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mlewisredford

~ may the Supreme and Precious Jewel Bodhichitta take birth where it has not yet done so …

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: astonishment

PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams

04 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

1917, 6*, astonishment, evil, good, gutter, identity, man, minister, pavement, pulpit, sound, sparrows, step, Sunday, thinking, voices, walking, William Carlos Williams, wisdom

                      PASTORAL

                The little sparrows
                hop ingenuously
                about the pavement
                quarreling
                with sharp voices
                over those things
                that interest them.
                But we who are wiser
                shut ourselves in
                on either hand
                and no one knows
                whether we think good
                or evil.
                      Meanwhile,
                the old man who goes about
                gathering dog-lime
                walks in the gutter
                without looking up
                as his tread
                is more majestic than
                that of the Episcopal minister
                approaching the pulpit
                of a Sunday.
                      These things
                astonish me beyond words.

 

from ‘Al Que Quiere’, 1917

it was these ‘pastorals’ that made me notice: there is a way out of societal precursoring, there is a way to see other than through those bi-focal lenses; and there is a way to see that doesn’t involve a revolution, that doesn’t involve the dismantling of what is there at all, but the love and heart to accept what is really there – clean, audial and postural – once the glasses have been taken off; it takes courage, of course, because in doing so you have to dismantle all the constructs which you had thought to be your identity, and even soul – this is why you need love, in order to handle the searing wisdom you will receive, there’s no place for ‘what about me’ (in fact, WCW, in just the previous poem in the Collected (‘Apology’) talked about how it is the faces that make him write, that oblige him to see); the everything about the anything that is ever more true than any myopic and partisan specificity

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

identity wormhole: anxiety
sound & voices wormhole: transferring
sparrows wormhole: somewhere
Sunday wormhole: buttercups
thinking wormhole: it’s all about…;
walking & William Carolos Williams wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams

 

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"... the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe to find ashes." ~ Annie Dillard

pages coagulating like yogurt

  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 10
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
    • Chapter 9
    • Introduction
  • collected works
    • 25th August 1981 – count Up
    • askance From Hell
    • Batman
    • Bob 1995-2012
    • David Bowie Movements in Suite Major
    • Edward Hopper: Poems at an Exhibition
    • Eglinton Hill
    • FLOORBOARDS
    • Granada
    • in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …
    • Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]
    • Miller’s Batman
    • mum
    • nan
    • Portsmouth – Southsea
    • Spring Warwick breezes / over Bacharach fieldwork and boroughs with / the occasional shift and chirp of David / in the pastel-long morning of the sixties
    • The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford
    • through the crash
  • index
    • #A-E see!
    • F–K, wha’ th’
    • L-P 33 1/3 rpm
    • Q-T pie
    • U-Z together forever
  • me
  • others
  • poemics
  • poeviews
  • teaching matters
  • William Carlos Williams
  • wormholes

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  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 8; reflectionary
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 7; reflectionary
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