Hughlings Himwich

Summer Rain

If it would only rain my words would pour forth like girls and boys too young to know shame O they are bold as I would be the rain falls I am young again dance touch while the music plays so falls the rain O she is here there are tears of joy tears songs of praise for the beauty of the day earth yields up its flowers to her hand turns to gentle thunder her body lifts and holds her laughter makes the night shudder unbinds her hair and falls to me now here now there like summer rain

Being There

for Charles and Pauline

 

When she said I won’t be coming back

She knew you would

And would bring such living memories

That she would forever be at rest

With you there, always

Returning with the morning light

Or when it rains

Or whenever you set off from the shore

 

Or gathering the warmth of a fire

You will find through her

The wild peace, the ecstatic

Harmony of color, the sacred

Loon that calls us to life

That in its leaving never departs.

 

The Source

Who will come and who will go

To and from this place alone?

I’ll hide this poem where once I was:

The poet gone, the source unknown.

 

Always Looking

 

Because I am always looking

To the sky as if it were a mirror

I do my best flying at night

 

Because I am always looking

Into your eyes as if they were mine

I know both loneliness and love

 

Because I am always looking

To catch up with myself

I am always late, always waiting

 

Because I am always looking

I cannot see what is not there

Though it cost me my life

 

Because I am always looking

I am blinded by the light

 

Hail Mortal

ALL COBWEB
SEES IS

     AN ASS
IS AN ASS

IS A MAN
AT BOTTOM

PLAYS ALL
THE PARTS

A FOOL
LIKE

A LIFE WORTH
DYING

 

  — it took but moments
to write / not quite
a lifetime

 

What does real even mean?

What does real even mean?

Trying to understand it
We search out pain

Or maybe it’s different in Chicago
Where Janes and Johns play craps on the L

Or in the fields beyond
Where farm girls and boys give their bodies first to the sun
And then to each other and finally to the earth they love.

We make it up as we go along. What's true remains.
Let's call it rain.  

 

No Nonsense Poems

A Bedtime Story

Last night
Papa

Fell asleep
Reading

I didn't
Wake him

 

So, So Sorry

If I could find
The words

I would not
Need

To apologize
For this

Also

 

Sparrow

Not a sparrow
But this sparrow

That has already
Flown away.

 

Sorry to have missed you

You weren’t there
Or I was late

Or this was not
The place

I waited
It’s not a problem

It's just that
As I told you

I am really scared
— Perhaps another time

 

We must breathe to live

We must breathe to live

Until we weave ourselves

Into wind and breathe no more,

A grace we did not know we

Were living for — or think of

Rain and weep no more.  

 

"Now I Understand" - Linda Gregg

Three words
A lifetime
Who can speak them?
I cannot
this morning's night. 
Can you?

 

Stoned

 

Medusa was butch

but wore sunshine

as if it were hair.

Where did the snakes come from?

From men who stared.


(In the earliest descriptions and images of Medusa, there were no snakes. She was just stone-cold beautiful!) 

 

Hold True

In Memoriam

 

for Nathaniel Bowie

 

When we return there will be an empty space

That we will fill with true memories

Of one devoted to what we devote ourselves:

The life of the school, service to others,

Kindness, a look that says I will

See what I can do

                               And then do it.

"That's the face of a man who has seen it all."

 

                                                                                                                                           Photograph by Ber Himwich

“That’s the face of a man who has seen it all.”

Not so. There’s more to come
And it’s not all suffering loss
The mind shedding all

That is not nailed down
Eyes vacant still
Focused on what no one else can see
A sky so blue the light so full

That you can speak only
In single syllables silently
To the coming darkness
As though it were a friend

Passing onto another life
Where there is no sky
But the sky we have become
When at last we have seen it all.

 

Night Song

Quiet falls like leaves

Like night, the wheels

That turn the stars stop

There is no you, only

The sound of birds

Nesting in these words

So quiet they must be true

 

The Song of Songs

 

He thought of her as if she were with him, but the truth was that she was gone and she was not coming back. The last time they spoke on the phone, she had told him. And that was that. Still, he thought he could hear her voice, singing the song she had written for him, her father, though as it turned out, she had been, on that early autumn day, more in need of the song than he. It had been a song of farewell, though it seemed now, as he listened to the light falling around him, a lullaby like the one his own father had sung for him when he was a child and if that mockingbird don’t sing, his daughter’s words now restless and unsettled like that of a mooncast muse or like living with and without regret. He thought if he could just remember the words of her song or snatch their meaning out of the call of birds that had never abandoned him or feel their rhythm in the outflow of his heart or see the flash of her eyes in the flickering of the candle on his desk, she, the singer of the song, would be there for him now. Without knowing where the words were coming from, he began to sing. He sang of all he loved and all that he would be leaving behind when his own time came. Mostly, though, he sang of the sea, the song becoming the gentle rock and slap of the boat, following now only the river’s stream taking him out. He too was not coming back.

