A Blessing and a Curse - Nov 3 2020

 

A Blessing and a Curse

Nov 3 2020

“May you live in interesting times”

is both a blessing and a curse.

But we are never nothing but breathless

with the great importance of now,

never really learning

that history will likely forget us

or be falsified and twisted

for nefarious ends.

Or that the future will not even care,

just as we are ignorant of our past

and eagerly peering ahead,

aroused by novelty, excitement, distraction

while also hoping for the best.

Nevertheless, you may want to look back

at this momentous year

and find you agree that it was.

Because for once, I actually feel

that I can see history happening

around my inconsequential life,

and that the present is a hinge

on which the world will decisively turn.

Still, I feel this curse upon me

and would prefer to escape the noise.

To find a peaceful refuge

where the world comes to a stop

and the fiery passions go quiet

and there's plenty of time for thought.

Where the smallest things

will be interesting enough;

the first crocus of spring

through a glistening mantle of snow,

a clear night sky in winter

as more and more stars appear.

Because by now, I'm exhausted

by politics, and crisis, and threat.

“The end of history”, an academic once said,

thinking we'd come to consensus

but proved wrong in the end.

So please, let it be next year

I'm tired of being blessed.

If you're a student of history, you'll recognize this as the date of the 2020 US election, in which the Presidential candidates were Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and that it came after 4 years of a Trump presidency. ...Enough said.

We Are All Frogs - Nov 7 2020

 

We Are All Frogs

Nov 7 2020

We are all frogs,

and the water

is slowly heating up.

But this comes naturally to us,

the sense that things will always be as they are

and always have.

If only

we learned more about the past.

If only

we questioned what's happening,

challenged ourselves

to imagine even better.

Trouble is, I tend to be complacent

even cowardly.

I get too comfortable,

good

at the small incremental adjustments

that eventually add up,

first to compromise, then detachment

then the complicity of silence,

holding my tongue

head down.

Until it's too damned hot

and we're all boiled alive.

But the metaphor is false,

because frogs are too sensible

to tarry long,

hopping out of the beaker, and out of the lab,

to a choice lily pad

in some stagnant pond.

Eyes blinking sleepily

and lounging in the sun,

flicking long sticky tongues

at passing flies.

The bourgeois life of a frog

a man can only envy.

The unthinking luxury

of living in the now,

the perennial present

in a pleasant little pond

in a summer without end,

no need to remember

and nothing to forget.

This is the momentous day Joe Biden was officially declared President-elect. At the time of this writing, what happens in the next turbulent 70 or so days with Donald Trump a lame duck but still dangerous, not to mention an unpredictable Electoral College, remains to be seen.

But after 4 years in which the democracy we took for granted revealed its fragility, this idea of how easily we accommodate ourselves to slow change and “new normals” has been amply illustrated: when, instead of outrage and condemnation, his of litany of corruption, criminality, bullying, lying, and previously unthinkable flouting of convention were so soon eliciting mere yawns and shoulder shrugs -- “just Donald being Donald ... more of the same ... ho-hum”. How we so quickly forgot yesterday's latest eruption as we were all abuzz with today's, until the overwhelming weight of his transgressions left us numb.

And the fact that so many still deny climate change and that action has been so insubstantial, even when its devastating effects are becoming evident in daily life, is evidence of more of the same.

So we are all frogs in boiling water, pleasantly oblivious to imminent danger. We forget the lessons of history; that is, if we ever even learned them. We are complacent about how things are, as if they were always this way. Because the truth is, at least in terms of climate, the tiny window of time in which our species has ascended and our civilization flourished is the exception, not the rule. In a climate system of tipping points and positive feedback loops, things stay the same ...until they suddenly don't.

But as I recall I once heard, this experiment never happened and frogs don't behave this way.

As well, there is much to be said for bourgeois values, even though it's fashionable among the intelligentsia to denigrate them. Because it's the extremists and the self-righteous and the utterly convicted who are the most dangerous; while the rest of us, who take refuge in the small dailiness of life – tending our gardens, enjoying the small domestic pleasures of family and friends – are the bedrock of social order and civility. The key, of course, is to still pay attention. I'm not sure the frog in the final stanza is. But then, animals have the great luxury of living in the now. We don't.

The Luckless Dead - Nov 11 2020

 

The Luckless Dead

Nov 11 2020

We run our fingers

over the weathered letters

inscribed on the cenotaph,

calling them heroes

and trying to focus

on suitably reverent thoughts.

Honouring men

who are not there

to hear us give thanks.

Who were too young

to have lived much of life

when their world went black;

even before

they heard sound of the shot,

the high-pitched whine

of jagged shrapnel shards

spinning madly through the air.

