Poems & Songs - Volume I. #3

Note & Reminder:

 

Reminder: Poetry is best when taken in doses of 2—read twice, preferably aloud—and then discussed with a friend.  Who knows what may happen…

 

Note: Not aiming to be or feel like a scholar, here are quotes by Flannery O’Connor (packed with a mouthful of “meaning”) that point to the heart of what we’re after when engaging a poem or work of art.

 

Meaning is what keeps the short story from being short…not abstract meaning but experienced meaning, and the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience that meaning more fully.

 

I prefer to talk about the meaning in a story rather than the theme of a story.

 

~ Flannery O’Connor (from the essay, Writing Short Stories)

 

This month’s selections are from Robert Frost and Gerard Manley Hopkins.  (A song by Eddie Vedder from the motion picture soundtrack Into The Wild is added to the mix.) It is strongly encouraged to say a Hopkins poem aloud several times in order to catch the rhythm and not to be daunted or dismayed by its apparent strangeness.  Distinctive in form, his poems are threaded with unexpected word play, uncommon words, and an exquisite aesthetic touch.  Hopkins’ innovative poetic meter, termed “sprung rhythm,” imitates the organic rhythms of common speech and nature—from sustained lulls to building or sudden gusts of wind or surge of waves.  (Returning to and rediscovering more natural ways can be strange—and original—indeed!)

 

Although not necessary for enjoyment, we can find connections between these poems.  As this time of year is a time of nature’s silent dark underground push for life and preparation for a Spring Show, and a time of ashes and waiting in the cycle of Christian feasts, each poem touches on themes of deep striving in Nature.  Of course, Hopkins also weaves in a metaphysical note, (as arguably does Vedder.)

 

Each poem is rich and presents dynamic images to behold and questions to ponder.  Simply as a means to begin the exploration, here are brief questions and thoughts.  Mending Wall’s narrator helps to fix a wall and apparently sees purposes for walls, but states, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out,..”  And he has the question: “Why do they (walls) make good neighbors?..” Among many others, another question that has a strong itch is why it “seems” to the narrator that the neighbor “moves in darkness...”

 

The narrator of The Caged Skylark isn’t that open or direct, but confidently and beautifully posits puzzling images and assertions that range from fear and rage to delicate song.  We see the nest, “wild nest, no prison,” for the skylark, which seems necessary for it to be what it is: “a sweet-fowl, a song-fowl.”  We hear in Hopkins’ natural sprung rhythm the analogy of “Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house,..” and the “dare-gale skylark” (a skylark that dares to fly in a strong wind) “scanted (diminished, restrained) in a dull cage.”  We also hear what seems contradictory to this idea: “Man’s spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,..”

 

Well, enjoy!

 

JP

 

 

Mending Wall
by
Robert Frost

 

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs.  The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side.  It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn’t it

Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.'  I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself.  I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'

 

 

The Caged Skylark

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,

    Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells —

    That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;

This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.

Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage

    Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,

    Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells

Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.

 

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest —

Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,

    But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

 

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,

But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed

    For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

____________________________________

 

 

 

I think we can find ingredients that ring of Frost and Hopkins in Vedder’s beautiful and haunting song, Long Nights.  Obviously, there are related themes.  While we know the introspective narrator (the film’s young protagonist) can’t be judged too wise for his practical judgment, it may be wise for us to feel and remember his primal yearning for beauty, freedom, meaning, and communion, especially when we think of such things as homes and schools.

 

When experiencing this song and clip, I can’t help but bring back Hopkins’ “wild nest” and his final stanza.

 

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,

But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed

    For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

 

 

 

Long Nights

by Eddie Vedder

 

Have no fear

For when I'm alone

I'll be better off

Than I was before

 

I've got this light

I'll be around to grow

Who I was before

I cannot recall

 

Long nights allow

Me to feel I'm falling

I am falling

 

The lights go out

Let me feel I'm falling

I am falling

Safely to the ground

 

I'll take this soul

That's inside me now

Like a brand new friend

I'll forever know

 

I've got this life

And the will to show

I will always be

Better than before

 

Long nights allow

Me to feel I'm falling

I am falling

 

The lights go out

Let me feel I'm falling

I am falling

Safely to the ground

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