Fossicking Poetry Blog No 165

FOSSICKING

calcite rose

This poem is a small celebration of the wonders of stones and minerals. It refers to some pottering around in a basalt quarry- rocks that are remains of the erosion of a large volcanic area or caldera in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. When the volcano finished it's eruptions about 20 million years ago, it had risen to a height of over 2 kilometres, and layers of lava and ash had been deposited over its outward slopes, to a diameter of about 100 kilometres. http://www.bigvolcano.com.au/natural/wollum.htm

chalcedony

A couple of terms that may be unfamiliar to some-

FOSSICKING- Australia and NZ - searching for gold

or precious stones in abandoned workings, rivers, etc.

To rummage or search for (something)

POTHOLE A hole or pit, especially one in a road surface. 

red jasper

volcanic glass (obsidian)

FOSSICKING

Here's a hole in green hill's flow:

Bare, official gulf in grass,

Where they've blown up earth and dug;

Crushing rocks to heaps of rubble,

Dusty piles of small, grey stones-

Spread as gravel to resurface

Long and pot-holed, country roads.

Here's a patch for plundering,

Searching Vulcan's ancient store,

Fossicking for fragments forged

In the far past fires of the earth,

In his long-since vanished furnace.

Just for pleasure in the seeking,

Peering all around the place,

We go searching for earth beauty,

Buried far from sight and light.

Just for seeking as a pleasure,

We go smashing bits from boulders

In the massive mounds of tumbled rocks,

Finding what deposited and formed

In the fissures of the basalt.

And hidden, they are here:

Bright tiny treasurings-

A calcite rose: a fadeless flower

With centuries in petals; a great

Smooth egg of dark volcanic glass,

So hard and sheer, so sharp if shattered.

And scattered here and there, there lie

Red shards of tough, sleek jasper;

Or shimmering, light fragments

Of bubbled, waxy-white chalcedony;

Or best, a hollow of clear calcite crystal,

Once buried far from light, in stony starkness,

Now finding day to glitter with its shining peaks-

As if some distant star-gleam leaked

The forms of pure light into the solid darkness.

calcite crystals

Poetry Blog No 164 By the Highway

BY THE HIGHWAY

From time to time in life we experience heightened moments that are yet moments of peace where our inner vision of life seems to connect with the more archetypal and universal feelings and truths. One use of poetry I believe is to try to evoke something of such experiences when "the better self awakes in us" (Goethe). The following poem is about the feeling and sense of such a moment while taking a break from driving on the NSW tablelands. The lines are in iambics of varying length, mostly with rhymes.

BY THE HIGHWAY

While of a time long-travelling

the way through higher lands

I stop by gravel highway side

to stand on legs, relax my hands.

Above me now I'm noticing

how cloud wisps drift on, white and wide,

in thin and winter wind on high.

Dark trees on slight hills cluster on

the cold, blue edges of the sky,

remote from browning paddocks where

sparse grass is leaving patches bare.

Yet all the air

is cool and clean.

I'm taking in

clear distances of world

across the stillness of the scene

and for a moment know

a peace with where I am,

a peace with where I've been,

a peace with where I go.

The following version of the poem in German has been created by Franz Tieber of Vienna who has kindly given permission for it to be pasted on this blog. This is the first time I have ever had a poem translated and re-imagined in another language.

An der Landstraße

Auf Hochland während langer Fahrt
auf einem Kiesbankett -
auf Beinen stehn, und lockern noch
die Hände, macht Ermüdung wett.

Und Wolkensträhnen über mir,
die weit als weiße Fracht so ziehn
dem dünnen Winterwind voran.

An zarten Hügeln zeigt das Glüh´n
des Firmaments die Bäume dumpf,
fernab von kargen Matten leert
der Schwund den letzten Gräserherd.

Die Luft so kühl,
so gänzlich rein.
Ich grenze ein
mein Selbst nunmehr zur Welt,

da über dieser stillen Flur

ich augenblicklich seh,

was Frieden ist im Hier,
ein Frieden für das „War“
und einer für mein Ziel.

