Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
By Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest- in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet -never- in Extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.



I was in a church meeting and the speaker was talking about metaphor. He said it was a figure of speech or phrase that is applied to an object or action that it does not literally denotes in order to imply a resemblance such as He is the lamb of God.

I still have trouble distinguishing metaphor from simile because both are figures of speech but the simile is comparing two essentially unlike things but is often introduced in a phrase such as like or as such as "how like the winter hath my absence been" or "So are you to my thoughts as food to life."

The above poem uses the metaphor in which hope is compared to a bird and its song. It is a delightful poem as all poems by Dickinson are. In this case hope sits in our soul and sings its song without words and never ceases even in the strongest storms that humans experience and even shame won't stop hope's song. It keeps us warm in the coldest of times and in the worst of places and it never asks for a sacrifice of anyone.

There has been times in my life in which things looked pretty bleak. I would look around and think there was no one in my corner and I was very alone. Some people have their faith in religion and some in other things. I don't think it matters what it is but I have found great amount of strength in hope that things will change and they do. My faith relies on the inner spiritual guidance of my relationship with the Cosmos and the Bodhidharma. Like hope, my faith asks nothing from me.

Whatever one's faith or belief structure is, hope is a necessary ingredient. I don't believe that one faith is right while another is wrong. All pathways lead to Enlightenment. This poem is part of the process.

Sunflower by Andre Breton

SUNFLOWER
by Andre Breton (1896-1966)
translated by Mark Polizzolti

The traveler who crossed Les Halles(1.) at summer's end'
Walked on tiptoe
Despair rolled it's great handsome lilies across the sky
And in her handbag was my dream that flask of salts
That only God's godmother had breathed
Torpors unfurled like mist
At the Chien qui Fume(2.)
Where pro and con had just entered
They could hardly see the young woman and then only at an angle
Was I dealing with the ambassadress of saltpeter(3.)
Or with the white curve on black background we call thought
The Innocents' Ball(4.) was in full swing
The Chinese lanterns slowly caught fire in chestnut trees
The shadowless lady knelt on the Pont-au-Change(5.)
on Rue Git-le-Coeur(6.) the stamps had changed
The night's promises had been kept at last
The carrier pigeons and emergency kisses
Merged with the beautiful stranger's breasts
Jutting beneath the crepe of perfect meanings
A farm prospered in the heart of Paris
And its windows looked out on the Milky Way
But no one lived there yet because of the guests
Guests who are known to be more faithful than ghosts
Some like that woman appear to be swimming
And a bit of their substance becomes part of love
She internalizes them
I am the plaything of no sensory power
And yet the cricket who sang in hair of ash
One evening near the statue of Etienne Marcel
Threw me a knowing glance
Andre Breton it said pass.

Notes:
(1.)Les Halles was and is an area of Paris, France that is located in the 1er arrondissemont just south of the fashionable rue Montorgueil. It is name for the large central wholesale market place which was demolished in 1971 and this was no doubt the Les Halles of this poem. It was the traditional central market of Paris and was known as the "belly of Paris".

(2.) Chien qui Fume is a restaurant in Paris and it was founded in 1740. Its name translates to "Dog Smokes" and its web site has a dog with a smoking tobacco pipe in its mouth. It is considered a typical restaurant in Les Halles at the time.

(3.)Saltpeter: potassium nitrate used in the manufacture of gunpowder and fireworks.

(4.)Innocents Ball may be connected to the "Fountain of Nymphs" created by Jean Goujon on the occasion of the French King Henry II's entry into Paris in 1549. It might have been done with collaboration with Pierre Lescot. It is also called the Fountain of the Innocents. This information is from the book, "Mad Love" by the poet. He mentions the alchemist Nicholas Flemel who is famous for the "philosopher's stone" and who lived with his wife another alchemist. Flemel is also tied to this fountain or the area as well.

The Innocents Ball, according to the poet in his book "Mad Love" associates this ball to the Saint-Jacques Tower which stands today.

(5.) Pont au Change is a bridge over the Seine River in Paris, France.

