Time's Most Favored Season

Laguna Beach Nursery and Garden Center, California
Don't let anyone tell you that autumn doesn't come to Southern California!
These are without a doubt the most amazing pumpkins and
the most beautiful harvest displays that I've seen all season!

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"Ada had tried to love all the year equally . . .
Nevertheless, she could not get over loving autumn best . . . "
~ Cold Mountain ~ Charles Frazier ~

**********************
Almost Halloween, that mystical half - way point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice! Like Frazier's Ada, I too have a heart that favors fall. In fact, one of my favorite poets, Lee Perron, claims that even Time loves autumn best:

Fall Arrives
Fall arrives, time’s most favored season—
at last the heart, the mind loosens its fist
so that I no longer need to know who I am

I return to the hills and the great presences—
light, heat, clouds, the bull pines—
to recover for myself the purity of the falling world
to enfold it like a pearl in the mind’s silence

I read the calligraphy of the oaks against
the fading skies, the grass bending in the meadow,
the last robins— I’m a circle reaching
the first place for the first time

for in youth among fall leaves I refused
to acknowledge the ancient writing—
that the basket of summer empties, that
the hours of men are as wind-driven clouds—
and yet among fall leaves
I was overjoyed with the beauty of loss

now I stand on autumn’s wooded knoll
that my life too may vanish,
that night may fall into the earth’s arms

time is calling her trout
from their playgrounds in the sea
to river mouth, and redemption, and fury

it is by means of the long delay
that we come to the righteousness of passion.

by Lee Perron
Contemporary American Poet & Antiquarian Bookseller

For this poem and more, by
Janis Ian, Stephen Stills, Michael Lipsey, the Little Prince,
the prophet Jeremiah, Green Day, and Optimism Revolution

see my latest post
about autumn, time, and contentment

"My Times"

on
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A fortnightly [every 14th & 28th]
literary blog of connection & coincidence; custom & ceremony

The Grief that Saps the Mind

ON MEMORIAL DAY:
"Ring out the grief that saps the mind
for those that here we see no more."
~ Tennyson ~


Sign by Robert Montgomery, Post-Situationist Public Artist
Painted wood & solar-powered LED lights
De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill, East Sussex
When it comes to "the grief that saps the mind," no one has described it better than my literary friend Lee Perron, in the following section of his poem, "From Desire, A Sequence" (fondly referred to in my family as "The Nose Poem"):

your mate dies, or parents
or one of your other friends
there is nothing fearful in the death
the deadman is not the problem
his letters perhaps
some phrase he spoke that rings every after
the way he died, what the surgeons did to his brain, or kidneys,
or heart
what you & he would have been doing now
next week, all summer long as you always did
the deadman did not die
your plans died
and this is what is so upsetting
this makes us so sick we cannot even think

~ Lee Perron

"Seasons of blankness" is Thomas Hardy's way to describe this upsetting, sickening sense of loss. Gerry's Auntie Margaret fondly refers to Hardy as "such as misery," which is true. Yet, his irony appeals to me: the things we want to stay are going; the things we want to go are staying. But just at the point where we might easily turn to cynicism, Hardy offers neutrality: yes, we lose the good things, the best things, the "prime"; but some of the mind - sapping grief dissipates as well.

The May Moon ~ We Wish It Would Stay!


Going and Staying

I

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,
The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,
These were the things we wished would stay;
But they were going.

II

Seasons of blankness as of snow,
The silent bleed of a world decaying,
The moan of multitudes in woe,
These were the things we wished would go;
But they were staying.

III

Then we looked closelier at Time,
And saw his ghostly arms revolving
To sweep off woeful things with prime,
Things sinister with things sublime
Alike dissolving.

~ Thomas Hardy ~


A Closlier Look at the Full Moon
~ Cosmic Photography by Jay Beets ~
[P.S. Closelier is Hardy's own special made - up word, so much better than just plain old closer.]

A closing thought
from The Fault in Our Stars
by John Green:

" . . . then I realized there was no one else to call,
which was the saddest thing.
The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Waters's death was Augustus Waters. . . .
In the last weeks, we'd been reduced to spending our time together in recollection, but that was not nothing:
The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me,
because there was no longer anyone to remember with.
It felt like losing your co - rememberer
meant losing the memory itself,
as if the things we'd done were less real and important
than they had been hours before. (262)

Now, that's the grief that saps the mind . . .
the grief that makes us so sick we cannot even think . . .
See also my earlier post "Indifferent Universe"

Opportunity Cost: Economics & Poetics

" . . . the deciduous idea!
trees die for half the year and take all else in the universe . . . "
~ Lee Perron ~
Central Park, June 2011
If you haven't seen my latest Fortnightly blog post, No One With A Nose, take a look now and you can read one of my all - time favorite poems along with some economic theory that elucidates the main character's bargain with the gods:

sometimes he wonders if he really had to go out & cut off his
nose just to learn how to get things
maybe he could have just gone out and gotten them
but no, he looks around & sees that no one with a nose has
anywhere near the things he does, not a tenth so much,
not a hundredth
from Desire, a Sequence by Lee Perron
click to see entire poem posted earlier

