"i knock at the door of the rock..."*

"the words move ahead of the thought in poetry." -edward hirsch

have you ever said or repeated something just because the sound of it felt right to you...only to realize later how nonsensical or even false it was? moan. i have. especially when i've found a microphone and/or a few people listening. i might be doing it right now.

words drive poems. this is obvious and you would think it would apply equally to other forms of writing but it doesn't. events drive journalism; action drives fiction; ideas drive academia. the words are important, and supremely so in the right hands, but to varying degrees the thought has to come first for other genres of writing to succeed. this explains why magistrates who commission poems for special events can later be seen looking puzzled when they're read aloud {or so i imagine}. that's not what i asked for. to which the poet may reply, nor i.

it's not possible to predict the outcome of a poem any more than it is to predict the looks of a newborn. you can expect certain features of its parents; you can expect it to look squishy and red when it first comes out. but nothing can fully prepare you for the first wail of life.

Bim and i were talking about szymborska's poem, "under a certain little star," also translated as, "under one small star," {original in polish} recently, trying to decide what specifically is so affecting about it. we started isolating single lines, clusters of words, until we'd pretty much underlined the whole thing. that's when you know a poem has really succeeded: the whole is more than the sum of its lines. it can have an outright physical impact--your body feels it at the same time your intellect absorbs it. Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body feel so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."

where have i heard this sort of soul-mind merge described before? church. poetry is a spiritual event. it's soul-culture. {that's me channeling Emily D. again}.

looking at symborska you can see the relationship between the words and their meanings {my comments in grey. the original has no stanza breaks}:

see the complete poem here.

Under a Certain Little Star
*by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.

what does this mean? calling chance necessity? i don't know. it sounds good--i want to know. so i keep reading.

My apologies to necessity in case I'm mistaken.

funny & i trust this voice for not being absolute.

Don't be angry, happiness, that I take you for my own.
May the dead forgive me that their memory's but a flicker.

you talk about universal themes in art connecting us. here's a fine example. who doesn't know exactly how this feels?

My apologies to time for the quantity of world overlooked per second.

yes.

My apologies to an old love for treating a new one as the first.

life demands horrors from us! this is unspeakable and yet thoroughly important. infinitely true.

Forgive me, far-off wars, for carrying my flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
My apologies for the minuet record, to those calling out from the abyss.

here it is: the lyrical driving the logical. the loveliness of the words is staunchly supported by their meaning. beauty alone is commendable but beauty and truth together are GORGEOUS. it's so good it's sickening. it hurts me. to borrow an Ally phrase, i just completely love it.

My apologies to those in train stations for sleeping soundly at five in the morning.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing sometimes.
Pardon me, deserts, for not rushing in with a spoonful of water.

futility and guilt and despair. uncommon insight tinged with humor in so few words. feel the rhythm of the words, and hear the sounds and feel the meaning in your gut? that's poetry, chickens.

And you, O hawk, the same bird for years in the same cage,staring, motionless, always at the same spot, absolve me even if you happen to be stuffed.
My apologies to the tree felled for four table legs.

these images that evoke objects and places, bring the poem into view. they also earn the challenging, more abstract insights that follow:

My apologies to large questions for small answers.
Truth, do not pay me too much attention.
Solemnity, be magnanimous toward me.

holla! the only thing i can say about those lines is to repeat those lines.
notice she doesn't go long without feeding us more visual goodies. there isn't much i want to say about the final lines: more commentary would just be pollution. but i hope you just completely love them too. i hope you're reading them in a quiet place, preferably in the evening or very early morning. oy.

Bear with me, O mystery of being, for pulling threads from your veil.
Soul, don't blame me that I've got you so seldom.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere.
My apologies to all for not knowing how to be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me, since I am my own obstacle.
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,and then labor to make them light.

: :

bim and i talked about how titles come about. "Under One Small Star," or "Under A Certain Little Star," tells me this speaker comes from a place of relative insignificance and yet has importance as a specific life, a small but curiously infinite existence. she is. she is a part of. she is a witness. she feels her impact and simultaneously, her lack of impact. i know how she feels. don't you?

not to make this like homework, but. any thoughts?

The poet Ed Hirsch says, "[a poem] is mute and plaintive in its calling out, its need for renewal. It needs a reader to possess it, to be possessed by it. Its very life depends on it."

save a life today.