A Kindlier Dover Beach
The following poem by Kenneth Rexroth, written in 1968, just so happens to be one of the most beautiful I have ever encountered. Thanks to a dear, dear friend, I lived long enough to discover it this morning, to savor and share it. Like seeing one's children playing, there is no greater joy than the existence of this poem--or them.
As always, Rexroth instinctively sees all as part of a great clustered chain of being, each thing taking light from and giving life to the other, and forming a repose that calms oceans and clears skies. The "deus in machina," as a mentor called it years ago.
I have spent years studying and loving the poems of Rexroth's children--Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, among fervent others. So much of their 'Americanization' of time and space was taught them by him--long Pacific draughts of salty, humming air and the boom of surf. Everywhere he went--including, as here, England--Rexroth practised the soft, simple, unrelenting state of wonderment. The psalmist called it "praise," and described being as a banquet.
This morning, and many others recently, Rexroth has taught me the loving, lingering embrace that is perception. To live is to behold and stand beholden in, and to, that moment. Poetry is central act of exchange, its words currency of the realm called human being. The title says it all, about how we are combustible with the gnostic glow of being, lit within by love. It doesn't get any more joyous than this. No one will be able to keep his seat during the last four lines. Enjoy.
Let Poetry call this Meeting to order. Alhamdulillah!
THE SPARK IN THE TINDER OF KNOWING
for James Laughlin
Profound stillness in the greystone
Romanesque chapel, the rush
Of wheels beyond the door only
Underlines the silence. The wheels
Of life turn ceaselessly.
Their hiss and clank is
The noiseless turning of the Wheel
Of the Law, that turns without
Moving, from zenith to nadir,
From plus to minus, from black to white.
Love turns the uncountable,
Interlocking wheels of the stars.
The earth turns. The sun sets.
A bolt of iron all on fire
Falls into the turning city.
Love turns the heart to an unknown
Substance, fire of its fire.
Not by flesh, but by love, man
Comes into the world, lost in
The illimitable ocean
Of which there is no shore.
The sea of circumstance where
The heart drowns in the sea of love.
The heart drinks it and it drinks
The heart--transubstantiation
In which the One drinks the Other
the Other drinks the One.
The sea of fire that lights all being
Becomes the human heart.
No place. No place.
Moon. Sun. Stars. Planets.
Water. Rivers. Lakes. Ocean.
Fish in them. The swimming air.
Birds and their flying.
All turn to jewels of fire,
And then to one burning jewel.
The feathered heart flies upward
Out of this universe.
The broken heart loses its plumes
And hides in the earth until
It can learn to swim in the sea.
Empty the heart and peace will fill it.
Peace will raise it until floats
Into the empryean.
It is love that produces
Peace amongst men and calm
On the sea. The winds stop. Repose.
And sleep come even in pain.
Peace and windlessness and great
Silence arise in the midheaven.
That which appears as extant
Does not really exist,
So high above is that which truly is--
Reality enclosed in the heart,
I and not I, the One
In the Other, the Other
In the One, the Holy Wedding.
Innumerable are the arrows
In love's quiver and their flight
Defines my being, the ballistics
Of my person in time.
Cowley Fathers, Cambridge, 1968
from "The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth," Copper Canyon Press, 2004, pages 684-5
As always, Rexroth instinctively sees all as part of a great clustered chain of being, each thing taking light from and giving life to the other, and forming a repose that calms oceans and clears skies. The "deus in machina," as a mentor called it years ago.
I have spent years studying and loving the poems of Rexroth's children--Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, among fervent others. So much of their 'Americanization' of time and space was taught them by him--long Pacific draughts of salty, humming air and the boom of surf. Everywhere he went--including, as here, England--Rexroth practised the soft, simple, unrelenting state of wonderment. The psalmist called it "praise," and described being as a banquet.
This morning, and many others recently, Rexroth has taught me the loving, lingering embrace that is perception. To live is to behold and stand beholden in, and to, that moment. Poetry is central act of exchange, its words currency of the realm called human being. The title says it all, about how we are combustible with the gnostic glow of being, lit within by love. It doesn't get any more joyous than this. No one will be able to keep his seat during the last four lines. Enjoy.
Let Poetry call this Meeting to order. Alhamdulillah!
THE SPARK IN THE TINDER OF KNOWING
for James Laughlin
Profound stillness in the greystone
Romanesque chapel, the rush
Of wheels beyond the door only
Underlines the silence. The wheels
Of life turn ceaselessly.
Their hiss and clank is
The noiseless turning of the Wheel
Of the Law, that turns without
Moving, from zenith to nadir,
From plus to minus, from black to white.
Love turns the uncountable,
Interlocking wheels of the stars.
The earth turns. The sun sets.
A bolt of iron all on fire
Falls into the turning city.
Love turns the heart to an unknown
Substance, fire of its fire.
Not by flesh, but by love, man
Comes into the world, lost in
The illimitable ocean
Of which there is no shore.
The sea of circumstance where
The heart drowns in the sea of love.
The heart drinks it and it drinks
The heart--transubstantiation
In which the One drinks the Other
the Other drinks the One.
The sea of fire that lights all being
Becomes the human heart.
No place. No place.
Moon. Sun. Stars. Planets.
Water. Rivers. Lakes. Ocean.
Fish in them. The swimming air.
Birds and their flying.
All turn to jewels of fire,
And then to one burning jewel.
The feathered heart flies upward
Out of this universe.
The broken heart loses its plumes
And hides in the earth until
It can learn to swim in the sea.
Empty the heart and peace will fill it.
Peace will raise it until floats
Into the empryean.
It is love that produces
Peace amongst men and calm
On the sea. The winds stop. Repose.
And sleep come even in pain.
Peace and windlessness and great
Silence arise in the midheaven.
That which appears as extant
Does not really exist,
So high above is that which truly is--
Reality enclosed in the heart,
I and not I, the One
In the Other, the Other
In the One, the Holy Wedding.
Innumerable are the arrows
In love's quiver and their flight
Defines my being, the ballistics
Of my person in time.
Cowley Fathers, Cambridge, 1968
from "The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth," Copper Canyon Press, 2004, pages 684-5
posted by David Federman @ 4:12 AM
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