Dive Partners: Keith and Charlie

Quick look in the vault of time.

My pal Keith and Charlie-from-Moraga geared up for the abalone. I'm pretty sure that Charlie is laughing at something Keith has said. That's not an independent recollection, but rather my reading of body language --both Charlie's and Keith's-- and my general recollection of the camaraderie that made those dive trips such joys.

Kruse Ranch, I'm pretty sure: 1978 or 79 or 80 or 81. Most likely? 1980.

A vintage moment, for sure.

Cover Art Heroics: "Thongor Fights the Pirates of Tarakus"

I'm in the mood for some old school heroic fantasy, a bit of adventure and decidedly strenuous striving. I have my Homer on hand, The Odyssey and The Iliad, but I am looking for some lighter fare as well. An appetizer before settling in for the feast, as it were.

This book with Jeffrey Jones' striking artwork just caught my attention. That's a heroic cover. Jeffrey Jones, like Frank Frazetta of course, is a master of such imagery.

Now, Lin Carter was a writer I liked a fair amount in my teens, a writer I came to know first from the Conan pastiches he produced with L. Sprague de Camp, but Carter is also a writer who seemed a bit thin, a bit disappointing, in the long run. He wrote many heroic fantasies by combining Robert E. Howard's barbarian muscle with Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian space operas--and I recall gobbling up the Thongor, the Jondar, and the Green Star series, among others -- but I rarely returned to these books after I graduated from high school, in contrast to both Burroughs and especially Howard.

Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories (and his historical stories in general) are the real deal, and I've been dipping into those tales for this heroic craving too. By "real deal," I mean that Howard wrote solid, gripping stories with more complex characterization and story mechanics than you'd expect from either the Hollywood or the comic book versions of the mighty Cimmerian. If you want some writerly lessons on how to move in a narrative or how to step into the action with economy and ease, just look at "Red Nails," "Wolves Beyond the Border," or "A Witch Shall Be Born." You have to find the original Conan tales by Howard himself, not by the imitators, however respectful they were. I'm not claiming that Howard deserves the Nobel or the Pulitzer, but I am claiming craftsmanship of a high order in service to telling tales of adventure.

And, after all, that's what Homer was doing at the beginning of Western literature and culture. I've probably written already on how Homer's work in The Odyssey demonstrates a mastery of narrative structure and effects that have never been surpassed. (So much for the idea of "progress"; "the past is the present, isn't it, and the future too," one of O'Neill's characters claims, and he's correct.) Not, by the way, that I am equating Howard with Homer. Not at all. I am putting the two artists together in a way that I find useful.

Now, Lin Carter's Thongor Fights the Pirates of Tarakus: I am in the mood for action, adventure, a strong hero, and pirates. Who doesn't want a tale with pirates while taking a break from working on a sunny Sunday afternoon? Here's hoping the tale proves engaging enough.

___________________________________________________

Thank you, Jeffrey Jones, for all those paperback covers that I have loved and daydreamed about all those years ago. Thank you, Frank Frazetta, also.

I used to haunt the used bookstores for those covers, buying the books almost without considering the stories within. I'd study those images and daydream my own tales: time well-spent. If Carter's prose and pacing of Thongor Fights the Pirates of Tarakus doesn't quite hold my attention, I'll close the book and let Jones' art spark my imagination to work the wonder instead.

Or, I'll just pick up The Iliad and begin the feast.

The Other Boathouse

Reminder: sign up for summer art classes.

Finity Pool

There's a story here, though I haven't quite worked out how to tell it best.

Ovid would know how, or Aesop.

Perhaps, Virgil would tell it best: "sunt lacrimae rerum."

And yet, look at all that life in that pool: matter at its finest? What did Steinbeck say? "And yet the impulse which drives a man to poetry will send a man into the tide pools and force him to report what he finds there." He was talking about marine biology, in a strict sense, but Steinbeck would have been at ease with the scene in the photos.

This entry is definitely a rough draft, a work in progress, a couple of images and a bare handful of notes.

Trusty Companions

Or, How It All Starts.

Keith: Abalone Hunter

Here's an old photo of Keith Sanders down by our favorite entry-point at Kruse Ranch on the Sonoma County Coast. I have some stories to share about our dives here --and about that steep half-mile (or more) hike from the road down to the water-- but for now I'll just post the picture.

