with regard to the subject of your letter:our nonhero has a single statement to make;not a generality,but a function of his own particular experience--women are always right
by this,I emphatically don't imply the merely logical or pragmatical or legal or whatever "right" which men(who are essentially cowards)have invented to cover a multitude of wrongs. I do imply Something equally at right angles to "right" & "wrong";Something which is to "right" & "wrong" as Joy is to "pleasure" & "pain",or as Truth is to "fact" & "fiction"
today's "fact" is tomorrow's "fiction"--Copernicus supersedes Ptolemy--& only perhaps a billion fools confuse the transient with the timeless. "Pleasure" & "pain" are heads and tails of the same coin:"pain" equals un-"pleasure","pleasure" equals un-"pain". But Joy isn't un-anything;Joy IS
precisely so,while soidisant men are content to simply exist in the silly finite tiny trivial realm of either-or which their cowardice has evolved & their arrogance has entitled "reality",women(totally & mysteriously)ARE
this is what I imply;& can only imply,since the thing in itself(like all Good True & Beautiful things)eludes description,being strictly immeasurable. Women ARE,not because or although or for any selfstyled reason,but like Birth & Life & Death. They ARE like feeling & like breathing;like a bud exploding & a leaf spiralling:like the stars setting & the sun rising,& the moon closing & the moon opening
E E Cummings to Omar Pound, from a letter dated November 8 1954, in Selected Letters of E E Cummings, ed. F. W. Dupee and George Stade (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969), pp 236-7
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
On the road, with ...
Wallace and Wystan, or as both men would have doubtless preferred, Messrs Stevens and Auden: from the Poetry Foundation.
Monday, August 27, 2012
The First Pentecost
All the Apostles looked at one another;
words curled in fire through the returning gloom.
Something had changed and colored all the room.
The beauty of the Galilean mother
took the breath from them for a little space.
Even a cup, a chair or a brown dress
could draw their tears with the great loveliness
that wrote tremendous secrets every place.
That was the day when Fire came down from heaven,
inaugurating the first spring of love.
Blood melted in the frozen veins, and even
the least bird sang in the mind's inmost grove.
The seed sprang into flower, and over all
still do the multitudinous blossoms fall.
~ Jessica Powers (Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD) (1905-88)
Thursday, August 23, 2012
8th-century Irish litany
O Great Mary,
pray for us.
O Mary, greatest of Maries,
pray for us.
O Greatest of women,
pray for us.
O Queen of angels,
pray for us.
O Mistress of the heavens,
pray for us.
O Woman full and replete with the grace of the Holy Spirit,
pray for us.
O Blessed and most blessed,
pray for us.
O Mother of Eternal Glory,
pray for us.
O Mother of the heavenly and earthly Church,
pray for us.
O Mother of Love and Indulgence,
pray for us.
O Mother of the Golden Heights,
pray for us.
O Honor of the sky,
pray for us.
O Sign of tranquillity,
pray for us.
O Gate of Heaven,
pray for us.
O Golden Vessel,
pray for us.
O Couch of Love and Mercy,
pray for us.
O Temple of Divinity,
pray for us.
O Beauty of virgins,
pray for us.
O Mistress of the tribes,
pray for us.
O Fountain of gardens,
pray for us.
O Cleansing of sins,
pray for us.
O Purifying of souls,
pray for us.
O Mother of orphans,
pray for us.
O Breast of infants,
pray for us.
O Solace of the wretched,
pray for us.
O Star of the sea,
pray for us.
O Handmaid of the Lord,
pray for us.
O Mother of Christ,
pray for us.
O Resort of the Lord,
pray for us.
O Graceful like the dove,
pray for us.
O Serene like the moon,
pray for us.
O Resplendent like the sun,
pray for us.
O Cancelling Eve's disgrace,
pray for us.
O Regeneration of life,
pray for us.
O Beauty of women,
pray for us.
O Leader of virgins,
pray for us.
O Garden Enclosed,
pray for us.
O Fountain sealed up,
pray for us.
O Mother of God,
pray for us.
O Perpetual Virgin,
pray for us.
O Holy Virgin,
pray for us.
O Prudent Virgin,
pray for us.
O Serene Virgin,
pray for us.
O Chaste Virgin,
pray for us.
O Temple of the Living God,
pray for us.
O Royal Throne of the Eternal King,
pray for us.
O Sanctuary of the Holy Spirit,
pray for us.
O Virgin of the Root of Jesse,
pray for us.
O Cedar of Mount Lebanon,
pray for us.
O Cypress of Mount Sion,
pray for us.
O Crimson Rose of the Land of Jacob,
pray for us.
O Blooming like the palm tree,
pray for us.
O Fruitful like the olive tree,
pray for us.
O Glorious Son-bearer,
pray for us.
O Light of Nazareth,
pray for us.
O Glory of Jerusalem,
pray for us.
O Beauty of the world,
pray for us.
O Noblest-Born of the Christian flock,
pray for us.
O Queen of Life,
pray for us.
O Ladder of Heaven,
pray for us.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Rilke
Und fast ein Mädchen wars und ging hervor
aus diesem einigen Glück von Sang und Leier
und glänzte klar durch ihre Frühlingsschleier
und machte sich ein Bett in meinem Ohr.
Und schlief in mir. Und alles war ihr Schlaf.
Die Bäume, die ich je bewundert, diese
fühlbare Ferne, die gefühlte Wiese
und jedes Staunen, das mich selbst betraf.
Sie schlief die Welt. Singender Gott, wie hast
du sie vollendet, daß sie nicht begehrte,
erst wach zu sein ? Sieh, sie erstand und schlief.
Wo ist ihr Tod ? O, wirst du dies Motiv
erfinden noch, eh sich dein Lied verzehrte ? …
Wo sinkt sie hin aus mir ?.. Ein Mädchen fast ..
+ + +
And it was almost a girl and came to be
out of this single joy of song and lyre
and through her green veils shone forth radiantly
and made herself a bed inside my ear.
And slept there. And her sleep was everything:
the awesome trees, the distances I had felt
so deeply that I could touch them, meadows in spring:
all wonders that had ever seized my heart.
She slept the world. Singing god, how was that first
sleep so perfect that she had no desire
ever to wake? See: she arose and slept.
Where is her death now? Ah, will you discover
this theme before your song consumes itself?—
Where is she vanishing? … A girl almost . . . .
(trans. Stephen Mitchell)
Monday, August 13, 2012
The Dawning
by George Herbert (1593-1633)
Awake sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns;
Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
Unfold thy forehead gather’d into frowns:
Thy Saviour comes, and with him mirth:
Awake, awake;
And with a thankfull heart his comforts take.
But thou dost still lament, and pine, and crie;
And feel his death, but not his victorie.
Arise sad heart; if thou dost not withstand,
Christ's resurrection thine may be:
Do not by hanging down break from the hand,
Which as it riseth, raiseth thee:
Arise, Arise;
And with his buriall-linen drie thine eyes:
Christ left his grave-clothes, that we might, when grief
Draws tears, or bloud, not want an handkerchief.
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