Poetry Blog No 131 Galaxy- a modest ode on life, the universe and everything

                                        

                                        GALAXY

The planetarium referred to in the first verse existed in the now defunct Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences or The Technological Museum. It has been replaced by the Powerhouse Museum. In my teens it was a place of science and mystery - a little cramped with a bit of a Ray Bradbury atmosphere. It featured things like a transparent woman whose different organs and systems lit up as she rotated to a Boccherini Minuet (String Quintet in E Major, Op. 13) and a computer that played Noughts and Crosses (Tic-Tac- Toe). It developed a fault enabling you to beat it but when you did it changed the board and claimed it had won (a foretaste of things to come ?). It was also where I witnessed colour television for the first time. But my favourite thing was the planetarium where dusk sank behind the black cardboard skyline of Sydney and the operator would point to stars and planets as they moved across the dome using his little arrow torch.

Carina Nebula

Notes- Three hundred thousand million stars- an estimate as no one is sure of the exact figure but using various methods astronomers seem to agree that it is at least one hundred thousand million (one hundred billion in American billions) and probably higher. Mind-bogglingly there are a similar number of galaxies in the known universe.

The cluster with the myriad of stars I have seem is the globular cluster in Centaurus (Omega Centauri (NGC 5139 ) through a Newtonian reflector telescope with an 8 inch mirror. The five hundred thousand miles an hour and the two hundred millions years are rounded out a bit. Here is a more exact entry from Wikipedia.

The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Solar System to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Estimates of the length of one orbit range from 225 to 250 million terrestrial years. The Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 828,000 km/h (230 km/s) or 514,000 mph (143 mi/s) within its trajectory around the galactic center, a speed at which an object could circumnavigate the Earth's equator in 2 minutes and 54 seconds; that speed corresponds to approximately one 1300th of the speed of light.

                                   

 A mosaic of 50 separate images of the galactic center taken by astrophotographer Robert Gendler.

                                 GALAXY

The artificial light has faded from

The cardboard skyline. Now pale points of light

Are dimpling the dark-domed planetarium.

We sit within a semblance of the night.

Our stellar host elucidates and wields

A cosmic arrow on the turning sky

And shows the hazy band that spans star fields.

Quite casually the numbers pass us by:

Three hundred thousand million stars. And each

A sun. Is this beyond all feeling's reach?

And I remember frost-clear nights when darkness

Was palpable upon wide upper spaces.

And there, upon the real, star-dotted vastness,

I saw the galaxy's white, milky traces

Arched overhead from earth rim to earth rim.

And gazing upwards in receptive quiet,

It seemed quite possible to gain a dim,

Grand apprehension of the depth of night.

But some perception of this arcane glory

Depends, perhaps, on how you spin the story.

For it's not hard to find a facile phrase

On "distances beyond imagination".

And it's not hard to talk in expert ways

Of light-years and of galaxies' creation.

Soon clichés drown a living comprehension

And dull immediate, informing sight;

Until you steer a telescope's attention

Upon the milky way's sky-spanning light;

Resolving it to far suns, each a spark,

Like gleaming sand grains, scattered on the dark,

And see the vast and glowing clouds of gas

And clusters with such myriad of stars

Each centre merges to a misty mass;

And know these things are not just some ideas

But of our cosmos, real as all on earth,

As real as stones and trees, as clouds and flowers...

More real by far than fame and honour's worth,

And schemings of the wrongly-named "World Powers".

What power is power compared to all of these

Worlds without end on space and time's vast seas?

Worlds without end: how shall we feel this speaking?

We dwarfs who measure time by hours and days?

How can we sense our sun's great helix sweeping

On through those time-deep, wonder-filled star ways?

How at five hundred thousand miles an hour

To circle this, our single galaxy,

Will take two hundred million years. O how

Shall we touch truth of such immensity?

Great empires are but some minutes here,

Within the passing of this cosmic year.

