Notebook: Dive Thoughts

1.    Scribble, scribble, Mr. Gibbon:
A box of saltines,
Two cans of sardines,
And a bottle of Irish:
I feel ready.

2.  Wearing the 20-pound weightbelt
three hours straight diving and paddling
may have been a mistake--I realized,
as the first muscle spasms started in my back,
40 minutes out from Moody's in Mendocino--
but every diver knows, whether weightbelt or tank,
it's lighter if you never take it off.

3.  Why do I keep putting
these clay pieces underwater?
I don't quite know,
but I do and I do.

4.  See photos.

5.  Maybe free diving wasn't such a good idea with this temporary crown in my mouth.

Waiting for Gadot

Soldate clay;
gray/green glaze:
8/10/15

If you've read my blog, you know I have a soft spot for frogs.

(I also appreciate a certain wonderful heroic character.)

Macbeth Underwater

I'm trying to cut back on my book-buying, so about an hour ago I was faced with a dilemma. In my right hand, I was holding Antonia Fraser's history of the Gunpowder Plot (which I will refer to tangentially when I teach Macbeth this term); in my left hand, I was holding the Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Scotland. I also had tucked under my left elbow a book about 18th-century England that I'd already decided was necessary and inexpensive enough to buy (for another class).

In the spirit of adventure, of Macbeth Underwater, I chose the diving guide, though I'm already noticing that drysuits are preferred over wetsuits -- sure, cold cold water -- and that snorkeling or diving in Loch Ness is not recommended (too silty, too little visibility; no warnings about monsters).

(There's always later in the week for the Gunpowder Plot . . . .)

There may be some broad hints toward that book-plot I've been wrestling with . . . Macbeth Underwater . . . .

Fowles: "Lightning Strikes"

"Truth is born as lightning strikes."  --Archilochos  (via Davenport)


TWO POEMS FROM JOHN FOWLES:


THE EXPERIENCE

You go down the right turnings
just as it says in the guide,
and it isn't there.

You turn up at the right room
at the right time,
in the right month and moonlight;
and it isn't there.

You discover the right grove,
you stand about on damp leaves.
A man on a tractor passes
and thinks you are mad.

You have the paper and the time,
you have the lot, 
and nothing comes.

And it comes
at the start of a busy day
as you shave in a hurry,
cog with no time.

The wind.  And you stand,
blinded till you are not blind.

--John Fowles



WITHIN TEN SECONDS

Within ten seconds
I knew I wanted to kiss your eyelids.
This is why I kept staring
Past you, as if to a cold horizon.
You were not boring me, as you thought.
I was looking to where you stood
Smelling of rain, with naked breasts.
Naked, defenceless, needing defence.
It was not as you thought,
You were piqued and moved away.
I was the one who by silence,
Staring, no move, moved away.

Where pine trees touch water.
I am
Men who tie themselves to masts.
You are
Sirens with delicate eyelids.
Penelope is white with lust.
Molpe, the deck has tears
And the rock has tears.
Even the sun has molten tears.

Meeting, never to meet again.

--John Fowles

"The Paths of Glory Lead But to the Grave[s]," Robert Graves, That Is

Or, as I should say, the poet Graves leads the way here. I couldn't help the bad joke involving Gray's line from his "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Still, weak humor notwithstanding, I believe that possessing "a new understanding of my confusion" will lead to sure, certain, and true glory. Maybe I should step aside here and let the poet offer his guidance.

IN BROKEN IMAGES

He is quick, thinking in clear images;

I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;

I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;

Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact,

Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;

When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;

I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;

I in a new understanding of my confusion.

--Robert Graves