Victoria on the Void

AUTUMNAL OWL
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

My friend Victoria recently suggested that
bleak November was a good time to re-read
one of our favorite poems by one of our favorite poets:

In a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks—is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

By Theodore Roethke (1908 – 1963)

We had been comparing visits to our local cemeteries. For me, it was the small sad Confederate Cemetery, just down the street from our house, where I love taking a walk. For Victoria, it was Lakewood Cemetery, "the most beautiful in the Twin Cities. There's a bench next to the small lake, and it's perfect for reflecting on purpose and passion, restlessness and recklessness, strength and fragility; feeling rather vapid in a disturbing vacuum. How do you fill The Void?"

How do I do it? Reading, writing, swimming, looking after the grandkids. I just have to a - void that spiral of "Now, why am I doing this?" Oh yeah, that's right, so that they too may grow up strong, thoughtful and contemplative, and one day feel -- and find a way to fill -- The Void. Sigh . . .

As ever, in a dark time, there are the inestimable insights of the great writers and thinkers. Like as we, Ralph Waldo Emerson also faced The Void:

"After thirty, we wake up sad every morning,
excepting perhaps five or six, until the day of our death.”
Isn't it somewhat ennobling, right, to think that Emerson felt the same way, so long ago? And not necessarily from depression or even aging, though perhaps coming of age -- whenever it happens -- might have something to do with it. Emerson mentions the existential sadness kicking in at age thirty, the true end of childhood.

How did Jonathan Swift do it?
"I never wake without finding life more
insignificant than it was the day before."

How did E. M. Forster do it?
“Two people pulling each other into Salvation
is the only theme I find worthwhile."
~ from his Commonplace Book

How does Alithea / Tilda Swinton do it?
"Despite all the whiz-bang, we remain bewildered."
~ from the movie ~
Three Thousand Years of Longing

Petrified Wood, Statuette & Owl (above)
all from my brother Dave's back yard.

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, December 14th
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

The Orion Connection

ORION THE HUNTER
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Why do so many depictions of Orion include his belt but not his sword?
Still, I like this one because it labels both Betelgeuse and Bellatrix

Sky and Telescope

These two star maps are less vivid than the one above,
yet they are helpful in other ways.
Firstly, they both include the sword!
Secondly, they include Sirius, the brightest star in
Canis Major, one of Orion's hunting dogs.

Sound Cloud

Orion has always been a favorite with the poets,
as these excerpts reveal:
#1
from "Orion"
by Charles Tennyson Turner (1808 - 1879)

How oft I've watch'd thee from the garden croft,
In silence, when the busy day was done,
Shining with wondrous brilliancy aloft,
And flickering like a casement 'gainst the sun!
I've seen thee soar from out some snowy cloud,
Which held the frozen breath of land and sea,
Yet broke and sever'd as the wind grew loud
But earth-bound winds could not dismember thee,
Nor shake thy frame of jewels; I have guess'd
At thy strange shape and function, haply felt
The charm of that old myth about thy belt
And sword . . .
#2
from "Winter Stars"
by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)

I bore my sorrow heavily.
But when I lifted up my head
From shadows shaken on the snow,
I saw Orion in the east
Burn steadily as long ago . . .
#3
from "Baseball and Writing"
by Marianne Moore (1887 - 1972)

Studded with stars in belt and crown,
the Stadium is an adastrium.

O flashing Orion,
your stars are muscled like the lion.
#4
from "Orion"
by Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012)

. . . you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you're young

my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your breast open, your belt dragged down
by an oldfashioned thing, a sword
the last bravado you won't give over
though it weighs you down as you stride

and the stars in it are dim
and maybe have stopped burning.
But you burn, and I know it . . .

Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow's nest,
my speechless pirate!
#5
the poem "Orion"
by James Longenbach (1959 – 2022)

Stars rising like something said, something never
To be forgotten, shining forever—look
How still they are.

Blind hunter crawling
Toward sunrise, then healed.

He opened his eyes to find her waiting

—Afraid—and together they traveled
Lightly: requiring nothing

But a sense that the road beneath them stretched
Forever. At the edge

He entered the water, swam so far
That he became a speck: his body

Washed ashore, then raised to where we see it now—
The belt, the worn-out sword. I'm not

Afraid—

Except that there is nothing beneath us,
No ground without fear. The body vulnerable

—You can look at me—

The body still now, never
Changing, rising forever—stay—

Like something said.

There are numerous others
[e.g., Stoddart, O'Malley]
but perhaps the real question is:
do we even deserve the heroics of Orion,
the "faithful beauty of the stars,"
and the grandeur night sky:

The Earthlings

The Earthlings arrived unannounced, entered
without knocking, removed their shoes
and began clipping their toenails.
They let the clippings fall wherever.
They sighed loudly as if inconvenienced.
We were patient. We knew our guests
were in an unfamiliar environment; they needed
time to adjust. For dinner, we prepared
turkey meatloaf with a side of cauliflower.
This is too dry, they said.
This is not like what our mothers made.
We wanted to offer a tour of our world,
demonstrate how we freed ourselves
from the prisons of linear time.
But the Earthlings were already spelunking
our closets, prying tools
from their containers and holding them
to the light. What’s this? they demanded.
What’s this? What’s this? And what’s this?
That’s a Quantum Annihilator; put that down.
That’s a Particle Grinder; please put that down.
We could show you how to heal the sick, we said.
We could help you feed every nation, commune
with the all-seeing sentient energy that palpitates
through all known forms of matter.
Nah! they said. Teach us to vaporize a mountain!
Teach us to turn the moon into revenue!
Then the Earthlings
left a faucet running and flooded our basement.

by Matthew Olzmann

Click for greater detail
from Denver & the BBC

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, November 28th
Between now and then, read

THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ The Faithful Beauty of the Stars
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