Men dream mad dreams of power, war and kill

For rule so brief on one small globe, believing

That this imparts some majesty to will,

When all that's ever left is waste and grieving.

And even murder for some mere conception,

When it is manifest in all the height

That there is much beyond earth-small perception,

The limits of our Lilliputian sight.

Beyond earth's edge goes the world far beyond the far;

No human craft can touch a single star.

And so, when daylight's done and there outside

The night releases vision of the vastness,

And shows the pale an stellar stream stretched wide,

The pathway of the worlds across the darkness-

Then called to heart is sure belief that being

Has depths beyond our deepest, searching thought,

Has heights beyond our farthest, sharpest seeing,

And this, at least, is heart truth of one sort.

Three hundred thousand million stars; and each

A sun- it's not beyond all feeling's reach.

Poetry Blog No 130 Narrow Roads to Inner Lands- Scene One

NARROW ROADS TO INNER LANDS- SCENE ONE

 Bashō

   Matsuo Bashō (1644 – 1694), born Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest master of haiku (then called hokku). Matsuo Bashō's poetry is internationally renowned; and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and traditional sites.

    Bashō's private planning for another long journey, to be described in his masterwork Oku no Hosomichi, culminated on May 16, 1689 , when he left Edo with his student and apprentice Kawai Sora on a journey to the Northern Provinces of Honshū. Bashō and Sora headed north to Hiraizumi, which they reached on June 29. They then walked to the western side of the island, touring Kisakata on July 30, and began hiking back at a leisurely pace along the coastline. During this 150-day journey Bashō traveled a total of 2,400 km through the northeastern areas of Honshū, returning to Edo in late 1691

      By the time Bashō reached Ōgaki, Gifu Prefecture, he had completed the log of his journey. He edited and redacted it for three years, writing the final version in 1694 as The Narrow Road to the Interior. The first edition was published posthumously in 1702. It was an immediate commercial success and many other itinerant poets followed the path of his journey. From Wikipedia

statue of Bashō

NARROW ROADS TO INNER LANDS

From the travels of Matsuō Bashō, Master of the Haiku

STAGING NOTES

Narrow Roads to Inner Lands is an original verse play based on Bashō’s travel diaries. The haiku have been re-created to serve the needs of dramatic presentation. Stylistically the aim has been to fuse the traditions of East and West: the iambic pentameter combined with the silences and concentration on meaning characteristic of the Noh drama.

Costume and setting is 16th century Japan. Bashō, already recognized as Japan’s greatest haiku poet, was in fact only 46 years old, though suffering from chronic illness, at the time of this journey. Sora his pupil was 42 years old.

Entrances and exits could be avoided in many cases if desired by having Bashō and Sora continue their journey through the audience or aisles and back into the new scene.

Scene settings are suggestions only and can be minimal. Changes of lighting, sound effects and music could be used to great advantage as atmospheric elements. Musical interludes and effects, usually flute and plucked strings (e.g. Shakuhachi and Koto], are characteristic of Noh drama. The musicians can be onstage to the side.

CHARACTERS

Bashō

Sora

Minor characters (doubled)

3 voices (could be 2 or 1)

Gozaemon

Jōbōji

Tōsui

Seifū

En'an

Figures for silhouttes which could also be perhaps video projection (but still sihouttes).

view of Edo

SCENE ONE

Soft Japanese (pentatonic) music. A bare stage. Light greens and browns. Lights up slowly.

Enter Bashō.

BASHŌ

Now in this mortal body I call mine

(Four-limbed, with breath and heart, and many senses)

Dwells something called, for want of better name,

A wind-swept spirit, for as gossamer

Will yield and shift to any wind, so will

This spirit to the winds of earthly changes.

(Bashō produces a scroll)

This gossamer began to write its poems,

At first for self-amusement and delight,

Some many years ago. Well, finally

That grew to be the work of all its days.