(6.) Rue Git-le Coeur: a narrow medieval lane running down to the Sein from the rue St. Andre des Arts to the quai Augustine in the oldest part of the Latin Quarter. In the 13th century, the street was called rue de Gilles-le-Quez or Guy-le-Preux. Over the centuries this name transformed into Git-le-Coeur, which some claim is a pun on the street name made in the early 17th century by Henri IV, the first Bourbon King of France, whose mistress lived on the street: "Ici git mon coeur". Another story is found in "The Nichol's Guide To Paris". This claims that the street name commemorates the murder of Elienne Marcel, Provost of the Merchants and one of the fathers of Paris on July 31, 1358 by the Mercenary Jean Maillart in the pay of the Dauphin Charles. The word, 'git', means 'lies' as on a tombstone and the name Marcel does appear in this poem.


I like to chose a theme of the day and put it on my Google page and even on my Foxfire page and wall paper and try to coordinate them as much as possible. Somedays it works very well. Today, it is sunflowers. They remind me of the years I spent in Kansas where they grow abundantly and very beautifully. I found this poem by Andre Breton. I enjoyed looking up some of the things in the poem that I did not understand.

William Shakespeare

Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun
By William Shakespeare

Guiderius. Feare no more the heate o' th' Sun,
Nor the furious Winter rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast don,
Home are gon,and tane thy wages.
Golden Lads and Girles all must,
As Chimney-Sweepers come to dust.

Arviragus. Feare no more the frowne o' th' Great
Thou art past the tirants stroake,
Care no more to cloath and eate,
To thee the Reede is as the Oake:
The Scepter, Learning, Physicke must,
All follow this and come to dust.

Guiderius. Feare no more the Lightning flash.

Arbiragus. Nor th all-dreaded Thunderd thunderstone

Guiderius. Feare not Slander, Censure rash.

Arbiragus. Thou has finish'd Joy and more.

Both. All Louers youg all Louers must,
Consigne to this and come to dust.

Guiderius. No exorcisor harme thee,

Arberagus. No no witch-craft charme thee.

Guiderius. Ghost vnlaid forbeare thee.

Arberagus. Nothing ill come neere thee.

Both. Quiet consumation haue,
And renowned be the graue.

It is hot, darn hot here in Korea, but it takes William Shakespeare to put it all into perspective. Guiderius was a legendary British king who was slain on the battlefield by the invading Romans. His brother, Arberagus, took over as king during the battle. Guiderius after death did not have to worry about the heat of the sun or anything else.

I remember putting the ashes of my mother into the Pacific Ocean at Crescent City, California and it occurred to me that her biggest concern at the time of her death was her knees and it was her insistence of an operation to correct them that caused her death. Then, as I put her ashes into the receding waves, I thought she did not have to worry about her knees again. It seemed like supreme irony, one that I did not appreciate.

The other day, I went to Home Plus to get out of the heat. Unfortunately, many other people did the same. It was wall to wall people doing the same thing I was. The small restaurants in the store were full. The tables were full of people as they sat there with their families trying so hard to stay cool for the store was decent although just barely.

One of the things you have to say about the sales people in Korea is that are uncommonly kind and friendly even under the most trying of circumstances. There is never a shortage of staff to help the customers which is a very nice feature of Korean life. Unfortunately, few Koreans can speak English, but why should they since this is their country. The point is the store was full of people as we all tried to escape the heat and have the cool drink and enjoy each other or in my case read and write as I tried to stay cool. The sales people tried so hard to understand what I was trying to order even when a friend of mine got short with them when she could not get milk for her coffee. Like me, she did not speak Korean. For some reason, it is very hard to get milk for coffee here. I drink coffee at home for that reason.