That's Keith, suited up and ready to get some abalone. I'm not sure why I'm still up on the trail with my camera. Lagging behind, I guess, wanting to take pictures while Keith is wanting to get diving already.

Good memories, my friend.

Measuring Memories

Sabbatical reflections, Bio 32, and the evidence at hand.

What I like most about memory involves the unfolding and expanding thoughts and feelings that may be triggered, may be engaged, just by looking at such photos as these above or --better yet-- by the objects themselves.

When I handle those underwater survey cards from Fall 2009, I can feel the depths we reached, can see as best I could at the time the murky waters, can resist as I did then the pull of the surge, and so forth. I can revisit the enthusiasm of the class, the high spirits, as we split into teams, geared up, and entered the water.

And, then, there's the mix of memories: the dives; the dive-days, with lunch, coffee-stops, the driving, and the conversations; the cleaning and putting-away of the gear; the house itself; that hardwood flooring and walking across it; all the things I've ever carried or stored in that giant red bucket; the art class, studio, and breakage associated with the octopus; that metal measuring tool for different species of abalone: I've had that particular tool since 1978. And so forth. In the jar, I've sand from Monastery Beach; the big grains are characteristic of that shore, and the memories stretch from this specific collecting to all the times I've been to that beach, including a wild ride in the surf when I was a very young boy. (See the entry "Monastery Beach Memories" for those details; you can click on the appropriate photo in the column to the right for the link.)

And yet, I must confess, I'm starting to get a bit confused whether the memories triggered by that card really belong to Dive #10, say, or an earlier dive that semester. I was participating in a series of training dives off various Monterey beaches and off Salt Point, up on the Sonoma Coast. My memories are not foolproof, though I still think they are fairly accurate, or better, if I take the time to examine and handle such items closely, giving myself time to --what?-- scroll back through the memory-screens, thumb through the memory-files.

I like photos, and I use photos to take me back into time, into past experiences, but artifacts work better, work best.

And that's why I have a garage, study, and office each overfilled with books and stuff. Memory's talismans; flotsam on the sea of Time? What else do you call my mother's PTA scrapbook? I mean, that's a wonderful document of years of service, but can I honor that real work if I just hold onto the title page and a few sample pages? Really?

Perhaps, at this late date in life, I can move towards being a Symbolist and not so much a Materialist. I'm not even going to consider the joys of Minimalism. I'm still not ready.

A Motley of Masks

Four masks from 2009. Sculpture mix or stoneware.

Melville's "Jacket"

Stage Direction: It's 1850, and the new novel by that Melville fellow is in the bookshop. You know, the fellow that lived with those South Sea cannibals. Let's open it up and see what's on offer. No, read aloud; I want to hear it too.

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It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show.

The way I came by it was this.

When our frigate lay in Callao, on the coast of Peru--her last harbour in the Pacific--I found myself without a grego, or sailor's surtout; and as, toward the end of a three years' cruise, no pea-jackets could be had from the purser's steward: and being bound for Cape Horn, some sort of a substitute was indispensable; I employed myself, for several days, in manufacturing an outlandish garment of my own devising, to shelter me from the boisterous weather we were so soon to encounter.

It was nothing more than a white duck frock, or rather shirt: which, laying on deck, I folded double at the bosom, and by then making a continuation of the slit there, opened it lengthwise-- much as you would cut a leaf in the last new novel. The gash being made, a metamorphosis took place, transcending any related by Ovid. For, presto! the shirt was a coat!--a strange-looking coat, to be sure; of a Quakerish amplitude about the skirts; with an infirm, tumble-down collar; and a clumsy fullness about the wristbands; and white, yea, white as a shroud. And my shroud it afterward came very near proving, as he who reads further will find.

But, bless me, my friend, what sort of a summer jacket is this, in which to weather Cape Horn? A very tasty, and beautiful white linen garment it may have seemed; but then, people almost universally sport their linen next to their skin.

Very true; and that thought very early occurred to me; for no idea had I of scudding round Cape Horn in my shirt; for that would have been almost scudding under bare poles, indeed.

So, with many odds and ends of patches--old socks, old trowser- legs, and the like--I bedarnedand bequilted the inside of my jacket, till it became, all over, stiff and padded, as King James'scotton-stuffed and dagger-proof doublet; and no buckram or steel hauberk stood up more stoutly.

So far, very good; but pray, tell me, White-Jacket, how do you propose keeping out the rain and the wet in this quilted grego of yours? You don't call this wad of old patches a Mackintosh, do you?----you don't pretend to say that worsted is water-proof?

