"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture
and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words." ~Goethe

~ also, if possible, to dwell in "a house where all's accustomed, ceremonious." ~Yeats

Monday, November 14, 2022

The Soul Shrinks: Wilbur & Whyte

FURTHER CONNECTIONS,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
" . . . a small opening into the new day . . . "


1. Scroll back eleven years
to Richard Wilbur's dreamy poem
"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World":

"The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn. . . .

The soul shrinks

From all that is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day . . ."


&

2. Now go back five Thanksgivings
to David Whyte's tender reminder of
"What To Remember When Waking":

"In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans. . . .

To be human is to become visible . . .
To remember the other world in this world
is to live . . . "

In very similar ways, these two poems describe the first few seconds of consciousness after a deep forgetful sleep. Whyte says the world of dreams is frightening; Wilbur finds the waking world astounding, and not always in a good way -- which is why the soul shrinks from it. Waking up is hard! It's all about remembering and starting over again, every day.

Nowhere is this daily repetition more vividly demonstrated than in the morning routine of Roy Scheider / Joe Gideon / Bob Fosse, as portrayed in the 1979 movie All that Jazz. He washes his face, puts drops in his eyes, takes a handful of meds, smacks his cheeks, looks in the mirror, and -- miraculously -- his soul appears, ready to accept the punishing reality of his relentless schedule: It's showtime!

Wilbur imagines the soul beginning each day "bodiless" before its descent and reunion with the physical body. Similarly, Whyte suggests the soul's movement from one state to another: "To be human is to become visible." However mystical and enriching our sleep may be, we are perpetually required to make the jagged transition from dreams to reality, to apply ourselves, to get back to work again, gathering our desires. It' showtime!

The morning light illuminates the "hunks and colors" and "shapes" of our earthly life, all those bulky obligations and responsibilities, all that quotidian laundry.

For Wilbur,

" . . the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body
. . . "


For Whyte,

"Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits
. . . "

In both poems, it is love, bitter or not, that calls us to the things of this world. Each narrator reveals a strategy for how to keep on loving the world, participating in the panorama, and writing about it. Whyte says, have a big plan, not a small plan; try not to feel uneasy; you belong here! Wilbur says, no it's not easy keeping our balance; it's difficult but also -- as he describes the laundry animated by the breeze -- joyful, angelic, delicate.

Photos of November Foliage
West Sussex, England

Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, November 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

2 comments:

  1. THE POEMS:

    "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World"
    ~by Richard Wilbur

    The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
    And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
    Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
    As false dawn.

    Outside the open window
    The morning air is all awash with angels.

    Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
    Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
    Now they are rising together in calm swells
    Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
    With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

    Now they are flying in place, conveying
    The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
    And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
    They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
    That nobody seems to be there.

    The soul shrinks

    From all that is about to remember,
    From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
    And cries,

    “Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
    Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
    And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."

    Yet, as the sun acknowledges
    With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
    The soul descends once more in bitter love
    To accept the waking body, saying now
    In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

    "Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
    Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
    Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
    And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
    Of dark habits,
    keeping their difficult balance."

    &

    What To Remember When Waking
    ~by David Whyte (Dec 30, 2013)

    In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
    coming back to this life from the other
    more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
    where everything began,
    there is a small opening into the new day
    which closes the moment you begin your plans.

    What you can plan is too small for you to live.
    What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
    for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

    To be human is to become visible
    while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
    To remember the other world in this world
    is to live in your true inheritance.

    You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
    you are not an accident amidst other accidents
    you were invited from another and greater night
    than the one from which you have just emerged.

    Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
    toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
    what urgency calls you to your one love?
    What shape waits in the seed of you
    to grow and spread its branches
    against a future sky?

    Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
    In the trees beyond the house?
    In the life you can imagine for yourself?
    In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

    ReplyDelete
  2. David Whyte on the topic of Friends:

    “Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence, the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way even after one half of the bond has passed on.

    "But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

    Excerpt from “Friendship”
    by David Whyte
    (interview with Sam Harris: Making Sense)

    ReplyDelete