Hafiz: A Crystal Rim

Hafiz

Rumi -- as translated by Coleman Barks and others -- is, according to this broadcast which aired a few weeks ago, the current best selling poet in the Western world, with Hafiz not far behind. Apparently, copies of Barks' The Essential Rumi have sold in the hundreds of thousands. According to Daniel Ladinky, translator (or version-maker) of Hafiz's "The Gift", the appeal of these writers is obvious: unlike so much poetry in the west, which has been singularly focussed since the early 20th C. on the shadow side of life, these 13th-15th C. mystics express unstinting joy, life, union -- all badly needed balm for the vexed and troubled spirit of this new millenium.

On the mornings when I chant -- yes I do indeed chant, it is my "shower on the inside" -- I like to read
daily reflections -- inspirations, quotes -- by not only
the likes of Nichiren Daishonin or Daisaku Ikeda, but also mystics from other traditions: Rumi, the Tibetan buddhist Sogyal Rinpoche (his Glimpse by Glimpse I recommend), and others. For the past few months I've been reading a poem a day from The Gift, after the Lotus Sutra recitation & I begin my Nam Myoho Renge Kyos. Many of these readings are indeed inspirational. Others, downright trite. Others a curious blend of brilliant and saccherine. Here, for example, is one:

A CRYSTAL RIM

The
Earth
Lifts its glass to the sun
And light
Is poured

A bird
comes and sits on a crystal rim
and from my forest cave
I hear singing,

So I run to the edge of existence
And join my soul in love.

I lift my heart to God
And grace is poured.

An emerald bird rises from within me
and now sits
on the Beloved’s
Glass.

I have left that dark cave forever
My body has blended with His.

Now I lay my wing
As a bridge to you

So you may join us
Singing…

I assume much of the music is lost in the translation. It has to be for this poet to be great. (There is even considerable controversy as to how much of Hafiz is left in these freewheeling "versions" by Lewinsky -- even if the book bills them as translations.) But the poet in me says, whatever the language, Hafiz -- or Ladinsky -- could have done well to cut all the lines after the first two stanzas: aside from that emerald bird, all they represent is cosmic syrupy yuk yuk -- and all that abstract God-talk is implied (indeed contained) in the beautiful images in those first two haiku-like stanzas.

But I love those first stanzas.

Three or four weekends ago I actually set elements of the above to music. At first I was only going to use those first stanzas --but then I found myself integrating other elements to complete the song. As a mystical song, it works well -- it doesn't sound forced or precious, like so much poetry put to music. To put it briefly , I got rid of the God-talk, and let the images speak for themselves. The song words go like this:

A CRYSTAL RIM

The
Earth
Lifts its glass to the sun
And light
pours in

A bird
comes and sits on a crystal rim
and from my forest cave
I hear singing....

(Instrumental, poss. arrangement: ethereal voices singing in harmony)

Now an emerald bird rises from within me
and sits
on the crystal
Glass.

I have left that dark cave forever
My body has blended with His.

Now I lay my wing
As a bridge to you

So you may join us
Singing…

Notice I replaced "is poured" with "pours in". Well, even with just nylon string arpeggios as accompaniment, the passive form Ladinsky used sounds like "is bored". I still feel there's a certain awkwardness in the final lines -- but song has gone over well with listeners, discerning friends + folk at the cafe I play in once a week. The music of course is integral. Someday, maybe, I'll master the technology to post recordings. Whether this ends up being *crystallized* into a recording or simply, like bird song, disappearing into silence.... well, it has resonated well for me.

Bah, humbug!

Listening to the radio (I can't seem to avoid it, what with cafes, stores, etc.), all of the Christmas musical fare strikes me as so much tinsel, so much hype -- so unreflective of the real mixture of feelings we experience at this summing-up time of year. Except John Lennon's

So this is Xmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Xmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

That one, with its world- & time-weary feelings of fellowship, is the only truly authentic Xmas song ever written.

ONE ART, TWO ARTS, THREE ARTS, FOUR...

Some of my most interesting writing online has come in the form of responses to blogs by others. Generally, I prefer dialoguing to monologuing. Yesterday, CR Jenson wrote on his blog something I couldn't resist responding to -- despite my self-imposed limitation on time online.

