Secrets I’d Like The Universe to Keep

I have been getting a little nervous lately about poems that deal heavily in abstract ideas and are short on vivid images. While these types of poems can play out well on the page, I’m not sure that they grab an audience’s attention when read aloud. Nonetheless, I enjoyed writing this poem. It had me grappling with essential questions of human existence and, at the end of the process, I felt content.

 

Secrets I’d Like the Universe to Keep

Don’t tell me why I’m here,
just let me cut the stems of carnations
without feeling guilty.

Don’t tell me what other people think of me,
just let me get dirt under my fingernails
without feeling ashamed.

Don’t tell me who or how to love,
just let me graciously accept yellow roses
without feeling betrayed.

And when I suspect that happiness is not avoiding sorrow,
keep me running from gratuitous pain,
cursing joy that floats like oil on water.

You may be tempted to tell me I cannot meet expectations,
but be sure I sometimes do－in cursory, illusory moments,
in moments of mist on snow-covered mornings.
I won’t take them for granted.

I will want to know what might have been,
gather tinder to fuel my regrets.
Let that fodder be consumed by the light that dries the dew.

The consequences of my actions
may smoulder in some molten core, but
I do not need to know them: protect me
from volcanoes and tectonics.

Protect me from the knowledge of my death,
the whys and wherefores, and sometimes
the inevitability－especially when, like a whale,
I walk as a wolf on the land.

I’ll thank you when my carcass comes ashore－perhaps,
but don’t tell me if that’s true. Lie to me occasionally
and spin tall tales often.

Let the best tales of all be the ones I leave behind,
yarns spun and cut like the thread of life, binding
flowers and flames that I pray are not yellow.
But don’t tell me if they are.

© 2018 Lisa Mulrooney

When a Project Comes Calling

Writing About Art

I have been struggling to find good content for my poetry lately. Sometimes, I re-read my work and I think the ideas are too lofty or too philosophical and just not grounded in either reality or the relevant. To get past that, I thought it might be a good idea to create a project for myself . . . what if I were to write about art?

The strange thing is that I think the universe is now conspiring to make sure this happens. One more coincidence and I think I might actually get scared. There’s no getting out of it now.

When I decided that there was no better place to start finding images for my poetry than in . . . well, images, I thought I’d better get myself a book of famous paintings. My Dad loves to browse around second-hand stores, so I sent him on a mission. I asked him to see if he could locate a book on Art History. My instructions were vague, but the one specific was to avoid bringing back a book that focused solely on an individual artist. Off he went to Value Village. Sadly, he came back empty-handed.

A week later, I was in the same Value Village looking to see if perhaps my Dad had overlooked the treasure I was seeking. I did in fact find a book that day, but it was not at all what I had expected. It was not a book about Art History, including the works of many masters, as I had described to my Dad. It was exactly what I had asked him not to pick up – a book concerning an individual artist. Rembrandt to be exact.

I know nothing about Art History and I know nothing about Rembrandt, but I am always up for a challenge – and I love research, so I decided that my project be based around the paintings of Rembrandt.

Ekphrasis and The Stroll of Poets

Writing poetry about art is called “ekphrasis.” I only (re-)discovered that when I started exploring some ideas for this project. It is an interesting word of Greek origin (meaning “description,” “to point out” or “explain”), but as interesting as it might be, it is not a common word. That is why I found it so unusual when, last night, I made a new friend at a poetry reading (The Stroll of Poets Haven Reading Series, Edmonton, who told me that she wrote quite a lot of ekphrastic poems (and I understood what the heck she was talking about)! It turns out that this very nice lady is an Art Historian. Strange. That might not seem like a huge coincidence . . . but to me, meeting her, and having that conversation, seemed . . . well . . . meaningful.

So during the past week, I spent some time thinking about where to start with this project. I’d have to pick a painting to start with . . . but, how to choose? Maybe I should just go with my gut? I decided to be a little bit more intentional. It crossed my mind that if I were to write a poem about a famous painting, then one day, I might want to go and see the actual painting for myself. So, I consulted my good friend, Mr. Google, to find out where Rembrandt’s works are located. As it turns out, there are not many in Canada (I can’t really say I am surprised), but – as fortune would have it – there are quite a number in my native England. Since I do get back to the UK occasionally, I decided to pick a painting that could be viewed in London, England. I don’t know why I settled on Belshazzar’s Feast. All I know is that it was chosen from a short list of titles without giving the actual images much thought (which does seem to go against the grain a little, but nonetheless felt right).

