Hughlings Himwich

Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and Heraclitus Fragment 124

 

Heraclitus 124: σάρμα εἰκῇ κεχυμένον ὁ κάλλιστος, φησὶν Ἡράκλειτος, [ὁ] κόσμος

Balis’ translation: “The comeliest order on earth is but a heap of random sweepings.” (p.18)

What is odd about Balis’ translation of the Greek (and of all others I have found) is that there is no evidence for the word ‘but’ in the original Greek. Here is a literal translation in the order of the actual Greek:

Sweepings at random piled up the most beautiful, says Heraclitus, (the) kosmos.

'Kosmos' in Greek has a variety of meanings: order, arrangement, universe. A more graceful rendering of the original Greek:

The most beautiful kosmos, says Heraclitus, is sweepings piled up at random.

By leaving out the ‘but’ a jarringly different meaning emerges. Things swept up at random somehow present an ‘arrangement’ that is most beautiful to behold. Frazier in Cold Mountain does begin with the pejorative meaning that the ‘but’ implies, but ends with something surprisingly more positive and more faithful to the original Greek. Here is Inman’s last vision:

When she reached the place, the boy had already gathered up the horses and gone. She went to the men on the ground and looked at them, and she found Inman apart from them. She sat and held him in her lap. He tried to talk, but she hushed him. He drifted in and out and dreamed a bright dream of a home. It had coldwater spring rising out of rock, black dirt fields, old trees. In his dream the year seemed to be happening all at one time, all the seasons blending together. Apple trees hanging heavy with fruit but yet unaccountably blossoming, ice rimming the spring, okra plans blooming yellow and maroon, maple leaves red as October, corn tops tasseling, a stuffed chair pulled up to the glowing parlor hearth, pumpkins shining in the fields, laurels blooming on the hillsides, ditch banks full of orange jewelweed, white blossoms on dogwood, purple on redbud. Everything coming around at once. And there were white oaks, and a great number of crows, or at least the spirits of crows, dancing and singing in the upper limbs. There was something he wanted to say. (p. 353)

We do not know what Inman wanted to say. We are left with "everything coming around at once' and with "a home", a kosmos, a beautiful arrangement of things all out of order. Disorder order, order disorder. The way things are and are not.

Burn

 

Mind is alive

with the same

force that drives 

the stars to seek

their own demise

 

so mind creates

the light that guides

our steps at night

yet yearns

for that very dark

ness that alone endures

and alone

makes all things right.

 

Burn, burn

with the beauty

of the night. 

 

Stars Below

 

Mind runs like water

over rock and root

and seeks to fall

to the stars below.

now east now west

 

now east now west

 

the road has a mind of its own

and my feet obey

 

the rest of me stays behind

treelike

 

above

the sky grows gentle

 

MY HEART OPENS

 

the road goes on

as if not knowing

 

which way is best. 

 

 

Below the pond

 

On a walk through the field we come out below the pond

And see a bird floating as if on its own reflection

 

It is still early though the light seems of an evening

When first I found rest in the quiet of your eyes. 

 

I keep you close

 

The loneliest thought

Is not knowing you are there

and care for me.

 

It is like rain that falls

but does not reach

the ground. 

 

Yea but for love

you would not be here at all:

I keep you close. 

 

 

 

December 21

In deepest winter

clouds gather along the ridge.

It is all souls' night. 

 

Those who help not

 

Those who help not

those in need

who come their way

 

Are worthless

as those who stay inside

and fear the rain.

 

It is what is:

No more to ask

No more to give.

 

Rain cleans all bones the same.  

 

But for night

 

But for night

When eyes are blind

When you and I

 

Think as one

And touch as though

Were earth and sky

 

(So turn around

In mind and space

Our sighs in time)

 

Love would break

Like light the day

Those it would unite. 

 

Warning

 

so close your eyes

and let the dark

ness be thy sight

 

and If you die

there's none to say

I lied.

