Anyway, the weed flowers or the ‘accidentals” are nearly gone from the yard here on the day that marks the beginning of my fifty-sixth year in existence. The iris blooms are mostly shed. Only sullied tissues of petals are left drooping on the stems. I am happy to see that the purple coneflower, also known as Echinacea, is about to blossom, maybe in another three or four days. It is also one of my very favorites. It is somewhat accidental, and it tends to hang around for a while. At least, I imagine that it usually does so.
This blog is primarily about literary miscellany and though I have included some poems with the pictures of flowers, I am a bit concerned that I am very, very tempted to let this blog become a place for pictures of flowers and little else because taking pictures of flowers is relatively easy, and I have a lazy nature. Flowers may be beautiful, and cell phone cameras may help me take some shots that are better than I might do otherwise, but, let’s be honest, there is not much effort in these photo productions. Poetry—and writing about it—takes some brain effort, some searching of thoughts and knowledge, and some word crafting. That is hard work. I am not averse to hard work, but my first instinct is always to avoid it when possible.
I know that when I sit to write a blog, if it isn’t a Dewey Lynne story or such, I expect to include a poem of some sort. To come up with original poetry for me at this point in my life is damned near impossible. In my own attempts at verse, I am constantly reminded of W. B Yeats' The Circus Animals’ Desertion. It is odd. The poem is not one of my favorites within Yeats' extensive catalogue. I do not understand a lot of what he is writing about in Verse 2 with Oisin, Countess Cathleen, and Cuchalain. Though I am sure that I have researched those names a plenty, the stories of these characters do not resonate with me, and I have forgotten them already again. Sadly, I do not find that, in writing about the poem once more, I have any desire to look them up.
So, why do I go back to the poem? I suspect that Yeats writing this poem was where I am now in my life at the age of fifty-six. Yeats was sixty-eight when the poem was published. I do not know when he wrote it—and that does not matter—that both of us are older poets losing the wonderful inspiration of fresh ideas is important. I, too, seek themes in vain though I do not seek for six weeks as he claims. I would not say that I am a broken man, but I must be satisfied with what is in my heart because I seldom find any part of me that is trying to become new. Unlike the flowers that I love so much, I doubt that I will be blossoming any more at this stage of my life. As Yeats does, I feel that at some point in my poetic art I had a pure and fertile mind that was almost obsessive about the new ideas and images that were constantly created, and so I hoarded them and piled them into corners of my brain, and then, horribly, at another stage I looked into that mind and found it full of litter and clutter because, somehow and some way, I had forgotten—or maybe was incapable of--minding the till. The last three lines of the poem I practically know by heart:
...Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart. Verse 3, Lines 6-9.
Yes, that is true. It is exactly what my poetic artistry—if, indeed, I have performed poetry as an art--has become. For me to write a poem, it has become so difficult to find “new” inspiration that I invariably and quickly return to that old “rag and bone shop of the heart” where the poems lay that I have discarded, mostly because the craftsmanship was so bad—but the ideas, the ideas, they were so good! So fresh! So heavily laden with emotion that my old heart now probably could not bear the pleasure or pain of feeling them!
Here is the real poet’s curse. Maybe others have said it, but now I do also. When the ideas came to me constantly like snowflakes in a blizzard, I had no craft. I did not know what to do with the ideas except to let them fall where they may. Now that I know what the art is, how to arrange the snowflakes and put them together in meaningful manner, the blizzard is gone, no snow falls, and I am left trying to pan and sluice snowflakes from the mud around my feet and ankles.
Here is another bit of litter from the old workshop. Yeah, it is very heavily rearranged. Enjoy!
Happiness, Art, or Inspiration
Queens of my mind, Lights of my soul,
For each and all, my heart has room.
I need all three to make me whole
As tempting blossoms need perfume
To get their pollen spread about.
But I perceive one whispers, "No".
She will not share my teeming mind.
She packs the items I need so
And leaves the other sprites behind
To sort my unfilled essence out.
She knew that I could not love one.
She knew that I was flesh and bone.
She’s cursed me now, and I have none.
I will be cursed and go alone,
For I am only flesh and bone.
Yes, I am only flesh and bone.
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