“…and may the great elements…”

Tags

2022, 7*, assertion, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, career, death, elements, empire, identity, leaves, life, mother sentient beings, others, pain, prayer, space, statement, trees, twigs

                                        “…and may the great elements…”

                              they lay on me
                    the twigs that grew so wilfully
          asserting a different direction

                              the plethora of leaves
                    endless bickering of state-meant
          and chatter

                              and here and there
                    a fallen tree
          carcass of some vainglorious empire

                              of some untold career to behold
                    (look away, look away);
          they all create new space

                              now their demand and strife
                    are finished
          awaiting the final crunch

                              come, come to me my darlings
                    there is so much more that you could be now that
          you have matured

 

the title is a clip from the prayer of BCA III, 17-22: “And just as the great elements – earth, water and so forth – support the life of sentient beings, so may I too become the foundation of sustenance for all…”

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

career wormhole: c’mon – keep up
death & trees wormhole: Journey
identity wormhole: paisley // implicitly
leaves wormhole: ‘and is there homage …’
life & space wormhole: the inevitable tock // when we close our eyes
others wormhole: the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament

 

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YOUNG SYCAMORE by William Carlos Williams

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1927, 6*, air, branches, division, growth, gutter, pavement, sound, sycamore, trunk, twigs, water, William Carlos Williams, youth

                                YOUNG SYCAMORE

                I must tell you
                this young tree
                whose round and firm trunk
                between the wet

                pavement and the gutter
                (where water
                is trickling) rises
                bodily

                into the air with
                one undulant
                thrust half its height–
                and then

                dividing and waning
                sending out
                young branches on
                all sides–

                hung with cocoons–
                it thins
                till nothing is left of it
                but two

                eccentric knotted
                twigs
                bending forward
                hornlike at the top

 

from Poems, 1927: its the indigeogravity that I like of justwhatistherehere … only

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
branches wormhole: pursued
sound wormhole: St. Erasmus in Bishop Islip’s Chapels, 1796
water & William Carlos Williams wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XXII by William Carlos Williams

 

SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams

Tags

'scape, 1917, 7*, anchor, angle, birds, blue, branches, buds, concentration, convergence, desire, disappearance, energy, erect, flying, grey, ground, holding, orange, passing, red, right, rock, sky, Spring, sun, tap root, trees, twigs, William Carlos Williams

                                SPRING STRAINS

                In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
                crowded erect with desire against
                the sky–
                            tense blue-grey twigs
                slenderly anchoring them down, drawing
                them in–

                            two blue-grey birds chasing
                a third struggle in circles, angles,
                swift convergings to a point that bursts
                instantly!

                            Vibrant bowing limbs
                pull downward, sucking in the sky
                that bulges from behind, plastering itself
                against them in packed rifts, rock blue
                and dirty orange!

                                                                                But–
                (Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)
                the blinding and red-edged sun-blur–
                creeping energy, concentrated
                counterforce – welds sky, buds, trees,
                rivets them in one puckering hold!
                Sticks through! Pulls the whole
                counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,
                locks even the opaque, not yet defined
                ground in a terrific drag that is
                loosening the very tap-roots!

                On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
                two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,
                at full cry! Now they are
                flung outward and up – disappearing suddenly!

 

from Al Que Quiere, 1917

the cacophany of a single moment – all instruments loosening-up, scaling, tensing, waiting for the grand inaugural middle ‘C’ – all held together in a fidgety bag; the shabby audacity of this piece – ‘let’s not just have vignettes, let’s also have local, tectonic landscapes’ – made my young eyes work, I had to read it several times successively to hold together all the strands, and then he lets me off, I finally ‘got’ the three birds disappearing … you don’t hold it all together, you don’t; there’s no need to; William Carlos Williams was a crafty master

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

birds wormhole: {Ellen Terry’s house}
blue wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
branches & sky wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
grey wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
orange wormhole: I
passing wormhole: tram
red wormhole: Bridgnorth
Spring wormhole: city streets
sun & trees & William Carlos Williams wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams