I look out
under a heavy, concrete sky.
What do you make of that?
A day when the clouds are made of concrete.
So I heaved
with my chisel and hammered
chipping away at the
range of mountains
like breasts
in the sky.
Some days meditation
is like that.
Turbulence in green
under a
clear cobalt sky
when I finished
I sank into a
warm corbeau lap
of hills.
Anything can exist,
why not?
Think of
visionary space.
Why substitute
symbolic systems
for reality-
isn't it enough that
the world inhabits
the world?
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
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i love your reference to a concrete sky. It's such strange and meloncholy imagery, like a city turned upside down and grey, dreary.
ReplyDeleteWhy substitute
ReplyDeletesymbolic systems
for reality-
Why indeed? Perhaps only because we can... because it is beautiful to see the patterns, the interconnections, the visual and aural echoes of one thing inside another?
This is a very thought-provoking poem, Brenda. "Some days meditation is like that..." Yup!
Ester, some days I'm very dense! And then the way the sky looks! What an awful image, huh. Terrible. So terrible that I allowed it to be in this poem only because I knew as depressing as it is it could also make people laugh. Do laugh, dear Ester, it's a city image of Atlas, perhaps!
ReplyDeleteSomething about the poetics of the interior imaginative space, the way meditation can configure the mind to the poetic act, is what I was working with here.
ReplyDeleteOur perceptions do create the world that we understand - our sensory apparatus and consciousness quite different to an amoeba or a bumble bee leading no doubt to vastly different perceptions of the space we inhabit. Meaning what we see and understand is like a fantasy, our fantasy of reality.
But when we get into thought systems, whole systems to explain every bit of our often strange experience, too often people can mistake the system for reality. I'm talking about fundamentalism, a scourge of our communal and global life.
Not the poetic act of which you speak so eloquently, MB.
Nothing is as beautiful as the process of metaphor in writing...
well, I should probably expounded some on how your words made me feel, my immediate impression was a unique sky/city scene, it was very imaginative and thought-provoking, as if Earth had a mirror sky and we saw in the heavens what we touch here on earth. I guess dreary was probably the wrong thing to mention, but I happen to love a dreary looking sky with thunderclouds covering all possibility of sunlight. I love rain and the "death cloud coming" feeling. It makes me feel cozy and close to the earth, it does make me smile. I envy you some, the way you can so beautifully weave your thoughts with words. I love reading your entries because of all the visuals that come to my mind - I can't get away from feeling the world in pictures.
ReplyDeletebtw, I wanted to tell you that I think blogger has a problem loading your profile image. It just takes a really long time to transfer from flickr. I noticed it when I saw your comment on my blog. Might be something to check out. Even coming to your site here, it takes a long time to transfer. Maybe it's just my comp? But heads up just in case.
Ester, I love how you have described dense rain or snow-laden skies! When I lived in Vancouver, I actually loved the rain. Except for some fully overcast weeks in January, though, the sky was always in motion with clouds that roved from ocean to mountain like fabulous sky songs. It never just "rains" in Vancouver, but rains, usually a middling lightness, clears up, rains... the green there everywhere jewel-like, it's so rich. Like you, I've never found endless grey sky oppressive, though I do love the sun too! Thanks for the feedback, I really enjoy these conversations...
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for the feedback on the flickr profile pic... I've loaded it at ImageShack, which doesn't have the terms of service link back to flickr clause. Hope it loads faster!
By all means, draw or paint concrete skies...
" I'm talking about fundamentalism, a scourge of our communal and global life."
ReplyDeleteHow far is that from our human drive to find patterns, whether in search of beauty or in search of predictability and stability? Just wondering if it isn't something of a slide down a continuum, or a twisting of purpose, and in that sense not completely unrelated after all to the poetics I was alluding to. I find this a scary thought... but perhaps illuminating.
The thing is, as poets, we know the images are images of an ineffable reality; it's when they get 'solidified' into systems that are then taken as 'truth' and applied to everyone and everything that it becomes dangerous. Religion, despite its beauty, is also a way of controlling people, not just their actions, but the way they think.
ReplyDeletePerhaps poetic vision can end up at that impasse, dry place, place of jailing.
Look at what the poetic visions of the Bible have been used to justify!
Oh... I'm striken!
Recently I became aware that even our dearly beloved astrologers are practicing fundamentalism in that we are entirely 'read' and 'determined' by a system of metaphors based on star patterns, which are quite lovely in themselves but which in no way determine who we are.
As I kept repeating, but 'I'm not a fish, I'm not even a swimmer...'
Coincidentally I heard the phrase "concrete sky" in a song -- I don't know the title -- on the radio yesterday. But you've done so much more with it! The image of chipping away at the sky like a sdculptor, carving breasts out of the mountains is magnificent. Also the final two stanza, stating a thought I've had -- why not just see reality, without all those symbols and metaphors (I think this is at the heart of meditation) -- phrased in an original, precise way in the closing question.
ReplyDeleteAnd I too love Ester's (and your) rainy-sky descriptions, especially "death cloud coming."
I think concrete skies makes perfect sense in certain frames of mind on certain days, and yeah, if I was a rock band, I'd sing it too... concrete breasts -I'm glad you got the humour here! The last bit is really central but it's a risk, poetically: I mean hinging two very different kinds of writing, one imagistic, one philosophical, without a connective. But hopefully it hangs together, just, sort of like that concrete sky :-)
ReplyDeleteYes, Ester's whole reading was wonderful.
Thanks for dropping by, Richard, when you do then I know you're around and don't miss you so much. Hope you find yourself posting soon!
Love the sculpting imagery. It made me think of Michelangelo's line about freeing figures from the stone -- only here it is an act of freeing the clouds, or what is inside them. Dense skies have often reminded me of quilted blankets.
ReplyDelete:-) e_journeys, and when it rains, or, snows... !
ReplyDelete