For Ber

For Ber

 

like laughter or

like light to those

who know themselves

to be like trees

that root themselves

in common ground

though mind apart

for he is free

to give himself

so generously

Ariel

On a bat’s wing I am flying:
Poetry is the art of dying.

There is a girl

There is a girl
so fell and free
she wants for love
like a memory

her hair like night
covers all the ground
and leaves behind
no trace of me.

What is not there

Like a woman
who does not know
she is beautiful
turns to a mirror

and looks and looks
but does not find
what is not there

and does not know
the mirror clings
to her form

and ravishes her,
body and soul

so too the sun
burns and brings
all to life,

mere shadows
on the ground.

The end of the free will debate

The free will vs. determinism debate derives its relevance from dualistic thinking, i.e. that our conscious self is not the one driving the boat, as if there were on the one hand a consciousness that is ignorant of the source of its choices and on the other a brain that is purely mechanical and unconsciously drives our decisions. That argument presupposes that consciousness is something other than the natural unfolding of brain function. This notion of unfolding yields an organic and coherent understanding of how we make decisions. Consciousness is a dimension of a dynamic system, one that allows for self-correction and support for an organism’s fundamental integrity. That the dynamic system is deterministic says no more than that the unfolding of the brain is a natural process that realizes itself in awareness. It is one process, not two. How could it be otherwise? To move at last beyond such dualistic thinking allows us further to contemplate ourselves as an unfolding within a universal process -- as a wave that moves always at one with itself and the sea of which it is an expression.

The night leaps up

The night leaps up
And paints the sky
Just so a kiss
Draws a lover’s sigh.

You love so much
You long to die
Your eyes are stars
Your soul is fire.

No You

What will you do
What will you do
You have to live
And do and do

O you O you
What will you do
No one comes
To rescue you

So too so too
They'll come for you
They'll talk you up
And do and do

No one knows
No no one knows
Just what it's like
To be like you

O you O you
What will you do
There's no one there
To be there for you.

Even if . . . .

Even if it is true that who we think we are is but a narrative the brain constructs, even if consciousness itself is every bit as much a construction as that narrative (as is that very light by which we see itself but neural machination), even if consciousness, I say, is an illusion, it is not nothing. Whatever consciousness is, it possesses quality and all the activity of the brain goes to create and maintain that quality. The quality of consciousness is our reality; it is what makes life worth living or not. You know it well. It is the rhythm of the sea, always at one with itself though wave after wave breaks upon the shore. We are forever returning to that sea

Night

I turn to you to find the light
and like a tree that grasps the earth
these arms embrace the wind
like you my heart

as earth through darkness sweeps
around the sun I turn
and turn to you
and kiss the night.

I know the dying

I know the dying
And the dying
sigh

Like the light these eyes
Like these eyes
the night

So still the rhythm
of a heart
that's torn

Forlorn forgotten
Longed for
adored.

Introducing Nikei and Ono

We have two cats, Nikei and Ono. Ono is a clown, and Nikei we call the Furrer because he demands obedience and is a killer. Ono sometimes wears a yamaka just to tease him, kind of like the jester in Lear, and Nikei sometimes wears lipstick, just because he can. No one laughs. When Nikei dies, he will most likely go to hell and run things there. Ono is already an angel here on earth. We love them both.

Jesus, Joseph and Mary

Of course
he had known her
before. Now
when they met
black on black
he blessed her
and she
she did not blush
to be remembered
in his prayers.

Socrates and Tiresias

Plato inverts the world as we know it. This world is an Erebus, wherein Socrates is a Tiresian character, alone among the souls of the dead possessing that activity of mind that makes us akin to the gods. For Plato, this world is a kind of dream and philosophy a way of waking up to this reality that culminates under Socratic questioning in an “I don’t know” revelation. Such a revelation entails a dying to oneself and to this world and provides an intimation, if not knowledge, of another, truer way of being. Persephone by this Platonic inversion is the queen of our world and requires of us a payment if we are to be released from the cycle of births and deaths that is but a play of shadows from beginning to end. Socrates made that payment; he paid with his life.

