... Except That They're Present

July 20 2014

When I walked through the woods
after learning the names of trees
the path seemed clear.
As if a lens had found its focus
and the soft greenery sharpened.
As if a flat canvas
had acquired depth,
every tree
stood separate.

Even though names are mere conceits
disguised as knowledge;
what more do I know, after all
but one more word?

Yet how could I live
without language?
Navigating the world
in an incurious blur,
getting by
on grunts, and gestures.
Where I couldn't think
big thoughts,
abstraction, and concept
would be impossible.

If all language is metaphor
then in my head
a parallel universe exists,
one

among the billions.
So in the simple act of forgetting

whole planets perish

stars go dead.
When all would seem lost, yet the world goes on,

indifferent

unwitnessed.

The woods are familiar now;
my feet find their way, thoughts drift off.

I am a simpleton here

ignorant, unlettered,

but intently receptive

to the messy profusion of life.

So I have started on sound, and listening better;
to birdsong, and trees that fall,

to wind

portending the weather.

Though I know nothing of birds
except that they're present,

somewhere

in that green amorphous curtain.

Their calls merge

the underbrush scurries,

all alert

to heavy footsteps, laboured breath.

In this cathedral of nature,

where there never was

any sacred silence

for me to disturb.

Where I need not be sure

of even a little

I've seen and heard;

no bird yet identified,

no tree referred.

The woods are deep,

hidden things, swarming

in dappled leaves

underneath rocks.
Walled-off by words,
when I would prefer
to know only forest.
To find myself lost
and speechless.
To walk
as if no one had been here before.


I think this is about the bliss of ignorance, the limitations of language, the smug certainty of naming. And about reductionism set against a more organic vision of the whole.

Without language, we would not be human. Higher order thinking would be impossible. The world beyond sight and touch would be a blur. We would have impoverished inner lives. And because history wouldn't exist and culture would be thin, we could never know our forbears, would be lost to our descendants. The argument is that knowledge allows a deeper and more nuanced appreciation of things. And it certainly does feel powerful and all-knowing to walk through the woods, mapping a clear and certain path; identifying birds, calling out trees. This taxonomic knowledge helps order our attention, helps engage us in the surrounding world. It presumably enhances pleasure and deepens meaning. This is the argument for birders, who identify birds by their calls, annotate their plumage, compile lengthy life lists.

Yet there is a counter-argument: that in this reduction of the whole to its parts, we miss the real truth. This is certainly the lesson of ecology. A clear-cut that's been replanted, after all, is NOT a forest, notwithstanding the presumption of "reforestation": it's a monoculture plantation of trees. The organic whole is so much more, down into the soil and up into the air. So the message in this poem is a call for synthesis, not reduction. It asks you to chose between the forest and the "tree that fall(s)". It asks who might be more filled with wonder, feel more pleasure: the speechless, but observant, walker; or his all-knowing counterpart? I argue on behalf of the walker, who listens to the whole forest; who hears "birdsong" instead of calls.

The "deep" woods in the final stanza is more than mere cliché. It's meant to call back to "depth" in the first, and so illuminate the two ways of knowing. (If you missed this, I'm not at all surprised: it's a ridiculous subtlety, and hardly fair to even the most attentive reader!)

In the first stanza, there is the superficial knowledge of names, the illusion of knowing. As well as a slightly ironic -- not to mention skeptical -- reference to the Biblical injunction of naming: that in giving Man the power to name things, God not only confers dominion, but elevates and separates us from the rest of His creation.

In the final stanza, "deep" is meant to refer to a way of knowing that is more receptive, organic, and wholistic; one free of preconceived notions and received wisdom. The references in the final three stanzas are very intentional. There is flora and fauna (leaves and birds); soil ("underneath rocks") and air ("wind") and the 4th dimension of time ("portending" weather): so again, the whole forest, not just the trees.

Of course it's ironic that I would appear to inveigh against language -- and even more, against metaphor -- when everything about me is language; and when the poem itself is an intentional metaphor based on language, speech, and illiteracy. But the poem isn't against language; it's about the limitations of language, about its place. How, by their very nature, words get between us and reality. How language privileges processing over feeling and experiencing; how it creates distance; how it neatly orders the world and so hardens our thinking. I love language. And I tend to intellectualize everything. But there are also times for immersion, flow, letting go.

I had terrific fun with the 2nd last stanza. I wrote it after the poem was well finished, and while I was scanning through for what I thought would be the last time. I found myself still hung up on making this idea crystal clear (again, the fundamental mistake of not trusting the reader, of too many words): that is, the idea of being receptive to the symphony of sounds without reducing each call to an exercise in bird identification, without the gotcha-like focus on assigning species and names and checking-off lists. Also, for whatever reason, I hadn't yet overcome the compulsion to get something like "bird identification" in there, somewhere. So the stanza began with "merge", which nicely played off "curtain". And the fun came with keeping that sound going, while not making anything seem shoe-horned in just for the sake of rhyme: where it's just the word you'd expect, and seems to naturally fall into place. Which I think I succeeded in doing. (It goes like this: "scurries", "alert", "disturb", "sure", "heard", "bird", and "referred". And then continues into the final stanza with "words" and "prefer".) Not to mention finding a place for "identified" that didn't seem too contrived. A good editor would probably work on me to throw this stanza out entirely. But since I'm my own editor, and -- like most writers -- tend to regard every word as precious and inviolable(!), it stays! Because it's not just the fun of rhyme or the compulsion of "identified". I also like the way he becomes a clumsy interloper. I like the challenge to the romantic stereotype of nature as some sort of cathedral: reverent, and silent. I like the comfort with uncertainty; the humility of acknowledging unknowability.

I would highly recommend a fantastic podcast: an episode of WNYCs RadioLab called Words -- released free on iTunes Aug 9, 2010. (I know this because I still have it saved on my iPod!) It explores the relationship between language and thought, and is well worth listening. It explains a lot about the 2nd paragraph above.