Not too many years ago, I used to have a job in the States that involved working for the state of California. I liked the work since it involved helping people but the particular work site was made dysfunctional by an out of control manager. Before the state finally made him retire, he made things very difficult for the employees and for the people who came in for services. The job had a great retirement plan and I was getting up there in years so I was not going to quit. The union was doing all that it could. It took a trip to a nearby cemetery that I took for exercise one day to put it all in perspective as Shakespeare did for me now. I looked at all of the markers with all of the names with dates of births and deaths and I realized that I had no idea what their problems were at the time of their deaths. Being an older cemetery, no one knew since many of them have been dead for over 100 years. What I thought was earth shockingly important really wasn't.

I watched the Rachel Maddow Show the other day as the US troops involved in combat rolled out of Iraq and into Kuwait. Her program is one of the ones I can watch on the Internet. She was sitting in the heat and describing how hot it was and the fact that getting electricity for even a fan was very difficult if not impossible for most people of Iraq. Dr. Maddow was broadcasting from a site that was not the one MSNBC wanted because the one they wanted had rocket attacks there just hours before. She had no make-up and the viewer could tell she was sweating in the heat. This is a country where women have to keep covered up. The heat can go up to 125 degrees F. Then there is the danger of being blown up. Even if one's husband can't get a job, a woman still has to work all of the time and dress in bundles of clothes.

It is true that as hot as it is here in Korea, it is hotter in other places and someday it won't matter at all as it does not matter to Shakespeare whether or not there is global warming in England. He is dust as "Chimney -Sweepers come to dust." I went to church yesterday and the sermon talked about living forever. Well, I am not there now. The poets remind us of where we are now even if they have gone on, their words still live on the page. For now, I will sweat the heat because it is better than being cool in the grave.

"The Pleasure of The Dance"

About ten years ago, I had a dream that was so real that it stayed with me since then. I was driving in my car and going on some city streets and I noticed that I was going down the same streets over and over again. I noticed it because the same houses and churches were appearing. Since there were no other cars, I stopped in front of this church. I walked to it and its door was on the second story. I walked up the steps. Just as I opened the door I saw someone standing there who seemed very attractive and interesting. I was standing in the loft of a choir. He came up to me and started to teach me to dance. It was wonderful.

I was in a difficult time in my life then. I started to see a therapist in order to deal with a bad work site. Being a good Freudian psychologist, she interpreted my dream that I was looking for someone to have a relationship with. I knew she was wrong. I did not know the meaning of that dream but it wasn't that. I soon stopped seeing her and solved the problems on the work site. I did not find a meaningful relationship although I did make some friends. The meaning still escaped me, but I knew it was important.

Then something changed in my life this year. I had retired and felt lost. All of my life, I had looked forward to retirement but had not planned beyond that. Now that retirement was here, I was watching my life disappearing and I had no idea what I needed to do about it. Then I came to work as a visiting professor at a national university in Korea. What changed in my life was discovering the meaning of that dream and my suspicion that it was important was correct.

Being in Korea meant not being able to read what I wanted to. Getting books in English is very difficult. There is also the space problem. I live in a very small studio apartment and have to make due with few possessions. I found a book in the English library of the university where I teach. It was "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" by Rainer Maria Rilke. This is the only novel of a great poet and it includes his poetic vision and his experiences in Paris and so much more. The prose flows and is rich with the details, stories as well as the fears and joys of Rilke. It is a remarkable book.

Then in rapid succession, I read W. Somerset Maugham's novel, "The Moon and Sixpence". I had read this book as a teenager and then forgot it. It is about Charles Strickland who left his dull, bourgeois life and devoted the rest of his short life to painting. It was supposedly inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin.

One might question what these two books have to do with my dream and dancing. A lot really. When I was in the throes of that miserable situation at my government job, I was trying to survive. I concentrated on breathing, walking by placing one foot in front of the other. I had forgot the pleasures of the poetic dance.

Coming to Korea has given this back to me because I no longer am distracted by television and other things and I know that there is no chance whatsoever of running into the people I worked with on my last work site. I am in a country where I can't speak the language and I have to pay attention to the few books I can find and most importantly, write. My writer's block is totally gone.