And who, in the agony

of eviscerated guts

and amputated limbs

in their brief time left,

would pray for deliverance

and welcome death.

We use words like “gone to rest,”

but their remains are not them,

and rather than at peace

these raw young men

have been expunged.

Bland words like this may console us,

but they evade hard truths

and debase their sacrifice.

He describes the bullet

that whizzed by his head,

the buddy who dropped

at his side in the trench;

a surprised look on his face,

bright red blood

expanding like a cancerous bloom

on his soiled khaki tunic.

So it was not skill or virtue

that spared him from death,

it was dumb luck and blind fate;

millimetres and microseconds

either way.

Right time, right place.

Like the accident of birth

that favoured my generation,

who have been privileged to live

in an era of plenty and peace

rarely enjoyed by our kind.

A time

when the last surviving veteran

will soon depart,

and remembrance can no longer depend

on those who were there.

Who know that wars are never won

but only lost.

For there are no victors in war

only surrender and loss.

Only lines on maps

and badly bloodied flags.

Futile ends

we could have foretold

would be less than zero sum.

And survivors

damaged beyond repair,

the memories

of the luckless dead

soldiering grimly on.

I haven't written a November 11^th poem for quite a while. I used to make it an annual rite. But now seems especially appropriate, since not only is this the 75^th anniversary of the end of the Second World War – the last good war? – but a time when the last of its veterans are leaving us.

A few thoughts came to mind.

We honour the dead. But really, there is no way to suitably honour them or communicate our thanks. There are no heroes, or at least very few; only lucky survivors and wasted lives. Language is all-important to me. So euphemistic words like “at rest”, even if well-meant, really stick: they may console the living, but somehow debase and dishonour the sacrifice of the dead. Who did not go to some peaceful eternal rest, but rather were annihilated in a final conscious moment of terrible physical and spiritual suffering.

Anecdotes told by veterans of war – such as escaping death by a second or an inch -- is a reminder of how powerful randomness and contingency are. We believe in personal agency, and it's probably useful to do so; but really, this is mostly a conceit, because all our lives are so much determined by dumb luck.

My generation has lived out our lives at a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity in the Western world. (The US, as usual, the exception!) I think this may make it harder for us, but also more essential, to appreciate what we owe to the previous generations who, at the cost of their lives, made this privileged existence possible.

There are still lots of wars going on. At the time of this writing, what immediately come to mind are the prolonged proxy war in Yemen and the recent armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia (yes, I know, we all have to look at a map!), as well as the escalating hostilities between the government of Ethiopia and its restive province of Tigray. But no one wins a war. There is no win-win, or even won-lost; only lose-lose. The futility is breathtaking. So much would be saved by simply cutting to the chase: negotiate, and accept the inevitable losses and compromise; don't get carried away with jingoism, tribal loyalty, and historical grievances. As Winston Churchill famously said: “to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.” Ironically, it's most often the Generals who know that war is a last desperate resort – not at all glorious – and to be avoided at all costs. Only those who have truly been to war know how terrible and dehumanizing it really is.

Out of Time - Nov 14 2020

 

Out of Time

Nov 14 2020

The sweep of the second hand.

On some clocks

a smooth steady arc.

On others, a pause

on each small mark,

ratcheting through time

as if, for an instant

you could stop the world and get off,

let out a breath

and compose yourself.

But who decided on clockwise?

And who takes their time

so precisely

they need to count off the seconds

one by one?

There is something hypnotic

in the rock steady sweep

of its long thin wand,

so steadfast in its duty

and indifferent to our wants

it seems unstoppable;

impervious to our desire

to take a break from time

and nurse our private sorrows.

But the arrow of time

never hits the mark,

as the future keeps receding

and we never reach its promised land.

All the hypothetical futures

we imagine for ourselves

in the fullness of time.

And hardly as constant

as the second hand suggests,

interminably slow

when we're bored with life,

but faster and faster

as the end approaches.

When we will care less and less

about what's to come,

and care much more

about what we've done

or have not.

Because no one watches the clock

on their deathbed,

when the urgency of youth

is overcome by philosophy.

Time is meaningless

when it comes to eternity

and our own everlasting rest,

the second hand circling

and imperturbably circling

around and around again.

The poem starts by presuming that time is objective and absolute.

But it clearly isn't constant. Our perception of time depends on our state of mind, our state of flow, our emotional arousal. It also changes as we age: we are all familiar with how it seems to speed up the older we get. And with a degree of enlightenment, perhaps we're even capable of transcending time altogether: the dissolution of the boundaries of ego matched by a universal sense of serenely detached timelessness.

I wanted to capture the feeling of inexorability the sweep of the second hand imparts. But this same motion also conveys two competing ideas: the linear sense of unstoppable progress, alongside the cyclic sense of an endlessly repeating circle. So analogue clocks contain an inherent contradiction.