ONE ART, OR NOT SO MUCH?

Over the past two years, I've been teaching myself how to play acoustic guitar in my "spare" time. It's something I've really come to enjoy about my day-making a space for music. I've been pretty musical my whole life-I used to tinker around with a keyboard when I was little, then I started playing the trumpet and later took piano lessons. I was also in my high school choir and the musicals each year.

Now I pull out the guitar whenever I'm in the office and I need a break, or if I'm about to spend some time writing but am having trouble with whatever I'm working on. I strum for a while, warble along, and then get down to the task of writing (or grading).

Do many of you have a "second" or even "third" art that you're involved in? Do you paint on the side? Take photographs? Etc.? I'll admit that for many of my teenage years, my dreams were not to be a poet-I wanted, on the surface, to be a filmmaker and, secretly, to be the lead singer of a rock band.

I stuck with poetry because I figured no matter what else I was doing, I could always find a way or reason to write without giving it "special" attention in my life.

So how about it? Any graphic designers out there? Sculptors? Etc? Let's hear about the other arts.

This is what I wrote back (with some revisions):

Naturally I can relate to your tale of needing a second focus. Between, say, 22 and 34, I defined myself (artistically at least) as a poet; from about 26 on, I took up fingerstyle guitar as a kind of a hobby and got pretty damned good at it, playing people like John Renbourne, Mississippi John Hurt, and Bert Jansch. Then, after a long period of poetic "blockage" songs came out, in all about 50 or so. Later a cassette and a fully orchestrated CD. After running up against the typical roadblocks facing independent musicians these days, I've turned back to poetry in a major way. I love the pure creativity of the act of writing poetry, the lack of production time and costs, the intelligence of the audience, "worthy but few". It suits my intellectual nature, my actually (as it turns out) not-so-outgoing temperament. Lit mags -- even the stuffiest ones -- are far more interesting than your typically abhorrent music publications. And the promotion of poetry, compared to music, is child's play -- that is, still monstrously tedious and frustrating, but actually doable by one person.

I still play the guitar, do the very occasional show, and am thankful for the emotional release and personal enrichment it brings. Proud though I am of my album (I wouldn't change a single note of it, and lately it's even gotten a couple of good but belated reviews) too bad some in the poetry establishment will see me as a flake for having engaged so heavily in an art as "low brow" as song writing. (See that recent quote in Victoria Chang's blog of advice to "young poet" against revealing ancillary artistic activities like performing music.) As a poet, I realize I have some catching up - de-rusting -- to do... but I'm catching up pretty darned fast. All the arts relate and inform each other. Said Goethe: "Architecture is frozen music. Symmetry is rhythm standing still." Cheers, and keep riffing in the office!

A Corollary of This Golden Age...

Come to think of it, garage sales are such a such a prominent feature of North American life there must be a garage sale literature.... What a fertile subject! What a way to meditate on use, misuse, superfluity, the passage of time … it has all the elements of still life, Van Gogh's shoes… here you're free to include any of what Bly refers to as "the hundred thousand objects of modern life" (which his poems carefully exclude…to his credit at least as much as discredit…)

To me the most memorable piece on garage sales has to be not a poem or short story of novel, but a song. But so close to a poem it is… Tom Waits' Soldier's Things on the Swordfishtrombones album. (That has to be one of my favourite albums, ever, not to mention one of my favourite bits of songwriting...) Here are the lyrics, devoid of course of the expressiveness of Waits' rust-bucket voice:

Davenports and kettledrums
and swallow tail coats
table cloths and patent leather shoes
bathing suits and bowling balls
and clarinets and rings…
and all this radio really needs
is a fuse

a tinker, a tailor
a soldier's things
his rifle, his books full of rocks
and this one is for bravery
and this one is for me
and everything's a dollar
in this box…

Cuff links and hub caps
trophies and paperbacks
it's good transportation
but the brakes aren't so hot
necktie and boxing gloves
this jackknife is rusted
you can pound that dent out
on the hood

a tinker, a tailor etc.

If any of you readers out there can think of a great piece of garage sale literature, tell me what it is, send it (especially if it's a poem) along… if not, maybe you can write one yourself!