No, my dear friend; and that was the deuce of it. Waterproof it was not, no more than a sponge. Indeed, with such recklessness had I bequilted my jacket, that in a rain-storm I became a universal absorber; swabbing bone-dry the very bulwarks I leaned against. Of a damp day, my heartless shipmates even used to stand up against me, so powerful was the capillary attraction between this luckless jacket of mine and all drops of moisture. I dripped like a turkey a’roasting; and long after the rain storms were over, and the sun showed his face, I still stalked a Scotch mist; and when it was fair weather with others, alas! it was foul weather with me.

Me? Ah me! Soaked and heavy, what a burden was that jacket to carry about, especially when I was sent up aloft; dragging myself up step by step, as if I were weighing the anchor. Small time then, to strip, and wring it out in a rain, when no hanging back or delay was permitted. No, no; up you go: fat or lean: Lambert or Edson: never mind how much avoirdupois you might weigh. And thus, in my own proper person, did many showers of rain reascend toward the skies, in accordance with the natural laws.

But here be it known, that I had been terribly disappointed in carrying out my original plan concerning this jacket. It had been my intention to make it thoroughly impervious, by giving it a coating of paint, But bitter fate ever overtakes us unfortunates. So much paint had been stolen by the sailors, in daubing their overhaul trowsers and tarpaulins, that by the time I--an honest man--had completed my quiltings, the paint-pots were banned, and put under strict lock and key.

Said old Brush, the captain of the paint-room-- "Look ye, White-Jacket," said he, "ye can't have any paint."

Such, then, was my jacket: a well-patched, padded, and porous one; and in a dark night, gleaming white as the White Lady of Avenel!

That's "The Jacket," the complete opening chapter to White-Jacket, the novel that Herman Melville published the year before publishing his masterpiece Moby Dick. In this novel, Melville keeps to the nautical themes of his highly popular first two novels, Typee and Omoo, and his less popular third and fourth novels, Mardi and Redburn, but he shifts us from merchant ships to a military vessel, the U.S.S. Neversink, a microcosm as his subtitle indicates: "The World in a Man-of-War."

I love the voice here, White-Jacket telling his tale, describing in practical terms how he ended up a sailor wearing a sponge of a coat, without protection, with its reversal of what such a covering is meant to be and do. I love how the symbolic resides within and transcends the practical and literal. Seamus Heaney, in his poetry, is also a master at creating symbolic resonance within and through a practical framework, a literal and material set of images.

However, while I appreciate and value the symbolic resonances here, the hints and forebodings, what I most appreciate and most value is the voice itself, the humor, the pathos, and the gusto that animates this voice. White-Jacket walks me through his tale of tailorly woe, through the workmanship by which he aimed to solve that problem of protection against the weather, and also through the inadvertent misfortune, the mere and significant bad timing. Gusto: note the relish here. White-Jacket's an Ancient Mariner with a compelling voice and the beginnings of a compelling story. What about that "sequel"? And, how will that untarred jacket be "white enough"? Enough for what? or for whom? and how?

I first read White-Jacket while camping and fishing along the Trinity River in Northern California. My best friend Keith and I would take a few days each summer for three or four years as a sort of retreat or refuge before the new school year would begin. At the time, I was reading my way through all of Melville, striving to work out for myself how he got, as a writer, up and into the narrative voice of Ismael, the heart of Moby Dick. Of course, as I began reading, this narrator, this White-Jacket fellow, pulled me into his story for himself, for itself. Now, almost 30 years after that first encounter, I am opening up this naval novel once again as preparation for teaching that famous whaling novel, yes, but I can already feel myself being pulled in, ready to listen as this particular tale unfolds.

Listen. Read again. Read aloud this time.

There's magic here.

P.S. Some further reflections:

I'm reading (and I've used as illustrations above) the old Signet Classics edition of Melville's novel. The artist of that cover isn't specified, or I'd give full credit indeed. I may have picked up the novel because it was written by The Author of Moby Dick, but that image of the rugged sailor, 70's hair and all, with the ship and sea and sky, all helped me to pick this book to take up to the Trinity to read while lounging about, enjoying the sunshine, fishing, and telling tall-tales.