Nevertheless, most of us can't help but be oppressed by time. So look away, pull the plug, pop the batteries out. Mind over matter, I say. Stick a finger in its way, and make the second hand stop.

Hunkering - Nov 24 2020

 

Hunkering

Nov 24 2020

All day, snow has been falling,

big wet flakes

drifting soundlessly down.

While rain pelts, patters, pours.

Like a drumbeat, there's no ignoring it,

beating insistently

on the earth below.

I take comfort in the silence

of steadily falling snow,

a still mantle of white

muffling the world,

the darkness of winter

to rest the eyes.

The long gravel driveway

that leads to the winding road

that eventually reaches the highway,

so-called

even though it's poorly travelled and roughly paved

and inconsistently plowed,

remain trackless, for now.

No one ventures out

and no one comes.

Wedding cake houses

are hunkered down

puffing out smoke,

light in the windows

and frost on the glass.

I toss a log on the fire

and allow time to pass.

How lovely to be snow-stayed,

when there is only this moment

no future or past,

no plans, rumination

indispensable task.

I've written previously about the pleasures of being snow-stayed. Not only am I grateful to live in a place with four distinct seasons, but one in which we find ourselves compelled to surrender to nature.

And also one that gives us the opportunity to be present: that is, living in the moment, instead of our usual way of life. Which is living in either the future – making plans, along with the concomitant anxiety and anticipation – or in the past – if not wallowing in the sadness of rumination, then indulging in the cheap sentimentality of nostalgia.

I'm always suspicious of a poem that comes too easily, as this one did. But perhaps I shouldn't be. The explanation for this may be found here, which is the short introduction I included when sending the first draft to my first readers: “This thing wrote itself in about half an hour. I think "plagiarizing" myself helps: that is having written much the same poem in the past, made numerous false starts, and now with 20 years of practice under my belt, writing is more like taking dictation than agonizing over too many words and wrestling with an infinity of choices. So it shouldn't surprise me that a poem on a subject like this would come out easily and cleanly, right from the start.”

The Only Animal That Cries - Nov 20 2020

 

The Only Animal That Cries

Nov 20 2020

We are the only animal that cries.

Although rats laugh when they're tickled,

even if it's far too high

for us to hear.

And I could swear my dog smiles,

but am told I merely project,

and that a dog showing her teeth

means beware.

Of course, dust gets in your eye.

And who doesn't tear up

when the sun is bright

the pollen high?

And then the ones who can't recall

when last they did.

The warm salty tang.

The rush of feeling

and lost control.

The exquisite relief,

followed by embarrassment

to have felt so exposed.

A dam breaks

and whole cities are washed away.

So they are made parabolic

to hold the pent-up weight.

And then there are deserts

where all at once it rains;

when the barrens bloom

painting the land,

and rivers rage

scouring out the sand.

If I were only geometric

and could somehow hold back,

not one

to let the current take me

or let my colours show.

Wary

of letting the dam break

the pent-up weight it holds.

After so many years

of staring into the sun,

so many more

it was wet and cold.

A hard rain

I fear might overflow.

By not crying, I of course mean emotional crying. All animals produce tears; but only humans cry.

The New Yorker publishes a series of essays under the heading Personal History. This one appeared in the Nov 16, 2020 edition. Like the author, I was also raised to be stoic, undemonstrative, restrained. She doesn't often cry, and neither do I. Not alone or in public. I can't remember the last time I did. Immediately after reading Yiyun Li's piece, this poem came to me.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/16/the-ability-to-cry

Here's something that further elaborates on the opening line.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628932-400-tragic-tears-why-we-are-the-only-animals-that-cry/

Watershed - Oct 22 2020

 

Watershed

Oct 22 2020

In this watershed year

I feel myself going downhill,

descending from the height of land

from which all water flows.

You'd think it would be easy, heading downstream,

but not when it pours

and this raging current has me.

If only I'd known

that this slippery slope

was no mere elevation;

was, instead, the continental divide

and that there was no going back.

Only water

a far horizon

the sea's unfathomed depths.

The downward slope is steep

treacherous with scree.

And as rain incessantly falls

it carries me further down;

scrambling, stumbling, slipping

unsure of the ground beneath my feet.

Not the downstream of easy going

but the downhill of loss;

my disappointed dreams,

and a protesting body

repeatedly betraying me.

If only some sign had appeared, some warning.

Even though I can't deny

that I had known all along.

Just not when

how fast

how wrong it would seem.

One fateful step either way

and all rivers flow the same.

To an ocean with the salt of tears.

To an ocean where I'll disappear.

To an ocean where life began

and will end

and then begins again,

returning to the warm fertile sea

from whence we all came.