 

Somnium

 

Somnium: Out there in the stars a drum is heard and they draw near the soft body and nearer the other one within, softer now, slows, now sleeps. The moon hangs in the sky. We find our way there. First, a hand and only then the eyes. What do they see? The moon hangs in the trees, wind weaving the light. There’s a burst of autumn colors, then the tears come. We dig in the dirt and find seashells, bones, roots. Still, the drumming, leading us on. You close your eyes to listen, then wake to find yourself alone, pawing at all that’s not there, the drumming now too distant to know if it is anything more than a lonely heart.

 

Child's Play

When Selina saw the children at play, she wished that she could tell them and make them understand: Don't grow up. You'll never play like this again. Your feet have roots, your arms branches that reach out for the light. The birds talk to you as friends should, and you give them shelter. They, in turn, give you wings that will take you far away from this time and place. When you return and other children gather around you and ask why you look so sad, you will tell them a story, not yours of course, nor theirs, but of some other children whom time forgot, children whose wings became leaves and whose feet were rooted in the ground and free.  

The Winter Geese

for Pauline

The winter geese are almost gone

I know not where

They won’t be coming back

I’ll be waiting here a little longer

 

Her eyes wild dark shining,

"I won’t be here" -- she meant

She won't be coming back

I'll be waiting a little longer

 

Autumn's Child

 

I see you now, child, wrapped in vines and visions,

happy to find a place to hide, laughing hoping someone will find you.

Don't call out. No one will come.

Let the wind be your voice, just as you hear mine now.

It's autumn and the leaves rustle alive for one last song before winter. 

Someone will hear the wind laughing in the trees.

They will see you in all your glory.

 

My Pick-Up Line

 

Be brave! No more sneaking around, no more affectation!
What great soul said that? Yours, of course! One soul
seeks another, that's how it knows where to go.
You and I the same, same with wings and wind. 
if you keep hiding, you may prove
you aren’t there at all, no hands no feet, 
not those beautiful eyes that catch the sky
(yes, your eyes are beautiful. It's never a lie.)
no joy or grief, just an echo that dims. 
Listen! the ringing in your ear is the tolling of your soul:
it's time, it's time, it's time, it's damn well time already!
Enough of all this hiding only to lose, a soul
only knows itself as the moon,
the one becomes two. 
The less we fear and sooner than now
the more we can dance and dance our own tune.  
Let the kite go and be where it goes.
That's poetry! It's like falling in love . . .

                Hey there, beautiful, where ya goin?
                —I'm going with you. 

 

It's Raining Tonight

It's raining tonight.

there's thunder & lightning too

making sure we stop and listen

there's no place to go

no reason to be elsewhere

no summons for tomorrow

it's all happening now
here within & without
there's no need for prayer
I hear the beating
of every heart in my own
If this is a dream
I don't want to wake up

The Sound that Wind Makes

(for Maya)

I want words to breathe like I do, weep when I do, and bruise easily.

I want words to dream and remember those dreams that first set me on this path.

I want words to grow old with me and become like the lines in my face and tell me
      old stories that keep my stumbling spirit from falling and new ones that tell of
      love forever young and freely given.
I want words of no regret even for the sorry waste of all I have left undone, unsaid.

I want words to hold up a mirror and see there all who at some time have gone hand
      in hand with me through this life.

O what a wondrously crowded reflection that would be, all of them in the morning
     of their lives, young and old alike.  

O that words would fall like these tears and mark the page in silver and gold, the true
colors of night, that these words would live on in their hearts and find some rest there,
though I myself be nothing but the sound the restless wind makes on a cold night,
the wind that sweeps down the mountainside and past all the houses in which loved ones
have died and gathers up all those lost souls and scatters what is but dust and ash
through the deep space of time. 

The dead don't talk

I know why

the dead don't talk

to the living:

it hurts

to remember

and we stopped

listening

Charles & All

 

Hugh,

Yesterday was very busy.  I drove alone to Manistee to get a prescription for Pauline and a variety of things needed at the hardware store (mousetraps, a garden kneeling pad, lids for 5-gallon buckets, specific sizes of screws, ballpoint pens, paper plates, and groceries).  It took a long time and was tiring.  

I thought about your De Anima reflections but didn’t get farther than concluding that the Latin is preferable to the Greek (Peri Psyches) in that casual English usage would stimulate overtones of Life in Latin rather than of Mind in Greek.  Happily, neither would immediately connote “soul” in common parlance.

