Tags
1934, cheek, child, glass, hands, innocence, lap, nose, passing, sitting, tears, William Carlos Williams, windows, woman
YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW
While she sits
there
with tears on
her cheek
her cheek on
her hand
this little child
who robs her
knows nothing of
his theft
but rubs his
nose
YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW
She sits with
tears on
her cheek
her cheek on
her hand
the child
in her lap
his nose
pressed
to the glass
from Poems 1934
I prefer the second one, but I can’t fully appreciate the second one without the bed of the first one; which is why WCW had them this way, I guess; this is observed compassion, not getting-in-the-way compassion, not judging compassion; it is the compassion of a passing stream
————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–
child & sitting & windows & woman wormhole: silence
glass wormhole: Four Noble Truths
hands wormhole: psssssh
passing & William Carlos Williams wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
tears wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
I’ve never read these. To me, they have a very different focus. The first is judgmental against the child. The second my sympathetic to the child who wants to distance himself from the sadness. And am now wondering if he did the same with the red wheelbarrow and chickens.
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ah … ha; I’m going to have to go back and have a look
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Yes–I think, in true WCW fashion, these poems are too multi-faceted for the mind to quite pin down. A reflection of an experience of observation. Well, two facets perhaps of one observation–or did he in fact have two observations of the same experience, or……
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… aha, there speaks the photographer
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…forever confronted with the limitations of his instrument…
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But let us suppose that it is precisely this “not-pin-down-ing-ness” is precisely also the heart of the matter….the heart of compassion….letting things be as they are and observing them….embracing them….
I always seem to go back to etymology….
Observe– from Latin observare “watch over, note, heed, look to, attend to, guard, regard, comply with,” from ob “in front of, before” (see ob-) + servare “to watch, keep safe,”—
Emphasis mine on “to watch, keep safe”
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indeed: observation like a Bodhisattva – ‘the great and unknown friend of all’
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Great Poems
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I agree with you. I am actually more emotionally affected by the first version, but it is indeed embedded in the second. The “compassion of a passing” stream, yes.
Because (although I am no mother), I feel her pain–and the curious nosing of the child against the window.
I just came from caring for my niece. The emotion and tears of the mother are so real. Whether or not I know a child from my own physical self, I feel it nevertheless.
I don’t always care for WCW, and what I perceive in my own limitation as his bald obscurity and simplicity.
But I’m glad I read this tonight. A bit late to the game. Thanks for clue-ing me in.
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