It’s true at times it sank in deep despair;

At times it puffed with pride and glorified

In false, weak victories over others. Once

It wished to be a learned scholar; once

It wished to enter courtly service; but

Its love of poetry prevented either.

(With a slight sigh)

But honestly the truth of it is this:

It knows no other art but writing verse

And thus it clings with stubbornness to that.

(Bashō settles, Japanese-style, on the floor. He unrolls the scroll and reads from it. Quiet music.)

BASHŌ

Both sun and moon are ever wanderers-

They pass upon their paths for endless time.

Both days and months are ceaseless travellers,

Eternal through the countless generations.

And so, too, are the ever-turning years.

And those whose lives are spent in steering ships

Across uncertain seas, and those whose days

Drift by in boats upon the changeful rivers,

And those who lead a weary horse into

The gathering of years until the weight

Of plodding time loads them too heavily;

Spend all their lives in constant travelling:

Until the journeying forms all they own;

Until the travelling itself is home.

(Music ceases. Bashō pauses, then addresses the audience.)

And many ancients too have left this life

Still walking on the way. And I myself

Have long been tempted by the cloud-carrying wind,

Filled with desire to be wandering.

(Bashō pauses, rolls up the scroll, rises and walks to and fro, reflectively.)

Yet I’m possessed of other purpose too,

And purpose many would not comprehend.

Some, busy-blind, believe the worth of life

Is counted in their gold and gathered goods,

Or else in fame achieved within this world,

Or else in transitory pleasures, such

As vanish as the idle dust in wind.

Now I have seen the courts of mighty men,

I trained to be a noble samurai,

My verse is known in many places, thus

I have at times been touched by all these things.

(Bashō stops and addresses the audience.)

Yet now, becoming older, I can feel

How all the pride of time, youth’s tide of strength,

Is ebbing slowly from year-wearied limbs.

And now the single thing that sings belief

Is silently unfolding fuller sight;

A patient practice and a right awaiting.

(Bashō indicates the scroll.)

And then, beyond all such, self-reaching reasons,

There lies the curious attempt to catch

Those seeing moments which I strive to leave

In verse for others’ vision. Truly now

The gods have turned my poor self inside out.

I feel called to uncertain search and so,

Before slow illness stops my steps, I have

Resolved in this far journeying into

The north, the narrow roads to inner lands.

Yet still I feel I may not find my goal,

That deep, abiding stillness of true knowing,

And quit this bustling, ever-changing world

Still quite unsatisfied and unfulfilled.

(Bashō sits. Enter Sora.)

SORA

Now it was but last autumn, Bashō, sir, that you

Returned from rambling; I remember for

The fallen leaves were being driven still,

Dry-brown, in rustling swirls before the wind:

That keen wind that presages coming cold.

BASHŌ

True, Sora, I had barely time to sweep

Grey cobwebs from the corners of my room

Than it seemed spring mists drenched dawn’s fields and I

Was longing to be on the road once more.

Drawn by the spirit of all wandering,

I couldn’t keep my thoughts from journey’s wonder.

The wayside images beckoned from each corner;

I would not stay fixed in my broken house.

While rubbing strengthening, burnt moxa on

Legs longing to be gone, I could not keep

From dreaming of the moonrise over islands.

SORA

And so you sold your grass-deep dwelling-place

To stay at Sampū’s Edo summer home,

An honoured guest, before our setting-out.

BASHŌ

Departing so reminded me that time

Is change and thus of life’s necessity.

No hand can stay the running of the days.

My house at last was passing on to others;

To strangers who would hold, perhaps, the festival

Appropriate to May the Third - the girls’

Spring festival of dolls. Eight linking verses

I wrote and hung upon a threshold pillar.

They started thus, if I remember:

(Bashō pauses)

Even this grass-bound

Hermitage may change- the spring’s

Festival of dolls.

(with a slight sigh)

As life is ever treading on the path,

So time’s now time to pack and be away;

For we depart with early-rising day.

(Bashō and Sora exit.)