It is imperative, especially those of us who are writing poetry primarily for a digital audience, to begin thinking about the future. We are in a peculiar position: the ground has, in most senses, given out beneath our feet, or was never there to begin with. To begin writing today, and to hope to do so with excellence and fidelity to the tradition of literature which comes down to us, requires in the beginning a stark appraisal of our situation, and the temerity to proceed howsoever disadvantaged one finds oneself to be. I will not rehash the much-talked over theme of contemporary man’s intellectual indigence, nor that of the literary man in particular. Suffice it to be said, much toil needs be done, and many laborers are needed. Of what sort, and at what edifices they should be labouring, is the question we shall turn to. It is time for the writers and intellectuals of our generation to cease (not entirely, but at least as locus of primary concern) lampooning the context we find ourselves in and bemoaning themselves for finding themselves in it. There is a degree of self-knowledge that proceeds from such exercises, but to heal and rebuild requires a doxological vision. Now, I consider one particular ‘scene’ from poetry of the last century to be hopeful. That is, Yeats' preoccupation with the concrete (monument and landscape in particular), folk stories, and with the popular songs of Tagore. There are many similar instances among poets of the last two centuries I’m sure: I have chosen this one only because it is uniquely accessible to me. Here is what I derived from this, shall we call it, episode:
1. Poetry as part of the world, immortalization of place (Ben Bulben, the Tower, Ireland itself)
2. Poetry as the living sinews of Culture (peasantry singing the songs of Tagore, ignorant of their author)
3. Poetry as collective memory (Yeats' preservation of otherwise forgotten folk artifacts; the literary nationalism of Yeats and Tagore)
4. Poetry as craft (Irish poets learn your trade; the practical romanticism of Tagore)
In the liturgical context, it should be remembered that in the Byzantine period it was not irregular for poetical epigrams to be inscribed on reliquaries, or the sides of iconography. I think of Carl Jung and his Bollingen Tower, where he spent time in carving stone, which became an integrated part of his lived-life: of his home, and of the landscape thereabout.
I remember reading, somewhere, that time was when the Japanese child would learn in school how to lay the blueprints of a home in the old traditional style. Time may be, when the home shall be filled with items made fragrant with great and beautiful thoughts, by their being indite with poems of two to twelves lines. I for instance, plan to carve these four lines from Li Bai into a piece of furniture:
Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head.
One finds in the Chinese poet Yuan Mei reminiscences of a certain mountain pass where an ancient king lay buried, which all the poets of a thousand years had made a habit of leaving, so to speak, a wreath of verses. And we find him in his later journeys saddened, because “the wine-booth had no walls/so I could not inscribe poems.”
This all being said, I cannot but offer a few verses, to any who may want them.
Some inscriptions to be carved into a door:
Because the world is tumbling on,
And space and time do not agree,
Here is a blessing; let it be
A seal upon your mouth and eyes,
Even, I troth, Eternity
Is full of passages and doors
Leading from bliss to bliss;
Come find some such before my hearth.
This is the threshing-hold,
The tares remain outside:
And all that enters it is gold.
A second,
At Eden’s gate a blade of fire
Was laid debarring entrances:
But then our Lord with hook and crook
Came, and He did come lightning quick,
To drag us wildered sheep by scruff of neck,
Back into Eden’s pleasances.
Turns out that all along that blade
Was judgment-sharp just like a word
That means exactly what is says;
For Love it does burn very hot.
Now come, and at my table sup;
Friendship is free, yet has a cost.
A third,
These words are angel-cyphers, if you read
Then you are friend to God and me.
Welcome, welcome eternally.
A fourth,
O God has given many gifts to men
And one is this: that in these characters
I may His image greet from my soul’s depths;
Nor wave nor salt nor wind may these efface:
For now two sons of God are met
Beneath a roof to share the selfsame breath.
And Logos-fire runs through this lettering
Into the brick and mortar of this house,
For sign unto the dark angel of death
Like blood of a young lamb upon the frame,
That who dwells here bears the seal of His name.