The poet, Billy Collins, in his essay "Poetry, Pleasure, and the Hedonist Reader" calls poetry the pleasure of the dance. We circle and walk around a poem looking for a way in and when we do, it becomes the pleasure of the dance as we read it. It becomes the music that lets us slow down the pace of our thoughts so we can enjoy the rhythm. We join together as lovers entwined as we dance "somewhere else" and enjoy the sensations we would never have felt without the poem.

The novel, the painting takes each of us to unknown places and enriches our lives in ways we did not think possible before. The sculpture in an art gallery or one of the temporary sculptures that are done in the park using people or a Buddhist Tibetan sand painting are just a few examples of this artistic vision.

This was what I had forgot but remembered now. The artistic music that I used to dance with so many years ago had been forgotten. It drove Rilke to write his novel so he could understand his fears of death and loneliness. It drove Strickland to abandon his middle class life and family so he could paint.

Introduction to Poetry
By Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press and ear against its hive

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water-ski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Poetry along with other forms of artistic expression gives us pleasures. It is light, feathery and gets our feet to move so we can enjoy the dance of life. Too often, we are tied to a chair and tortured when instead we need to skate across the surface of a poem and just enjoy it or in my case to dance and feel our selves unite so we can soar into the heavens.

Rainer Maria Rilke

A Walk

By Rainer Maria Rilke 1875-1926
Translated by Robert Bly

My eyes already touch the sunny hill
going far ahead of the road I have began.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which hardly sensing it,
we already are: a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.


One of the realities of the country that I am in, is the amount of walking that everyone does including me. I walk to work and then back home five days a week. I walk to the grocery stores and to anyplace I want to go. I take the bus but walk once I get off a bus stop. When I begin my walk, I walk a one lane road along a iron fence that has climbing roses when in bloom. I also walk along a golf course with tall bamboo and trees on one side and gardens that a corporation cultivates on the other side. People are often on their hands and knees weeding the gardens and I have seen elderly men with small scissors cutting excess grass. Such is the life here in Korea.

I am reading the only novel," The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge", that Rilke ever wrote. I am half way through this haunting book and am enjoying it very much. I thought I would look at his biography and his poetry. I found this poem and thought about the walking that I do everyday.

The protagonist in Rilke novel walks around Paris with a hate/love affection. I hate to walk to work, too, as the days are full of humidity and often it rains. The umbrella can protect one, but there nothing one can do to protect against humidity. Yet the university where I teach is nestled in sharp but beautiful mountain peaks that are close to the campus. Often the fog or clouds hug the summits in such a way that it takes my breath away.

There are interesting people who toil the gardens of the university and one of them last week was a Buddhist monk. During the last election, there were lots of people handing out literature but of course they ignored me. That is the first time I did not worry about what I was going to do with stuff handed to me as there is no trash cans nearby. There were a labor demonstration with signs and everything but since the signs were in Korean I had no idea what the issue was. I asked one person but he did not speak English. There are people from Christian organizations handing out religious tracks but again they ignore me as the tracks are in Korean.

Often people come up to me and say hello. Sometimes I know them and sometimes I do not. Most students do not have cars and are walking as I am. Cars are not charged parking fees but they are parked everywhere including the crosswalks. Cars never stop for pedestrians in crosswalks which makes one wonder why they are painted in the first place. Buses never do either. They also never stop for people who are only a few feet away. You are either at the door getting in or you catch the next bus.

Then there is the road of life. Mine lies in Korea at the moment. I have learned to look only a few feet and not think too much about the destination. Who knows how long I will be here. In the meantime, I am finally enjoying myself here. I used to think I had people against my staying here as the poem says: "a gesture waves us on answering our own wave...but what we feel is the wind in our faces." Indeed, what I am feeling is karma in my face or just plain life happening as it does everywhere else.

Our destination does change us even if we do not reach it. I don't know where I am going or when I will reach it, but my eyes already touch the sunny hills.

