Because It Is My Heart

A GARDEN WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Lionheart Lily

London Heart Lily

Lilies as hearts (tulips as lungs). Since last month's Fortnightly post, featuring my professor's advice from long ago -- "listen to your heart, figuratively and literally" -- I've been seeing hearts and hearing heartbeats at every turn. Sure enough, I saw them in the garden over the weekend and heard them a few days ago when I picked up Charley Henley's new book of short stories, The Deep Code.

So many codes structure our existence: computer codes, nuclear codes, Hammurabi's Code, the Fibonacci Sequence, the human genome, our cardiovascular system, and so on and so forth. Naturally, one of the most persistent of all these "deep codes" is the human heartbeat," as in:

"Heart throb, heart throb, wonder past knowing,
Where did you come from, where are you going?"

Each of Henley's stories is governed by at least one deep code or another. In connection with my recently acquired understanding of rubato and rubatosis, here are a few passages that struck my heart:

1. In "The Golden Horde of Mississippi," Grandma Lucy and Jessica Sue are conflicted over codes of ladylike behavior and funeral etiquette. Grasping her cousin Bobby's cremation urn, Jessica longs to disperse his ashes "back into the system. . . . she wondered about the countless generations bound up in the meat of her own palm. If you sit quiet enough you can hear the flux of your own nervous system, that great collision of billions upon billions of tiny stones" (43).

2. In "Satellite Mother," the teen-aged son carefully follows his father's instructions for aiming a rifle: "So I did what Pop taught me. I closed my eyes. I fell into the rhythm of my heart and lungs. I breathed normal. I breathed easy. Your muscles need the oxygen, and your heart needs to calm down, I heard Pop say. Your heart needs quiet. You need peace to make this shot. . . . I slipped down into the rhythm between the spasms of my heart. I took hold of the jerking muscle in my chest, and I smoothed it out. I let it all go. I breathed deep and when I opened my eyes, my heart was beating at a perfect sixty beats per - minute" (64).

3. In "Cerrito Blanco," young Tessa runs from certain trouble into the calm "cool sanctuary" of [an old] church. . . . Her heartbeat thundered in her chest. It echoed through the silence, as if the whole world throbbed with it." Meanwhile, her father Leonard recalls with despair the dissolution of his marriage to Tessa's mother, Darcy: "It was like his heart had gotten clapped in the door somewhere, and it was still there, stuck and beating and distant, a heart gone to him now and lost forever" (158, 163).

Equally wrenching is the "feeling like cold steel that crept up his guts when he thought about" Darcy's domineering mother. In the story "Pleco Fez," another fractured character shares Leonard's visceral anxiety: "It gave me this cold feeling . . . Like a lump of wet metal moving back and forth in my guts" (153, 118). Both of these passages bring to mind the aching innards described in my previous post, "Longly, Longingly."

But, getting back to hearts, all of the above characters, in their imprecise cosmic pursuits, embody the words written by Stephen Crane and borrowed by Joyce Carol Oates (and me):

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter — bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.” [emphasis added]

Or how about the determined villagers in Lisel Mueller's poem, "Moon Fishing," who are advised to

". . . cut out your hearts and bait your hooks
with those dark animals;
what matter you lose your hearts to reel in your dream?

And they fished with their tight, hot hearts . . . "

Reading Charley Henley's book, I can't help wishing that each story would last just a little (or a lot!) longer. You too will be drawn into the narratives of these folks, hunkering over their hearts, listening intently to the universe, and living by the deep code.

***************

At the heart of our garden ~ thanks to Gerry!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday August 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.blogspot.com

Many Many Moons

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
Pink Phlox on our front slope ~ April 2010
A much warmer and sunnier April than we're having so far this year!
Although some may find it hard to believe, neither the Pink Moon nor the Blue Moon is so named after the color of the moon (though I've even heard fact bound Jeopardy perpetuate this erroneous concept). In fact, the April Full Moon is often called the Pink Moon because of the moss pink ground phlox, one of the earliest widespread flowers of the Spring, which makes its appearance at this time.
Pink Moon Phlox
Other names for the April full moon, all referring to new life and regeneration, include the Egg Moon, the Fish Moon, the Planter's Moon, the Seed Moon, the Sprouting Grass Moon, and the Waking Moon. For more information on these nicknames and all the other Full Moon Names, there's always the good old reliable Farmers' Almanac. Plus there are plenty of fun and informative Lunar Blogs on the web.

Coincidentally, tomorrow's Total Lunar Eclipse will lend a pinkish, reddish hue to this year's April moon, inspiring its descriptive nickname: the Blood Moon, not a scientific term but a hugely popular one. I didn't try to photograph the lunar eclipse, but my friend Jay got some great shots:

Here's one of the best full moon poems I know, for a Blood Moon or any other kind, full of folklore and magic. Ancient or post - modern? These fisher - folk could well be either, upon their timeless quest:

Moon Fishing

When the moon was full they came to the water,
some with pitchforks, some with rakes,
some with sieves and ladles,
and one with a silver cup.

And they fished til a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
to catch the moon you must let your women
spread their hair on the water --
even the wily moon will leap to that bobbing
net of shimmering threads,
gasp and flop till its silver scales
lie black and still at your feet."

And they fished with the hair of their women
till a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
do you think the moon is caught lightly,
with glitter and silk threads?
You must cut out your hearts and bait your hooks
with those dark animals;
what matter you lose your hearts to reel in your dream?"

And they fished with their tight, hot hearts
till a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
what good is the moon to a heartless man?
Put back your hearts and get on your knees
and drink as you never have,
until your throats are coated with silver
and your voices ring like bells."

And they fished with their lips and tongues
until the water was gone
and the moon had slipped away
in the soft, bottomless mud.

by Lisel Mueller, American poet, born in Germany, 1924
Pulitzer Prize For Poetry, 1997

Thirst drove me down to the water
where I drank the moon’s reflection.
Rumi (1207 - 1273)
Persian Spiritual Sage

Trying to Capture the Moon
Thanks to Andrea Livingston for sharing this playful lunar collage, which reminded me of the following favorite children's stories that cleverly capture the conundrum of the moon, so close but still so far. How can the moon, so clearly visible to the naked eye, especially when it's full, be further away than England or California or even nearby Chicago, which we certainly can't see from Indiana? That just doesn't seem right!

Margaret Wise Brown -- Goodnight Moon
Gerry and I loved reading this one to Ben and Sam.
When Ben was little, all Gerry or I had to do was get out a copy
of "Goodnight Moon," and Ben would call out, "Nobody!"
(See Aimee Bender, 2014)

Eric Carle --Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me
Sometimes the moon is whatever size you need it to be!

James Thurber -- Many Moons
I did not know this book as a child, but loved it in college and
picked a passage from here for an oral interpretation assignment.

Cat Stevens -- Teaser and the Firecat
Love the album & the songs but better yet, the storybook!

See also "Moonshadow," another
Cat Stevens favorite!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, April 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ "Pink Moon" & "Many Moons"
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.blogspot.com