

Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan

Recently I had to drive to Portland to get a special rear bumper put on my Toyota pickup. I figured that I would get a poetry book to read since I was told that I would have to wait at least three hours to have the old bumper taken off and the new one installed. Considering how many partially read poetry books I have laying around my den, I decided I would buy the Kindle version of Kazuaki Tanahashi’s Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan.

It turned out installing the bumper took nearly 6 hours, not three, so I managed to finish the book in one sitting. It was hard to ignore the irony in waiting to have a $4, 000 bumper installed while reader Ryokan’s poetry extolling the virtues of the simple life. It is indeed a strange world when camping out in a small pickup with a small camper can be considered â€?”living the simple life.” After a lifetime of backpacking, I’m amazed at how spacious my camper seems. But every time I pull into a KOA campground and hook up to water and electricity next to a huge motor home I’m reminded that everything is relative.

Despite owning far too many things, including poetry books, I still identify with the spirit of Ryokan’s Zen poetry. This is the second book of his poetry I’ve purchased, but it has been so long between works that I really can’t compare them, though I’m sure that Tanahashi’s collection contained several new insights and a larger selection of Ryokan’s poems.

In the introduction Tanahashi contrasts Ryokan with the two other great figures in Zen Buddhism in Japan:

Unlike Dogen and Hakuin, Ryokan did not engage in the training of monks in monasteries. Instead, he practiced alone in extreme austerity without producing any dharma heir. He dropped out of society as well as the Zen community and could therefore be seen as a failure as a Zen teacher. Having no possessions may not have been the most effective way to attain freedom. It was nevertheless Ryokan’s way of life. Creative thinking and mystical encounters often unfold in silent solitude. The more intricately engaged in society we are, the more we may need to be in retreat. Humility is the highest means to selflessness, clarity, and compassion. Through his utterly modest and unaffected life, Ryokan unfolds a vast realm of serenity that can inspire us all.

Poems like

I don’t regard my life
as insufficient.
Inside the brushwood gate
there is a moon;
there are flowers.

while advocating the simple life seem to suggest that Ryokan also knew that many people saw his way of life as a failure.

Part of Ryokan’s appeal to me is precisely that he left his practicing community and practiced the dharma alone:

I don’t tell the murky world
to turn pure.
I purify myself
and check my reflection
in the water of the valley brook.

Withdrawing from the practicing community, he walked alone through mountains and villages, ringing a belled staff and chanting a verse of a sutra at each house. He treated everyone with respect and loving-kindness. Whether people offered him food, ignored him, or harshly drove him away, he was determined to remain true to his path as a monk.

Never a great follower, I’ve discovered many of my own truths while hiking or camping in Washington and Oregon’s wilderness, far away from the classroom and the books that I’ve devoted much of my life to.

Tanahashi’s commentary is often as concise as the poems themselves, but it adds another dimension to Ryokan’s poems.

One of Ryokan’s death poems summarizes his lifelong loneliness, openness, and reconciliation with transiency:

Showing its back
and showing its front,
a falling maple leaf.

Though I’m not quite sure how the poem conveys â€?”his lifelong loneliness, Tanahashi’s comment made me think more longer about the poem than I otherwise might have.

Many of Ryokan’s poems don’t need any commentary at all.

See and realize
that this world
is not permanent.
Neither late nor early flowers
will remain.

My recent travels have clearly shown that Fall is nearly upon us. I’ll be out enjoying our recent sunshine because Fall and Winter rains can’t be far behind.

A Last Look at Roethke’s Poetry

I’ve finally finished The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, at least for this go-around; I don’t think I’ve found any poems that I preferred to the ones, like â€?”In a Dark Time,” I discovered many years ago, but I did discover some poems that had new meaning for me, probably not surprising since it’s been nearly 13 years since I last re-read his works and I’ve continued to change in that time. That’s why I think it’s rewarding to re-read authors, particularly poets, you’ve enjoyed in the past.

Of course, whenever you’re inspired to read something for a particular reason you are more apt to discover what you went looking for, particularly when it’s as ambiguous as poetry. Even when you’re reading something that you liked before, like â€?”The Abyss,” you can find something that you missed on initial readings.