As usual, the problem is the fundamental poverty of language itself. You probably will have to gin up some poetry if we are to proceed further!

I have been sleeping well, and this morning I woke fairly early and was able to have more than an hour of reflective thought before getting out of bed. That luxury is counterbalanced by constraints on my writing time this morning. So, although my thoughts will have some semblance of order, my writing will not probe as deeply as it might.  I had probably better start with my comments because the pressure of time is increasing.

After we began reflecting on Julian Jayne’s take on Consciousness (when was that?), we came upon some agreement on the utility of the phrase: “subjective reflective self-consciousness”. (Did we hack that phrase together or did we incorporate it from someone else?) Without going further in that direction at the moment, I would also like to add the concept of “personhood”.  

I believe I sent you an article (tell me if I didn’t) on Aphantasia––the inability to form mental images of remembered persons, places, things, and experiences.  This rare phenomenon draws our attention to the fact that most people are able to form and be conscious of these images.  There are also some who cannot mentally “hear” remembered tunes. At one time I was curious about the fact that it is quite possible to vocalize pitches indicated on printed musical notation with surprising accuracy. As I reflected on this, I noticed that my vocal cords physically changed their tension as I thought of various pitches. [Just think of the bugle call “reveille”. You will be surprised at how dramatic and clear this sensation is]

FULL STOP!! A Great Blue Heron, the first we have seen this year, just flew up from the water under the “Yellow Iris Cedar” about 30 feet from me!  WOW!  What a spot!  What a life!

At any rate, “personhood”, although it can veer off and dive deeply into various realms, can be hijacked into being a stand-in for that element of De Anima that is limited to the idea of an essential human element that you allude to.

My, my.  I had no idea that I could reduce the deep waters of thought that I had this morning into something that would have any coherence at all––much less that it would relate  to the subject you are addressing.

I do hope that I can dip into the prospectus you sent, but I must warn you that I am also following the trail of the common elements of “the good Life & the good Death”––as well as living an otherwise ordinary life. 

Something will have to give;

It always does.       

                                Charles

 

                                                                    Charles & All

                                                                              (June 9, 2021)

                                                                This morning's herald: 

                                                                Rising from the water

                                                                Beneath the cedar

                                                                And yellow iris,

                                                                A Great Blue Heron

                                                                Welcomes us home. 

 

 

 

The Poet's Voice

 

Poetry is what is missing
When you wake in the morning
And don’t listen for the silence
That will always be with you.

But for that unheard song,
There would be no call
Of bird, no sigh,
No laughter, no word

Beyond the word
To call you home.

When your love speaks,
Listen for that silent singalong,
For the truth that cries out
For life and to live

Beyond life itself. 
Do you know that voice?
There are children playing
In the rain. There’s one

Who stops and listens, his heart
Beating wildly with your own. 

 

Remembering

    

Photo by Ber Himwich

Remembering

How like the river this scattering

Of ash. It takes our tears to heart, 

And every sorrow flows through love.

 

The river reminds us of tomorrow.

The river runs through every sorrow. 

 

But For Song

for Eve

If the world were round
And night had its way,
Then words would mean
just what we say.

But the world plays false,
Sometimes flat, sometimes hoarse
And sometimes singing
Like a tuning fork.

And sometimes night
Shines with loving eyes
And says what we mean
with joyful sighs.

 

Of Another Life

          (June 27, 2021)

The silences of flowers

Teach us to listen

To our own

            *

These morning birds

Sing of the night

And the fall of rain.

            *

The shadows of trees

Fall like tears like light

upon the grass. 

            *

The wind takes

Our breath away

And is always at rest.

 

What is not there

Though I am known to God
As Hughlings, my friends call me
Hugh and leave it at that --
Grace takes care of the rest.

Though I do not believe
In anything or have any Jesus,
Yet I retain a kind of genius
For harmless lies.

It is as if during the day
I can still see the stars
Blazing out of the night
And truly see what is

not there. Some say
it is a harmless madness --
My friends though look deep
Into what were once my eyes

And all they see is night.

The Weird Sisters

What it's like to be like you?
A cat's meow or thunder's tune?
Try out both and be amazed
How different is on different days, . 
Feeling bad? Let's make it rain
and give ourselves another name:
John is Sally but who's to blame?
Something wicked this way came. 

Round again and up your snout
Be pretty now! Don't let them out!
They do not know and yet they do.
Step through the veil and say it true:
Life is death, and death a friend. 
What begins today will never end. 

 

Jumping the Gap

     

   for my students

 

There are so many echoes in my life, but there’s one voice louder than the rest.

         It tells me to move on, be on the move.

There will never be a time just to look back and wonder.

Even this morning there are the birds, ever still in flight, and the wind

         Chirping in a nest of leaves. They say, Fly away and be still.