I recall that weekend as being so so hot. Evenings, we'd forego any ideas about cooking for ourselves, the heat was still that draining, and we'd drive to the town of Big Flat and eat at Big Flat Pizza. We'd start talking about the ice tea with real ice about an hour before we'd hope in the car and go. After we'd cool down, we'd pick up some beer for the campfire session and talk for hours, revisiting past triumphs and disasters, making plans for the future, solving the problems of the world, out-Socratizing Socrates. Fine times, some of the finest I've known.

During the day on the Trinity River that weekend, we'd cram ourselves beneath any shade we could find: under bushes, under giant boulders even; we'd picked a spot without any trees down on the flat beside the river, and we were too exhausted and drained from all that heat to hunt up a better place. The tent was no help in such high temps; I don't think we even slept in it. The best relief was to wait until you were really overcooked, really steaming from the heat, and then plunge into the river, swimming against the current, until the cold waters quenched all fire and chilled you to the bone. Then, you'd pull yourself out on the other bank of the river and stretch out on the rocks, warming yourself until you were overcooked again, and the cycle of plunge-strive-quench-chill-climb out would be repeated over and over again.

In between cycles, I'd read my book and share bits with Keith. I just may have read this first chapter aloud to him; if I did, I'm sure we found plenty to say in return.

Finny

I had to look three times before I realized what I was really seeing, and now I can't see that blurry bit of kelp I had thought I had seen.

Those are my rocket fins in action.

What happens when the camera accidentally goes off. I had thought I'd de-powered the device, but, no, once again I shoot my legs . . . but I like this one.

I'm swimming downward in a kelp forest out in Monterey Bay; the camera is pointed upward. Look at that green water; it was cold, but that's what wetsuits are for. (Thank you, Jack O'Neill and company.)

"Green Luck": an alternative caption.

Snorkel Time

Mr. Limpet

Howe's "The Dream"

THE DREAM

I had a dream in the day:

I laid my father's body down in a narrow boat

and sent him off along the riverbank with its cattails and grasses.

And the boat -- it was made of bark and wood bent when it was wet--

took him to his burial finally.

But a day or two later I realized it was myself I wanted

to lay down, hands crossed, eyes closed . . . .

Oh, the light coming up from down there,

the sweet smell of the water -- and finally, the sense of being carried

by a current I could not name or change.

--Marie Howe

from What the Living Do

My friend Meredith passed this poem to me some years back now as a handwritten card. I imagine that the occasion was my father's death or in the aftermath. I've had Meredith's card on a bulletin board for quite a while, and I realized the other day that I hadn't actually read the poem, hadn't actually read the words, for some time now. You know how things we put up on the walls or on such boards start out as declarations or celebrations, but in time become mere decorations, mere furniture. At least, that's what happens for me.

I like to move my books around in the shelves every so often. I'll shift from alphabetical and genre groupings to as random as possible, or by size and shape, or by color. Occasionally, of course, I'll put books together that I think would enjoy each other's company: Shakespeare's Hamlet next to Sophocles' Oedipus the King, for an obvious pairing, alongside McGuane's Panama, Hemingway's Islands in the Stream, Melville's Moby Dick, and Homer's Odyssey. Mostly, I've found if I move the books around just enough so that I see them as themselves, as individual works, and not as mere and merely familiar color patterns on the shelves, then I am more likely to pull one out and reread it, or to at least re-regard it with all the wonderful actions of the mind and heart (and even body) that follow such an engaged perusal.

So too with pictures and sculptures on the wall. So too with the pictures and poems and quotations and stuff (fishhooks, whistles, talismans) affixed to the two bulletin boards in my study. I need to move these materials around to not overlook them, to avoid merely taking them for granted.

In this case, I just happened to look directly at Meredith's card, at Howe's poem, in a receptive mood so that I saw it. Saw it, read it, considered it. (Hi Dad! Hope the water's fine. Wow, such water could feel pretty good, couldn't it? Just a bit of rest, just . . . .) I reread the poem, felt the poem, considered the gift of that poem.

And now I share that poem with you.

Thanks, Meredith, again.

Keith: Inflatables Ready!

Here is a photo and close-up of my pal Keith Sanders from either 1978 or 1979. I should ask our friend Brad or Keith's brothers about the date, using the Buf-mobile there as an indicator. I can't recall when Keith moved on to his next car. I do recall missing this fine vehicle afterwards. The year is probably 1979, for I think I recall our each buying that style of wetsuit on sale from Steele's diveshop in Oakland; the two-piece above-the-waist bottom and hooded top with beavertail are pretty distinctive.