Poetry Blog No 163 Orpheus

 

"Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld" by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

ORPHEUS

 Orpheus surrounded by animals. Ancient Roman floor mosaic, from Palermo

The legend of Orpheus is particularly attractive to those in the arts as all would wish their art had the sort of magical power attributed to his music.

Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centred on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music, his attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld, and his death at the hands of those who could not hear his divine music. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting. From Wikipedia

The mysticism attributed to Orpheus was also a powerful influence on Greek life and through that ultimately on European culture.

The Orphics were an ascetic sect; wine, to them, was only a symbol, as, later, in the Christian sacrament. The intoxication that they sought was that of "enthusiasm," of union with the god. They believed themselves, in this way, to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus. From Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious. Bertrand Russell 

 

Orpheus (left, with lyre) among the Thracians, from an Attic red-figure bell-krater

ORPHEUS

There was a singer once they say;

None ever sung as he could sing,

And none could ever, ever play

As he upon each singing string.

The world would hush when hearing him,

All listen in their stillness, even

The winged inhabitants of heaven

Would follow him; wild beasts of prey

Would lie before his feet in peace.

Great, leaf-proud trees would gently sway;

And all would wish him not to cease.

His lyre had but seven strings,

Like seven planets wandering

The deep and starry-sounding sky.

And it was said of him as well

Even the three-faced hound of hell

Was lulled by his soft lullaby.

And in the song that he would sing

Lived deeper truth of everything,

As he would sing of deeper showing

From life to life to grow to light...

And all that's seen by sightless sight,

And all that's heard in silent knowing.

And he would play and he would roam,

And when he sang soft winds would moan,

And all things dreamt of their lost home.

Will ever any sing such song?

For he has gone now- he has gone. 

Orpheus with the lyre and surrounded by beasts (Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens)

 Orpheus with the lyre and surrounded by beasts (Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens)

Poetry Blog No 162 Apollo

Apollo

Myth and mythical figures are, I believe, more than stories. They can give us imaginative and living experiences of truths. We can imagine ourselves, for example, as a "being" of light- shining the spirit light of our awareness on all around. This piece tries to embody this in simple and direct verse.

APOLLO

Apollo, with his shining sight

And his gold-bright bow,

Rode upon the sun's broad glow

And shot the dragon of dark night

With his dawning shafts of light.

So may that power be in our sight,

So may that power be in our souls-

The power of spirit light.

So may clear seeing

Glow from our being-

As a sun

Into the dark,

Like a sun

Within each heart.

Poetry Blog No 161 Narrow Roads to Inner Lands Scene 6

Narrow Roads to Inner Lands Scene Six (Bashō and the Chestnut Tree)

Japanese Chestnut Tree

The main speech in this scene about the tree is entirely a creative invention though I feel it embodies an attitude that is found in other statements about reality by Bashō. In the original his statement is an elaboration of the statement that tradition regards it as a holy tree.

The chestnut is a holy tree, for the Chinese ideograph is Tree placed directly below West, the direction of the holy land. The Priest Gyōki is said to have used it for a walking stick and the chief support for his house. Translation Nobuyuki Yuasa. 

 Chestnut Tree blossoms

Unohana flowers are profuse white blossoms of the plant deutzia, varieties of which are found in China and Japan.

The tiny white flowers, deutzia, popularly called unohana, flower in the month of U, the fourth month, as they bloom at the time of rice planting. Yoshiko Dykstra

  Unohana flowers

The Japanese Chestnut Tree, castanea crenata, is an oriental form of the Chestnut Tree somewhat more delicate than its western counterpart though capable of growing to considerable size.

SCENE SIX

On the road. Bright light. Clear day. A stylized chestnut tree in the background. Enter Bashō and Sora walking.

BASHŌ

So after many days of lonely wandering

We've passed the barrier gate at last. Let us

Now rest in cool shade's invitation, here granted

As gift by this wide ancient chestnut tree

For weary guests who wander endless roads.

(Bashō and Sora sit.)

SORA

Yes, it has seemed so many days of long

And solitary, footsore plodding-on

Since leaving Kurobane, that it seems

Indeed an endless road that we are travelling.

