On Beauty...

And a poet said, 'Speak to us of Beauty.' And he answered: Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, 'Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.' And the passionate say, 'Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.' The tired and the weary say, 'beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.' But the restless say, 'We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.' At night the watchmen of the city say, 'Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.' And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, 'we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.' In winter say the snow-bound, 'She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.' And in the summer heat the reapers say, 'We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.' All these things have you said of beauty. Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror. Kahlil Gibran

Immigrant Blues

My life's latest (though tiny) pleasure has involved listening to NPR's podcasts of "Poetry Off The Shelf"on small breaks from the pointedly unpoetical reading and writing I've been living and breathing for the past two years. Last night I listened to an interview and readings from Li-Young Lee, a Chinese American poet who was born in exile in Indonesia, emigrating to the United States during the Vietnam War. Lee read his poem "Immigrant Blues," describing his struggle with learning to love and be loved after experiencing so much violence and racism in his childhood. The interviewer drew observed the tendency of post-modernistic poetry to avoid overly-romantic language about love, hearts, souls, and other apparently out-of-fashion expressions of human emotion, drawing contrast and exception to Lee's work. He commented that "this whole poem makes me nervous!" after being asked whether he feels nervous about using words other modern poets might consider cliche. Listening to him read is pure pleasure: The soft bass of his voice reverberates humility while it strings complex tales of his childhood to weave a picture of his internal experiences as an adult. I have no doubt the rest of his work is just as beautiful. You can listen to him read this poem and others (as well as other poet's readings) on the generous and fantastic website of Blue Flower Arts.

I'm trying hard to not have any more crushes on unattainable middle-aged men from various countries on the other side of the world, so I'll just satiate my desires with a gift to myself in the form of his latest book and audio cd, "Behind My Eyes."

"Immigrant Blues"
Li-Young Lee

People have been trying to kill me since I was born,
a man tells his son, trying to explain
the wisdom of learning a second tongue.

It’s an old story from the previous century
about my father and me.

The same old story from yesterday morning
about me and my son.

It’s called “Survival Strategies
and the Melancholy of Racial Assimilation.”

It’s called “Psychological Paradigms of Displaced Persons,”

called, “The Child Who’d Rather Play than Study.”

Practice until you feel
the language inside you, says the man.

But what does he know about inside and outside,
my father who was spared nothing
in spite of the languages he used?

And me, confused about the flesh and the soul,
who asked once into a telephone,
Am I inside you?

You’re always inside me, a woman answered,
at peace with the body’s finitude,
at peace with the soul’s disregard
of space and time.

Am I inside you? I asked once
lying between her legs, confused
about the body and the heart.

If you don’t believe you’re inside me, you’re not,
she answered, at peace with the body’s greed,
at peace with the heart’s bewilderment.

It’s an ancient story from yesterday evening

called “Patterns of Love in Peoples of Diaspora,”

called “Loss of the Homeplace
and the Defilement of the Beloved,”

called “I Want to Sing but I Don’t Know Any Songs.”