Lacrimae Rerum

Here where every sound
is a lama lama sabachthani
echoing in the brain

Where even silence
is a fairy tale
like that girl
who pulls my beard
and laughs
to make these gray hairs
roll on like waves

Here are the tears
of things that yet
break like thunder
on the shore.

In the wild

in the wild
there is a strange
silence yet
there is music

Listen

there is wind
tumbling through
trees water
flowing over
rock then rush
of wing you

hear yourself
singing

Questions with no answers

Why do we ask questions for which there are no answers? There is a mystery to this. The mystery is that in searching out questions about the meaning of life our own lives become thereby meaningful. It comes upon us as a shadow at straightup noon and is experienced as a deepening of our sense of self.

Ἅιδης

Persephone
demands you

Love all
Suffer all
Die to all

See yourself
in a flower
she tells you

you are beautiful
and you too
will die

over and over
and over

until you know
what she knows:

She is your bride.

Here u gonna hide love

Here u gonna hide
love in no godsuch

(Jack
son of none)

Here is meaning
what is called heart.

everything you believe is wrong

where were you
when the sea
cried out

and left me sighing

where were you
when the bells
cried out

and left me broken

where were you
when the stars
cried out

and left me dying

you didn’t even know I was gone

all you heard was the song

everything you believe is wrong

Longing for life

The only way to be true to ourselves is to be faithful to our longing for life. Only thereby can we know our desperate poverty and the infinite possibility of our love.

River Run

The river runs
with all delight
then pours itself
into lackless night:

So too do we
kiss soft we might
It does not last
it lasts the night.

Nobody

Odysseus’ trick on Polyphemus becomes first his destiny and then a joke. Thus does Odysseus become a beggar, an outis in his own house. But the gods are not through with him. Odysseus must yet set off on one final journey to find someone who will mistake the oar he carries for a winnowing fan. Or perhaps a writing implement. He will find nobody. The oar will become for him what the boulder is for Sisyphus, a futile and eternal task, a fitting punishment for a man who prides himself on his metis. What remains is just the journey. There will be stories of course, but they will mostly be lies.

A man knows when he is true

A man knows
when he is true:

He holds his hand
upon the flame
And tests his flesh.

It burns the bone
and frees him
not from pain
but fear

Of what the truth
will cost.

So truth goes
hand to hand
and gladly pays
the price.

Nothing ever happens

Does the moon sing
Like a bird
Through the night?

It does.

Does the flower bloom
In your hand
As though it were the earth?

It does.

Does a tear fall
Like light
Into your eyes?

It does.

Does your kiss
Give birth
To the sea?

It does.

Nothing ever happens.

Sense of Self

Our sense of self
Is like blind sight
It sees the moon
and thinks it's night.

Our sense of self
Is like a bird
Who sings for us
In our own words.

We all agree
That here is there
But no one knows
If there’s anywhere.

When I take your hand

When I take
your hand
disappears, these
hot tears
turn to ice.

One true word

One true word
makes me shiver

like the moon
the earth

like your kiss
the night

like the river
the sea

I run to the sound
And am free.

No rain but spit

No rain but spit
that stings
and stains my face
turned yet to meet
the eyes
that will not meet mine.

It comes senselessly
as though by fate
and with a call
as from a bird aloft
not mnding those
it does befoul

Foul weather
Foul spring
Foul thought
Of one not knowing
who he is
or whom he spits upon.

Yet by such stuff
Does the soul grow
To weed or flower
and turns its face
to another eye
that never tells a lie.

Out of ocean's stream

Out of ocean's stream
Comes mind
Form and flower
Comes this body
The soft full curve
Of your breast rising
Like the moon
Comes joy
Comes our story
And knowledge
Of its end:
It opens wholly
Into the pluraplenty
And the leaping beat
of the poluploisboios sea.