Walt Whitman

No. 12 of Song of the Road
By Walt Whitman 1819-1892

Allons! After the great Companions and to belong to them!
They too are on the road-they are the swift and majestic man-they are the greatest woman,
Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,
Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,
Habitues of many distant countries, habitues of far-distant dwellings,

Trusters of men and women: observers of cities; solitary toilers,
Pausers and contemplators of tufts: blossoms, shells of the shores,
Dancers at weddings-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children,
Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins,

Journeyers over consecutive seasons over the years, the curious years each emerging from that which preceded it,
Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,
Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,
Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and well-grain'd manhood,
Journeyers with their womanhood, ample unsurpass'd content,
Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,
Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,
Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

Sometimes, I lose the magic of this life. I feel the gathering of the years as now and the ageism type of prejudice that comes with my job and life and I look out on the road that I am traveling and feel depressed. I walk to work everyday and have never missed one class. I get my assignments and the things I need to do on time; but I can't escape from the realization that I am viewed as a senior citizen. In other words, I am an old lady. I look in the mirror and wonder who took my youth away, who stole my identity as a young woman? I look in the faces and eyes of the people I work for and they, too, see just one more old lady.

Then I read Walt Whitman especially his "Song of Myself" and I feel again the magic. I am one of the journeyers with my own sublime old age of womanhood walking the long road of life. Whitman had discovered the power of the universe and let it filter through him and into his poetry. I, too, have the calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe flowing free as I walk. I had forgotten this.

Death is one of those things that all seniors have to walk with. We can't avoid it, but most of us realize that Death becomes a friend in our later years. Many people in the last days long for the presence of it. According to Whitman, death can help enjoy the freedom that we have when we live our lives. We could never have done that when we were younger. I am not ready to make that final exit right now, but it is nice to enjoy a talk or two with my neighbor who is never very far.

I remember all too well when I was a dancer at weddings, tender helpers of children and bearers of children. Now, I am a grandmother of children. I have also seen too many gaping graves and too many coffins lowered of soldiers before their time. I can remember my past memories and still enjoy the stars and seas, mountains and streams of a world still very much alive as I am for now. I am content now to remember the joys that Whitman gives me in his poetry and grateful that he did. Reading him, you can still hear him from where ever he is still walking his road and telling us all what a wonderful world we live in. That is a very rare talent.

Sir Phillip Sidney

Sonnet 102: Wher Be Those Roses Gone

By Sir Phillip Sidney 1554-1586

Where be those rose gone, which sweeten'd so our eyes?
Where those red cheeks, where oft with fair increase did frame
The height of honor in the kindly badge of shame?
Who hath the crimson weeds stol'n from my morning skies?

How did the color fade of those vermillion dyes
Which Nature self did make, and self engrain'd the same?
I would know by what right this palenese overcame
That hue, whose force my heart still unto thraldom ties.

Galen's adoptive sons who by a beaten way
Their judgements harkney on the fault of sickness lay,
But feeling proof makes me say theymistake it furre.

it is but Love, which makes his paper perfect while
to write therein more fresh the story of delight
while Beauty's reddest ink Venus for him doth stir.


Astrophel and Stella XXXIX

By Sir Philip Sidney

Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low.
With shield of proof shield me doth the prease
Of these fierce darts despair at me doth throw:
O make in me these civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

Sidney was a wonderful poet, but because he lived so long ago under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in England many people don't read him. That is a shame because many of his poems have echoes that have found themselves in our language today. He lived only into his 30's but left a rich legacy of writings and poetry.

Anyone who has ever had trouble sleeping can understand his second poem only too well. In a sense, it speaks of sleep as the "baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, the poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release." It can also speak of death in the same voice. Indeed, it is the poor man's wealth as the ability to sleep deeply and well is not dependent on wealth and position so that the gift of sleep belongs to no one. I suspect that the man or woman who works hard in the fields come home and sleeps very well at night while the more wealthier man who works very little has more trouble achieving that restful time.

All of Sidney's poetry and writings are on the Internet free for all as it is in the public domain. It was not hard to find the two poems I wanted to find. I was thinking of roses as I was working on a story that had roses in it. I really recommend Sidney to all people who read poetry as a wonderful exercise in beauty and achievement. It is also free to download and easy to find.