I turned 65 earlier this year. For the many of you who haven't, please understand that you never feel that old, you are amazed by the number, and your contemporaries will all look unaccountably aged.

It's a highly symbolic year, but for me this symbolism became unexpectedly real. First, 2020 – the pandemic year-- was a lousy one for just about everyone. But for me, there were several things that happened (or didn't!) that made me feel not only my age for the first time, but that there was no going back. That is, a watershed year.

Which is where the poem began. A way, perhaps, to write myself out of my negativity by circling around the issue with metaphor and detachment.

For the last half year or so I have given up paper and pen and write directly on the computer keyboard. So there is no crumpled piece of paper full of cross-outs and palimpsest to show my process. In this case, though, no need: these words went down on the screen almost exactly as you see them now; so except for a few minor tweaks on the way, the rough draft pretty much became the final version. I began with a single idea, relied on long practice, and then surrendered to my stream of consciousness.

I did end with a little hopefulness, though: a nod to transformation, the generative ocean, the cycle of life.

Superpower - Nov 2 2020

 

Superpower

Nov 2 2020

I am slowly disappearing.

I can only suppose

this is how a beautiful woman feels

who's grown accustomed to the male gaze,

more and more invisible

with the encroachment of age.

Not that I've ever been noticed,

but now, I'm not even seen for myself

by for what I appear.

But harder to understand

is actually getting smaller,

my settling spine, thinning muscles

fast receding hair.

Even less of me to be seen

and overlooked.

So while the younger me

may have been full of himself,

the passage of time

has taught me humility.

I always wished I could fly,

but my superpower now

is invisibility,

the incredible shrinking man

inconspicuous

and unselfconscious.

But still watchfully observing the world,

free of seduction, ambition, approval

and the other distractions of youth.

Of course, nothing lasts.

And the iron law of entropy

dictates a cold motionless end

to everything.

A universe, disappearing like me

making room for what follows;

another Big Bang, perhaps

or my descendants and heirs.

Who will also shrink

as the pendulum swings

and generations succeed

from next to next to next.

While I bemoan my diminished physical state (especially since having just had a hip replacement, I'm feeling atypically frail) I appreciate the antidote to self-importance that comes with age. In this poem, this idea of getting physically smaller and socially invisible dovetails with the view of life not as something linear, like an ever ascending line of a graph, but as something cyclical: growing and then shrinking; generations succeeding; perhaps even a pendulum universe that keeps on recapitulating creation.

Getting smaller can be both good and bad. One can take refuge invisibility. But becoming irrelevant is also hard on the ego. A beautiful woman, who has always found the male gaze trying, may feel relieved not to be repeatedly hit on, and in not being judged solely by her looks. But I suspect there is always some regret: everyone wants to be seen as desirable, so being ignored and going unseen is a burden as well. Secretly, she may very well envy her younger self.

You may be familiar with the “superpower” party trick, in which people are asked which they'd prefer: the power of flight, or invisibility? The answer is immediately obvious to me: flight. I already have the power of invisibility, after all: I've felt invisible all my life!

Alas, unlike the narrator, I am single and childless, and will have no descendants and heirs. Please, never mistake a poem for autobiography.

Simple Present - Oct 31 2020

 

Simple Present

Oct 31 2020

When we learn to tell time

we're told it's clockwork,

lighted digits blinking off

hands steadily circling.

But even physicists,

who believe in universal laws

and measure things

meticulously

down to the last indivisible particle,

concede that time

can stretch as well as shrink.

My dogs inhabit the now,

never dwelling on the past

or fretting for the future.

So they live outside of time,

except as it applies

to dinner-   , play-   , sleep-    .

They have achieved an enlightenment

to which only children and masters of Zen

can aspire.

I'm not nearly so transcendent,

but have at least learned

how supple time can be.

How, in that state of flow

when I'm immersed and intense

it goes in the blink of an eye.

While looking back

it's as if the clock had slowed,

a full life

as I take my time remembering.

And how, when I'm bored

time drags unbearably,

yet in retrospect

seems to have raced ahead.

As if I'd leapfrogged

some forgettable void.

In English, there are 16 tenses,

from past progressive

to simple present.

Such fine pedantry

by which to place ourselves

exactly.

But stranded on a desert isle

when you can only keep track of time

by the sound of waves

tick-tocking ashore,

the relentless sun

as it transits the sky,

it becomes what we make of it;

immaterial

and utterly subjective.

I don't want to romanticize

the endless waiting

of the wretched castaway,

but there is a kind of freedom

in being out of time,

indifferent to its passage

taking refuge in the mind.

Like an empty hourglass,

or the hands of a clock

turned back again and again,

an SOS in the sand

lasts only as long as the tide,

resetting time

until it stops making sense.