I think perhaps rather than sacrifice, this poem may really be more about an idea that came to attention ~ coincidentally! ~ as I was turning the calendars ahead to July: opportunity cost, i.e., "the cost of any activity measured in terms of the best alternative forgone . . . the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices . . . the basic relationship between scarcity and choice. The notion of opportunity cost plays a crucial part in ensuring that scarce resources [ ~ such as true love ~ ] are used efficiently. Thus, opportunity costs are not restricted to monetary or financial costs: the real cost of output forgone, lost time, pleasure or any other benefit that provides utility should also be considered opportunity costs" (see Wikipedia for further explanation and footnotes).

An even better explanation is provided by the young entrepreneurs who designed the Indiana Council for Economic Education 2011 Economic Concept Calendar. The featured concept for July is "Opportunity Cost," illustrated by fifth grader, Abbie S.: "When you make a decision, the most valuable alternative you give up is your Opportunity Cost. (Opportunity Cost is NOT what you pay to buy something.) There is always an alternative to any decision, so every decision has an opportunity cost" (click ICEE, scroll down to page 7 for calendar contest winners; clicking on the winning pictures link will give you a preview of next year's 2012 calendar).

Another way to think of it is the passage from George Bernard Shaw's play Major Barbara (but also ascribed to novelist H. G. Wells; a discrepancy that I have not yet resolved to my satisfaction):

"You have learned something.
That always feels at first
as if you have lost something."
See also column at right ~>
"The Price of Experience" ~>
If there is a decision, an alternative, something to learn . . . then there will be a cost, something forgone, something to lose.

NEW FORTNIGHTLY POST
THURSDAY, 14 JULY 2011

Pocket Poems

For more on the poetry of Lee Perron
see my essay

"No One With A Nose"

on The Fortnightly [Every 14th & 28th]
Kitti Carriker: A Literary Blog
of Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony

we come to understand
slowly
our lips utter
stones

******

this friendship
i shall regret
losing --
how many days
does water slip
over these rocks?

The Nose Poem

For today's blog -- and in preparation for a longer post (long story!) coming up in the near future -- I typed up the following long poem, which my nearest and dearest (and perhaps a few of my former students) will recognize as a long - time favorite of mine.

For those who have not read it before, here is one of the best parables I have ever encountered on the topic of sacrifice and the price of experience. This man does not cut off his nose to spite his face. No, he does it to gain both the world and his soul.


from Desire, a Sequence (1977)
by Lee Perron, California Poet & Antiquarian Bookseller

there are so many innocent little things we want
with application and luck and a good nudge from the gods
we may have any of them

it's those gods -- they bestow all things upon you
and they do not ask for much in return
they will give you everything & they will ask back from you only
some small thing --
for instance, they might ask for your nose

come on, they say, why don't you just chuck it in
put it down the garbage disposal and as soon as it works its way
back into the earth we'll give you whatever you want
the deciduous idea! trees die for half the year & take all else in
the universe
-- i can hear what's going on in your mind: what, my nose? oh
no, not me, you must be thinking of some other guy
but you know, a man might do it
he might take a knife & cut a little deeper every day
and if by the second week he's still only through the skin and
hasn't really gotten to the bone yet
in that second week he decides to lob off the whole thing at once
and there he is with no nose
people laugh at him
but immediately the gods start bestowing their gifts
they give him patience & application
he learns how to do things right
slowly he grows in command of his will & intellect
and with these he acquires whatever he feels he needs:
a wife, lovers, respect in his community, a drum set
the capacity to drink limitless quantities of gin

but what is hard right from the start is that nose
he sighs often (through his mouth) and is heard to say
without my nose sometimes none of it seems to make sense
his friends show up and remind him of the cold hard facts of
his noseless life
they tell him to apply himself
and he's back at work again, gathering his desires

sometimes he wonders if he really had to go out & cut off his
nose just to learn how to get things
maybe he could have just gone out and gotten them
but no, he looks around & sees that no one with a nose has
anywhere near the things he does, not a tenth so much,
not a hundredth

whenever he takes a trip to one of those big medical cities --
boston, baltimore, houston, he'll go & talk to the medics
what can you do about this nose? he'll ask
what nose? they reply
he has learned to be earnest always: can you do anything about
getting me another one?
but when the doctors hear the circumstances
-- his confused early life,
his vow to the gods, the garbage disposal
-- they won't touch him with a ten foot pole

there are good years and bad
he goes through periods where he is a great complainer
what is the point of it, he says, if i have no nose?
his friends show up to console him
well at least you'll never have to rub your nose in your own
filth, they say
his friends become his tormentors
there is a long time he won't speak to anyone
night after night he dreams his nose has come back
each night it's the same shape, but a different size
somewhere along the line, tho, he stops fighting things so hard