THE ABYSS

1
Is the stair here?
Where’s the stair?
‘The stair’s right there,
But it goes nowhere.’

And the abyss? the abyss?
‘The abyss you can’t miss:
It’s right where you are—
A step down the stair.’        

Each time ever
There always is
Noon of failure,
Part of a house.

In the middle of,
Around a cloud,
On top a thistle
The wind’s slowing.

The first section of the poem begins as many of Roethke’s poems do, with the narrator despairing, a condition most of us can identify with since despair always seems just a half-thought away.

Roethke, though, has a remarkable ability to bring that sense of despair to life, to make it seem more immediate to us, as he does in section 3 of the poem:

3

Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit;
Too close immediacy an exhaustion:
As when the door swings open in a florist’s storeroom—
The rush of smells strikes like a cold fire, the throat freezes,
And we turn back to the heat of August,
Chastened.

So the abyss—
The slippery cold heights,
After the blinding misery,
The climbing, the endless turning,
Strike like a fire,
A terrible violence of creation,
A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;
Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,
The burning lake turns into a forest pool,
The fire subsides into rings of water,
A sunlit silence.

â€?”Too much of a good thing” is a cliche,′ of course, but something surprising, like the opening of a door of a florist’s storeroom, reminds us it really is true. I’ve had exactly the same feeling when walking into a greenhouse on a very hot day. What’s normally a treat suddenly becomes oppressive.

The surprising part of the 3rd section is the transformation at the end where the â€?”burning lake turns into a forest pool,” a transformation that only takes place if â€?”we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,” a suggestion that the â€?”blinding misery,” the abyss, is more a state of mind than a physical crisis.

The last section, as is often the case in Roethke’s poems, transcends the horror of the earlier sections:

5

I thirst by day.
I watch by night. I receive! I have been received!
I hear the flowers drinking in their light,
I have taken counsel of the crab and the sea-urchin,
I recall the falling of small waters,
The stream slipping beneath the mossy logs,
Winding down to the stretch of irregular sand,
The great logs piled like matchsticks.
I am most immoderately married:
The Lord God has taken my heaviness away;
I have merged, like the bird, with the bright air,
And my thought flies to the place by the bo-tree.

Being, not doing, is my first joy.

I wasn’t surprised by the resolution of the crisis, though I was surprised to find a mention of â€?”The Lord God” in the poem. I was even more surprised by the reference to â€?”the bo-tree” of Buddha even though the phrase â€?”the bright air” and â€?”my first joy” suggests enlightenment. I can’t remember any other reference to Buddha or Buddhism in Roethke’s poetry. Of course, if I hadn’t just read Halifax’s book I doubt I would have even noticed this reference.

Although I doubt Roethke had many Buddhist leanings, his portrayal of his intense suffering, his ultimate understanding of the reasons for that suffering , and his ability to transcend it almost seems Buddhist to me. At the very least, he does a better job of portraying the suffering the Buddha sought to overcome than almost any other poet I’ve read.

And although I don’t think the term â€?”deep ecology” was even around while Roethke was writing, it would be hard to find any poet who advocates that idea any better than Roethke did throughout his poetry as evidenced by:

THE MANIFESTATION

Many arrivals make us live: the tree becoming
Green, a bird tipping the topmost bough,
A seed pushing itself beyond itself,
The mole making its way through darkest ground,
The worm, intrepid scholar of the soil—
Do these analogies perplex? A sky with clouds,
The motion of the moon, and waves at play,
A sea-wind pausing in a summer tree.

What does what it should do needs nothing more.
The body moves, though slowly, toward desire.
We come to something without knowing why.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a poet that identifies with every aspect of nature as clearly as Roethke does. We saw that in early poems where he compares cuttings to saints, we see it in later poems like â€?”The Geranium” and â€?”The Meadow Mouse” just as we see it in the line â€?”What does what is should do needs nothing more.” It seems significant that Roethke uses â€?”What,” not â€?”Who.”

I’m not sure how many Buddhist ideas Roethke held, but it’s pretty clear that he shared an awful lot of beliefs with the Transcendentalists (who, in turn, seemed to owe quite a bit to Eastern philosophies).