Spring Song

It is spring
And memories
Too hard to bear
Become something other
Than what has been

They grow
like seeds
out of the darkness
Into proofs
Of love

Where once there was
Just thought
swept through time
like leaves
there now is song

May every bird
With a broken wing
Find refuge here
and sing
for our delight.

Prophecies

You who know
That dark is light
Shall sing
Like sirens
That death is life.

You whose lips
Are hot and dry
Shall drink
The sea
Shall fall and rise.

You whose touch
Brings such delight
Shall burn
Like stars
In a starless night.

Love Risks Nothing

Love risks nothing:
The nothing
That is everything
The me that is you.

When hearts break
Nothing happens:
The nothing
That is everything.

There is no sun
In this cold blue sky.
Yet there is pain
Like tears like rain.

Caliban

Caliban does not know himself. When he looks in Miranda’s mirror or in the waters formed by the island's springs, he beholds a youth whose likeness to a flower, though unremarkable to him, is at odds with how others see him. They see but a fish, and a stinky one at that. Miranda mischievously teaches him words by which he can sing of himself. And so he sings: “O sun and moon, to you I rise and bend and with you each night and day I live and die. How many deaths, how many lives, there have been!” Miranda laughs, her cleverness confirmed, so like her father’s. Of course, his little song, if we may call it that, is utterly ridiculous. Rather he should praise the darkness that hides his ugliness. So Miranda teaches him new words and now he sings a different song: “O darkness that loves not the light, I bring you this flower to enfold in your night.” And Miranda, mirabile visu, blushes like a rose.

Hypnos and Thanatos

Though sleep be not death,
it is a gentleness
upon which the head
may fall.

Sleep makes death
bearable, even
possible.

A Lullaby

I hear my name
And know it lies.
I hear the wind --
A lullaby.

There is no kiss
Like that of rain:
There are no lips
to part and die.

There is no truth
Not even pain
to hold you here
Inside my mind.

Ishmael and the kid

The drama’s done? Why then does any one step forth? Because one did survive the wreck. Like Jonah, he withheld himself. This time he turns inland. He thinks he will not be recognized. He enters not the whirlwind. It is the jakes for him.

Here where nothing is

here where nothing is
your dark sky
and my dark song
make good the time
that is forever now

these words an empty
mirror of delight:

your face her face
Your hand a compass
Your body an orchard
Your hair fall rain
Your lips rich blue and green
Your eyes wine dark
Your heart the sea

it is your soul I feel

here where nowhere is
the song makes real
the night

Nescio me.

That you are a fraud is something you already know. Every conscious being experiences him or herself as a fraud. The reason: consciousness is a lie -- a lie not just because to be a conscious being is always to experience oneself as other than what one is but, more significantly, because consciousness represents itself as a free and sovereign actuality. It is, of course, nothing of the sort. Consciousness is a representation the brain concocts and nothing more. The price paid for this representation is to be condemned to live a lie. To know ourselves is to know what cannot be known: that we are not what we experience ourselves to be. Nescio me is the sum, substance and extent of all human wisdom.

Undoing

What rules life is the next thing to be done, death being only the last, wherein every breath is a labor. So we have our marching orders, but who says we must obey. There are glimpses of something else in dreams and song, in love and inspiration. Such things help us through the night, but day comes and reminds us of what is real and of the next thing to be done. But what is more real: this sunlit world or that which makes it possible that there is any world or light at all? And what is that but that same activity of mind that gives rise to dreams and song and to the self that ever longs to return to its source and is ever thrown back? It is not that the world is an illusion; rather, it is that we mistakenly live in the world as if it exists as it does independently of our engagement with it. Dreams, songs, love, inspiration, all the activities of mind, weave themselves into the fabric of things and give it form, color and meaning. It turns out that what rules life is not the next thing to be done but the right thing, the true and beautiful thing to be done. In dying nothing is to be done; it is the undoing the self has earnestly longed for in all its virtue, all its beauty and all its truth.

Earth and Sky

Birds bid me aloft
Wing sweep lifts me high and far
All is clear below.