there are always people to make jokes, even upon the wealthy & successful
he makes them himself in moments of despair
he will howl, every yes must have a no
but every ass must have a nose!
and on his tombstone the universal jester gets off a last good one:
an excellent man / got everything a man / could want; said yes
to all / but could have used more nose

so they laugh at him in the graveyard
but you listen, when that man died he had finally achieved every-
thing:

children, grandchildren, troops of friends
the warm feelings of all who knew him
earlier on concubines & no desire left unfulfilled
an animal park names in his honor
real progress in the field of cancer
a fully benevolent philosopher-king in charge of his country
universal justice prevailing throughout the land

at the end they hear him say
you know, if i had it to do all over again, i'd like to try it with
my nose the next time
and he dies
& it is nothing like the death of priam or macbeth
or any of those other simpletons
this man got everything

***********************

you have seen it perhaps
there is always the time the car stops
in front of the big white house
or gray house, or blue
it will not go any further with you
the car is stopped
and one of you must get out
and the other drive off
it is all that simple
-- do you think i am talking of love?

or you will be driving down a country road
and there are two sparrows
or buntings or bluebirds
and you hit one of these and it lies by the roadside
and its mate circles about chittering
and then sits on a fencepost
and sings something
this mate, perhaps, is inconsolable
please --
i am not talking about love

your mate dies, or parents
or one of your other friends
there is nothing fearful in the death
the deadman is not the problem
his letters perhaps
some phrase he spoke that rings every after
the way he died, what the surgeons did to his brain, or kidneys,
or heart
what you & he would have been doing now
next week, all summer long as you always did
the deadman did not die
your plans died
and this is what is so upsetting
this makes us so sick we cannot even think

i have seen all the trees
and the great views from mountains
the stars
the tiniest flowers within inches of my eye
but i have seen nothing more beautiful than human desire
in the country, the lawns just going purple with violets
we would have these violets and one particular friend
we have shattered the glazed bowl and make another
rounder, or less symmetrical, or with a plainer glaze
who could blame us? at sunset, we ask for wine
in white dawn we take coffee
we make lovely worlds more & more lovely
and then we see they are better simple
and then we make them simple
this desire is very much like song
our melodies everywhere about us
like butterflies, our desires hover about our heads and our hands

in this beauty
the car stops
the arm reaches for the doorhandle
and there is nothing left to it but the pulling up on the handle
there is a way the eyes have of gazing intently downward
the legs slide onto the pavement
and one of you looks back through the car widow
you may touch one another's lips, or not
it hardly makes any difference, so beautiful is desire

Arbor Day

Deciduous Trees: Half full or half empty? You decide:

" . . . the deciduous idea! trees die for half the year
& take all else in the universe . . . "
from "Desire, a Sequence" (1977)
by Lee Perron, California Poet & Antiquarian Bookseller
". . . A tree is a lady in a new
coat in spring. and nothing in
winter because she wanted too much . . . "
by Vicky Williams, age 13
in Begin Sweet World: Poetry by Children (1976)
editing and photography by
John Pearson
"Darsa, the Great Tree, stared down into the valley, keeping an unending vigil over the entire world as her children knew it. The early-morning mist was beginning to lift, and Darsa shivered as a cool breeze slipped through her branches."

My nephew Daniel, who lives and writes in Maryland, has composed a charming parable about Darsa, the Great Tree, who is worshipped by the trusting villagers for miles around, despite her inability to affect the outcome of their lives for either better or worse. Subject to the Fates, as are they, Darsa lives on in this way, frustrated but tolerant for many generations, centuries, until the day she is visited by the little girl Min who impolores Darsa to return her mother from the dead. Certain that Darsa has the power to give and take life as she pleases, Min lashes out and kicks the Great Tree of the Valley in childish anger and despair:

"The place where Min had kicked her ached dully; Darsa suspected there was a gash in her bark now, but it would heal with time. But what was this other ache she was feeling, the one that seemed to have descended upon her entire being? It seemed to extend even to the tips of the few scraggly leaves still clinging to her branches from the previous autumn. She’d suffered many injuries in her lifetime, of course; there was hardly a spot on her bark that didn’t have a scar of some sort, and she’d even lost two limbs, one to a lightning bolt and one to a nasty case of wood rot. But none of those had pained her even half as much as this new ache. What had Min done to her?"

Though not a Deity, Darsa has been suddenly, unexpectedly humanized by Min: "Perhaps that was what came of being treated like a mother for so many generations; sooner or later, whether you wanted to or not, you started to feel like one." And, without even trying, the Great Tree sends Min away with hope, in the form of "one of Darsa’s seeds, a tiny winged thing."


Nice Spot for a Family Reunion!The Tea Room at Gambrill State Park
Nestled between The Frederick Valley & The Middletown Valley
Frederick, Maryland