Al Purdy

I have spent the past two days staring at the painting and reading a little bit about it – gearing up, as it were, to plunge in with my first (pre-planned) ekphrastic poem. Tonight, I was going to make a start on the poem, or at least make myself a few more notes on the painting. Instead though, I decided to take a hot bath and read the collection of Al Purdy poems I picked up from the library today (Beyond Remembering).

Now, for the most recent coincidence . . . I am 8 poems into the book when I read the following lines from “At Roblin Lake”):

Next morning I make a shore-capture,
one frog like an emerald breathing,
hold the chill musical anti-body
a moment with breath held,
thinking of spores, spermatozoa, seed,
housed in this cold progenitor,
transmitting to some future species
what the wall said to Belshazzar.

Again, strange. Of all the allusions Purdy could have used, he draws attention to my painting (well, Rembrandt’s, but you know what I mean)!

I can’t help it. I just think it’s meant to be. So . . . I guess I’ve got myself a project!

(I’d love to hear from others about similar coincidences that have led them on to a “meant-to-be project.” Please share your story).

Poetry Retreat

My family has just returned from a wonderful week long vacation to Vancouver Island. We stayed in Metchosin, just outside of Victoria, and during our stay, we got to visit some beautiful locations, including the Town of Sidney and the Village of Ganges (Salt Spring Island). These amazing places, rife in natural beauty and culture, got me thinking about going on a Poetry Retreat. How wonderful it would be to leave the hustle and bustle of everyday life behind, and find some wonderful spot like Sidney or Ganges to spend time in, solely for the purpose of studying poetry and being inspired to write more.

These thoughts led me to muse about creating my own “retreat,” customized especially for me, allowing time to take off my mom, wife and teacher hats, and exclusively don my poet’s hat.

I haven’t yet figured out what the retreat would entail (aside from a beautiful location – like the ocean or mountains), but I’m working on it and looking for input. How would I plan my days? How much time should I spend looking for inspiration, reading, writing? Which texts or exercises would I take along with me to facilitate the process? I’m open to suggestions!

I’m wondering if this book might help? I just noticed it in our local bookstore today (click on the image to link out to the book on Amazon):

Speaking of bookstores, I had the great pleasure of visiting a really interesting one in Sidney: The Haunted Bookshop.

And what a treasure I found there: a book that came from the personal library of Canadian Poet Phyllis Webb. Interestingly, she now resides on Salt Spring Island – and, today (April 8th) is her 90th birthday! The book: T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.

Rilke and the Tension between Individuality and Tradition

I recently decided to re-read Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. It’s been a long time since I first read this work. At that time it was “required reading,” so you can guess how well that went over. Nowadays, I am a lot more interested in the wisdom that Rilke had to share about writing poetry.

The first letter speaks of the importance of cultivating an “individual style,” by looking inward rather than outward. Remaining true to the depths of your own soul, stresses Rilke, is more important than gaining approval from your peers, the public, magazine editors, or the keepers of literary tradition.

After I finished (re-)reading the first letter, I was inspired to write a poem about the almost palpable tension that exists for many writers who are caught between a desire to be experimental or innovative (developing a unique style) and a desire to be appropriately and relevantly situated upon the solid ground that was first foraged by those we recognize as great (even “canonical,” dare I say it) poets.

Here is the result of that inspiration:

Innovation

between worlds
fingers, collapsing bridges
reach for solid ground
by tapping on the shoulders
of the living

deaf to husky voices
and the play of Shadows
old men hum their obituaries
free to release
and too humbled to resist

they brush boney hands aside
snapping puppet’s strings
careless in the chasm
between themselves
and evolution

manipulation misinterpreted
negatively, defines nothing
but a foolhardy Geppetto
and the mistakes of a puppet boy
whose freedom apes rebellion

© Lisa Mulrooney