Keith and I have driven down on a weekday--or so it looks from the emptiness of the parking lot--to dive off Lover's Point in Pacific Grove. We were going to try out Keith's new inflatable boat, but then I wanted to use my own too. The orange pump-up canoe was a gift from my parents, and it had done fine service on the lakes and rivers of Northern California. I think this may have been the first time I would use it for ocean diving. We brought the boats down to this easy shore-dive spot to practice; we wanted to use the boats for expeditions up north on the Sonoma and Mendocino Coasts to enable us to reach more remote locations with scuba gear, specifically. As good divers, we were practicing at the easy location before trying out more extreme ones.

That's the Tinnery Restaurant across the street (or, it will be the Tinnery, at some point). And, while it is no longer in business, I still have the promotional bumper sticker on my "school" clipboard. Yes, I've been using the same clipboard since the mid-70's; this tool has lasted through school, college, warehouse work, driving deliveries throughout central California, swim classes, graduate school, and more than fifteen years as a college instructor: solid craftsmanship. Whenever I happen to notice that old blue legend across the back of the clipboard, I smile at the memories, the good times, it evokes. (The photo below, for the first time, shows me how ugly the clipboard is, but it never seems ugly in my hands.)

During a different dive trip, a bolt of lightning hit that same parking lot.

This particular photo never seemed all that remarkable, merely a document of the tools we were using to head out on the water. Of course, the shot has gotten more interesting for me with each decade that passes, and now that my Best Damn Dive Partner has passed on also, well, every shot counts.

My buddy Keith and our boats. I wonder how far out we really paddled before diving down with the tanks. Far enough.

Green's Sappho: Imagination and Desire

It is easy to forget, also, how large a part of any poet's emotional life is conducted in the mind and the imagination --so much more real, for him, than the world of physical appearances, so tangible that he will slide at will from the real to the imaginary until, in the end, there is no clear frontier between them. The passions which stirred me were embodied in this secret world, this dream-dominion of pure, silver-clear, crystalline adoration, so that my creative imagination could dwell on some loved face or body and, in fantasy, find fulfillment there without disturbing the delicate balance of unknowing which governed my conscious thoughts. I burned, yet the fire was contained, transmuted. As I grew older, inevitably, the perilous frontier between desire and knowledge became less distinct; this was the time of nightmare, of knowing-and-not-knowing, when, waking, I closed my eyes deliberately to what my mind understood, but refused to accept. It is not hard to understand, now, that state of latent, unexplored desire which had so instantaneous and devastating effect on Chloe.

--from Peter Green's excellent novel on Sappho: The Laughter of Aphrodite.

Swimming with Neruda: "Drunk with Pines"

"My solid marine madness": W.S. Merwin's translation of Neruda's "el solido frenesi marino" is a phrase that speaks to me, that calls for me. Riptides of the soul; passion's relentless currents. What did T.S. Eliot offer in this regard? Something about Phlebas, "As he rose and fell / He passed the stages of his age and youth / Entering the whirlpool"--and "Consider Phlebas, who was once as handsome and tall as you." Or, to shift to a beloved passage from Shakespeare's Tempest: "full fathoms five / thy father lies."

Water--whether held in check or fiercely flowing, the undersea realm, anything marine-- means mortal transformation, means death for most poets, but not for Homer, and not for Neruda.

Pablo Neruda is offering a more immediate drama of "marine madness," of aquatic passion that is suffered and that transcends. Neruda puts us into the midst of the sea-change, first keeps us in the curl of the wave and then within the first two fathoms or so of the surface, though there's plenty of depth here.

In the third stanza below, I see the surfer, though Neruda most likely had a swimmer in mind, though in the earlier stanzas the speaker could be a sailor or, more likely, a passenger on a boat. In this third stanza, I see this body-surfer riding the wave in a mix of frustration and ecstasy-- "mounted" and then "becalmed"--and ending with that lovely, haunting phrase: "in the throat of the fortunate isles / that are white and sweet as cool hips"; "en las garganta de las afortunadas / islas blancas y dulces como caderas frescas."

"Drunk with Pines" is the ninth poem in Viente Poemas de Amor y una Cancion Desesperada from 1924, when Neruda was only twenty years old. I've commented in the previous blog entry about Neruda's passion and poetics. His imagery can be both strikingly clear and paradoxical, evocative and mysterious. (I'll admit I don't always understand certain phrases, certain lines --or at least not yet-- but I don't find that uncertainty the obstacle it would be with other poets.) In particular, the depth of longing that informs the vivid imagery makes this volume a particular favorite for so many people.