BASHŌ

But life, you know, is also so: a wide

And endless road, a journeying that starts

Before the birth of memory and ends

With mystery of passing from this world.

SORA

But why, dear teacher, did you have to leave

Your house and friends and fine success in Edo

To take to the changing danger of the road?

BASHŌ

What is important is to place the mind

Within the world of true, high understanding

And in returning to the everyday

Seek beauty’s truth, thus realizing this-

That all we do and find has bearing on

That primal consciousness which is the core

That we call poetry. Now it may be

Possession of the cosiness of place

Can lull us to a comfort-loving sleep.

And so I felt I had to cast away

My old spot, shedding habit's self to venture

Upon the unpredictability

Of life. At first I clung to memory

Of home, but slowly I am shedding all

The dead attachments to the heavy past -

Much like an old tree losing leaves in autumn.

SORA

Well, passing Shirakawa marks a point

Of deeper penetration towards the north.

BASHŌ

That's true. And going through that gate I found,

In truth, the first of times, since we set out

Some sense of true composure and I thought

Of ageing travellers who burn with strong

Desire to write home to friends. And thus

My mind grew calmer, more detached, resigned

To meet and greet whatever shall arrive.

SORA (rising)

Well, for today the day seems fine and clear.

BASHŌ

And truly, in this presence of the present,

It is most beautiful to walk on here,

By trees thick-laden with their new-grown leaves,

The faint sound of a far wind in our ears,

The summer's vision here before our eyes.

SORA

This chestnut tree is rich with clustered green

And restful shade- a bounty of new leaves.

It calls to mind the road to Shirakawa

Where bountiful, fresh life was shown by all

The bushes of white flowers there spreading in

Their thousands by the wayside till it seemed

The earth was spread with wrongly-seasoned snow.

According to accounts the ancients dressed

In their best clothes to pass the barrier gate;

But I could only decorate my head

With those white blossoms - my only gala clothes.

BASHŌ

You wrote, if I recall, a verse on this.

SORA

Yes, master Bashō, that is so. I wrote-

White unohana

Flowers in my hair- dressed for

Passing’s ancient rite.

BASHŌ

And so we pushed on further towards the north.

SORA

Yes, then we crossed the Abukuma River-

Mount Aizu on the left and to the right

Iwaki, Soma and Miharu villages.

BASHŌ

Then on we went, on past the Mirror Pond,

Which on our visit only showed grey sky,

Until we came to Sukagawa where

We stayed with Tōkyu making verse and now

In all the flowering of fields and plains

This single chestnut tree's a sanctuary

Of peaceful rustling and of shadowed coolness.

SORA

And so it is - a welcome shade- this tree.

(Sora sits down.)

BASHŌ

Tradition holds it is a holy tree.

(Bashō rises)

Yet every tree that rises from good earth

Is sacred in the silence of true seeing.

For here there is the many-seasoned trunk

Supporting all, the very growth of patience;

Beneath’s the hold of roots that drinks from darkness.

Above the branchings reach out towards sun's light.

In spring, from buds upon bare-wintered twigs,

Burst forth fresh leaves of longer days. The tree,

Between the earth and sky, in-weaves their powers

In long-enduring, life-renewing strength.

A single tree shares in all earth and draws

From sun and all the weathers of the sky -

From soil, from rain, from air, from warmth, from light.

And even lives in shifting moon and stars.

It speaks of streaming life that reaches out

Into the vision of the heavens' vastness.

              Like many miracles of every day,

              The tree in truth is barely seen. We do

              Not truly pause to see the greater real;

So busy are we with each day's small purpose,

We never stop and stand and really see.

Bashō sits, takes out writing materials; he pauses, then writes.)

Ah, the chestnut grows

In its magnificence - yet

Seen by almost none.

(They pause.)

BASHŌ

But we must rise. Our footsteps cannot cease,

But needs must carry us along the roads

From Sukagawa ever further onward

To Rapid's Head and Iizuka town.

We must keep onward, northward-bound.

(Bashō and Sora rise and exit. Lights fade.)