Here, I want to share the ninth poem in both Neruda's original Spanish and W.S. Merwin's English translation. As I've said before, I have mostly lost my high school level Spanish, though with my rusty Latin, a dictionary, and a translation alongside, I do enjoy working my way through Neruda's original poetry, reading aloud as best I can to hear the music, the considerable music, of this Chilean poet.

And, that final image of the paired swimmers, "quick and slow, in the energy under the sky" -- "rapido y lento en la energia subceleste."

IX. Ebrio De Trementina

Ebrio de trementina y largos besos,

estival, el velero de las roasas dirijo,

torcido hacia la muerte del delgado dia,

cimentado en el solido frenesi marino.

Palido y amarrado a mi agua devorante

cruzo en el agrio olor del clima descrubierto,

aun vestido de gris y sonidos amargos,

y una cimera triste de abandonada espuma.

Voy, duro de pasiones, montado en mi ola unica,

lunar, solar, ardiente y frio, repentino,

dormido en la garganta de las afortunadas

islas blancas y dulces como caderas frescas.

Tiembla en la noche humeda mi vestido de besos

locamente cargado de electricas gestiones,

de modo heroico dividido en suenos

y embriagadoras rosas practicandose en mi.

Aguas arribe, en medio de las olas externas,

tu paralelo cuerpo se sujeta en mis brazos

como un pez infinitamente pegado a mi alma

rapido y lento en la energia subceleste.

IX. Drunk with Pines

Drunk with pines and long kisses,

like summer I steer the fast sail of the roses,

bent towards the death of the thin day,

stuck into my solid marine madness.

Pale and lashed to my ravenous water,

I cruise in the sour smell of the naked climate,

still dressed in grey and bitter sounds

and a sad crest of abandoned spray.

Hardened by passions, I go mounted on my one wave,

lunar, solar, burning and cold, all at once,

becalmed in the throat of the fortunate isles

that are white and sweet as cool hips.

In the moist night my garment of kisses trembles

charged to insanity with electric currents,

heroically divided into dreams

and intoxicating roses practising on me.

Upstream, in the midst of the outer waves,

your parallel body yields to my arms

like a fish infinitely fastened to my soul,

quick and slow, in the energy under the sky.

Neruda, Pablo. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. W.S. Merwin, trans. New York: Penguin. 1978

"Like a Coin": Neruda and Thoughts about Reading Poetry

Fairly early this morning, I sat down with my battered metal cup of coffee in my usual cafe, intending to think about my Introduction to Literature class and poetry. How to emphasize the best way to approach poetry for the first time, or from a new, renewed perspective, perhaps. How to start, how to enter, how to read and reflect and feel your way into poetry. Often, I emphasize "What's the story?" And, "Who's talking? to whom? where? from what place, physical and emotional?"

That's how I often encourage my students to enter the world of poetry. What's the story?

Some lines from Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet, rose up in my mind. A man reflecting on what he's seen, experienced, remembers. A riddle of sorts, though not as puzzling as so many lines out of context, perhaps.

I have seen from my window

the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun

burned like a coin between my hands.

He visto desde mi ventana

la fiesta del poniente en los cerros lejanos.

A veces como una moneda

se encendia un pedazo de sol entre mis manos.

Two lines from the middle of Neruda's "Hemos Perdidio Aun" ("We Have Lost Even") in the translation of W.S. Merwin.

My high school Spanish is long gone, but if I call up my grad school Latin. pick up a dictionary, and keep a good translation at hand, then I can piece my way through some of Neruda's (and Lorca's) work. I like making the effort with the foreign language poems I like best in English. Sometime, I'll have to address my lack of Spanish much more seriously.

(There are too many languages I've let slip--Latin, German, Old English, that Spanish--and so many languages I should have pursued or pursued further--Classical Greek, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese. Oh, I can start or restart any time, any time.)

Here, I wanted to share an image that stays with me from the midst of a worthy poem. A poem about loss, piercing loss from the past. That view from afar, from the window, watching the sunset, "the fiesta of the sunset in the distant mountain tops." Distanced, but not quite detached. Detached would make everything easier. (Or as singer Kathleen Edwards reminds us, "Memory is a terrible thing if you use it right.")

Neruda is a great poet of internal observation, of feeling from afar and in the moment, of passion and the recollection of passion.

Now, the puzzle of that image, that imagery, would mean that we--my students and myself--would need to place that moment, that speaker, in the context of the whole poem. And that would lead us into the poem, first and foremost, and then beyond, to other poems, to the emotions and moments of our own lives.

However, I don't want to start with puzzles, for that only reinforces the distancing so many "new" or "inexperienced" readers feel with poetry. Now, I'll start with something more denotative, more declarative, at least in class (though I'm tempted for the emotional landscape here seems very accessible).

What's the story? Or, to borrow more Neruda from that same poem:

Where were you then?

Who else was there?

Saying what?

P.S. Idle thoughts follow their own path. I meant to write about the "coin" image, the physical appropriateness, the metaphorical richness, the probable meanings. I'll save that for a future entry, perhaps, for work is calling.

P.P.S. Here are the texts for the whole poem, the tenth in the sequence, first in Neruda's original Spanish and then in Merwin's English translation. Enjoy.

Hemos perdido aun este crepusculo.

Nadie nos vio esta tarde con las manos unidas

mientras la noche azul caia sobre el mundo.

He visto desde mi ventana

la fiesta del poniente en los cerros lejanos.

A veces come una moneda

se encendia un pedazo de sol entre mis manos.

Yo te recordaba con el alma apretada

de esa tristeza que tu me conoces.

Entonces, donde estabas?

Entre que genes?

Diciendo que palabras?

Por que se me vendra todo el amor de golpe

cuando me siento triste, y te siento lejana?

Cayo el libro que siempre se toma en el crepusculo,

y como un perro herido rodo a mis pies mi capa.

Siempre, siempre te alejas en las tardes

hacia donde el crepusculo corre borrando estatuas.

X. We Have Lost Even

We have lost even this twilight.

No one saw us this evening hand in hand

while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window

the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun

burned like a coin between my hands.

I remembered you with my soul clenched

in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?

Who else was there?

Saying what?

Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly

when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that is always turned to at twilight

and my cape rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings

towards where the twilight goes erasing statues.

"On Your Feet Now": Advice from Archilochos

Soul, soul,

Torn by perplexity,

On your feet now!

Throw forward your chest

To the enemy;

Keep close in the attack;

Move back not an inch.

But never crow in victory,

Nor mope hangdog in loss.

Overdo neither sorrow nor joy:

A measured motion governs man.

--Archilochos, ancient Greek mercenary and poet.

Guy Davenport's translation from his 7 Greeks.

Odysseus: "A Spark Alive"

But this seemed best to him, as he thought it over.

He made his way to a grove above the water

on open ground, and crept under twin bushes

grown from the same spot--olive and wild olive--

a thicket proof against the stinging wind

or Sun's blaze, fine soever the needling sunlight;

nor could a downpour wet it through, so dense

those plants were interwoven. Here Odysseus

tunnelled, and raked together with his hands

a wide bed--for a fall of leaves was there,

enough to save two men or maybe three

on a winter night, a night of bitter cold.

Odysseus' heart laughed when he saw his leaf-bed,

and down he lay, heaping more leaves above him.

A man in a distant field, no hearthfires near,

will hide a fresh brand in his bed of embers

to keep a spark alive for the next day;

so in the leaves Odysseus hid himself,

while over him Athena showered sleep

that his distress should end, and soon, soon.

In quiet sleep she sealed his cherished eyes.

--Homer's Odyssey,

the very end of Book V: Sweet Nymph and Open Sea

in the frankly wonderful translation by Robert Fitzgerald.

A favorite passage of mine.

Melville's Wrestling Tips

ART

In placid hours well-pleased we dream

Of many a brave unbodied scheme.

But form to lend, pulsed life create,

What unlike things must meet and mate:

A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;

Sad patience--joyous energies;

Humility--yet pride and scorn;

Instinct and study; love and hate;

Audacity--reverence. These must mate,

And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,

To wrestle with the angel--Art.

--Herman Melville

I've always liked this poem, perhaps because conflict and engagement are crucial in my vision of how makers work in this world. I'll forget this poem, forget about this poem, and then be reminded, be pleased to remember--as I am today.

I never forget the sentence Melville had glued inside his writing desk: "Keep true to the dreams of thy youth."

My Kind of Gated Community

Yesterday was a good day for fun by the Bay.

Crissy Field on a sunny Saturday.

Good call, Craig.