A phantom hand reaches out . . . now so near . . .  It’s Her hand –

         It pulls me forward. Flower and flame await, love and consummation.

This is what I believe: it’s never over.

May the next words I write bind me . . . cricket and rock,

         rain and tears, sparrow and sorrow . . . all one . . .  

         too foolish to see the trees in winter.

A hand claps: there are children at play, lovers blushing, there is a road leading into the

          mountains, the birthplace of sky and sea.

I jump the gap and see it all as flower and fire, worlds appearing and disappearing like children,   

          a daughter not to be but in love’s mirror.  

Here all is possible and real – a needle threads its way, becomes a tuning fork.

I move on and hear every heart beating as one its own raucous rhythm,

          unaware of the harmony that is creation.

I move on. A tiger leaps through the gap and mauls its prey, a girl beats her heart out on a

          drum, unheard; a babe lies abandoned in an eagle’s nest, its cry my

          own. My breathing stops.

I move on. A blue sky thunders, stars are born and burn out, a raven’s

         wing covers all.  A whirlwind out of the darkness sweeps us all along.

Who knows but I will meet you on the way to terra incognita.   

But here I am, writing these words, my legs ache, my right foot throbbing. I am hungry, alone,

          my days more like nights, my nights more like spring, a dying ember.

But what about tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow when I do not wake to wind or jay.

Then, my friends, hear my song . . . it will be the whirlwind of creation,

          sung at last as it should be sung.

Listen, listen, never stop listening. It’s your song too.

 

For James Wright

 

 

        “ . . . They love each other.

         There is no loneliness like theirs.” 

 

There is, of course, the love of life

To go on living after one has lived

In that place that is no place

But like the wind finds itself at home

Touching all things like skin that shivers

And brings forth all we have loved and lost.

 

Spartoi

 

If we were to sow our teeth,

There would come stories

To make us shudder

Like the one about a desperately

Happy old man who gave up

His love of life to become

A gravedigger and lied

To those asking whose grave

He dug, falsely saying

He was looking for treasure

But so far had found only gold.

 

Spartoi: the ‘sown men’ of Greek mythology, born from dragon’s teeth. Cadmus in founding Thebes had for good reason slaying a dragon, sacred to Ares, and was advised by Athena to sow its teeth. The genealogical line of the Spartoi ends in a great many tragic stories, those of Oedipus and his spawn among them. In death, Cadmus and Harmonia, his wife, became snakes. It does not seem to have been a punishment. It is worth noting that Cadmus is said to have brought the Phoenician alphabet to Greece. The result we all know well. One might ask why are snakes sacred to the gods. To understand that would be a treasure. It may be necessary like Cadmus to become one.

Quirky Little Love Poems

 

Ode to the Stars

O she is pretty
But she’ll never catch me
Looking
More’s the pity

O she’s so pretty.

So simple is love
If only she weren’t so damn 

 

 

Da Blues

 

You left me standing there
Alone

Like a tree.

 

Do you know what it's like

Just standing there

Looking up 

At all that blue?

 

 

 

Not Another Quirky Love Poem

Please, not another love poem

That’s not about love at all. 

You know, like Platonic love

Or hate mail. 

 

For Zach Blanchard

 

Water is to flowers as music is to life. – Zach Blanchard

 

For Zach and Family and Friends: 

Time is but a heartbeat between then and now.

It is our song. We sing as one.

                                               --hh

 

For Zach Blanchard

Wild Iris

 

for Zoe

There’s that garden

that none

need pardon.

There wild Iris grows

beneath the trees

it loves.

They catch the light

and make its song

their own.

 

How a man becomes the sea

 

The moment she touched the old man’s hand

He lost his sight, yet standing lost upon the sand

He heard the light upon the waves like keys.

She sang and let him go and like the wind he sighed.

None knows what song she sang or how he blindly

Played with light or how a man became the sea.

For Halie

“Do you see how young a feeling is?”

 

(for Halie if she will)

 

What is this body?

What words will tell the story?

What I feel

Comes upon me so softly

And burns so darkly

I float like a shadow

on the ocean floor.

 

I pray for rain,

Strike fire

From stone.   

 

Of what cannot be unsung

For Ciara

Between us now

                            a hat, a bird

By some ancient magic

                                      fly off with time

And never never land

                                   cry out

for what is not

                        here

between the lines

When shall we two meet again

in thunder, lightning, or in rain,

Or caught like oceans in our chains?

Lost in all, yet she sang

Of what cannot be

                              unsung:  

Two will ever be as one.

 

Ciara: 

 "a legitimate poem ... must be one, the parts of which mutually support and explain each other; all in their proportion harmonizing with, and supporting the purpose and known influences of metrical arrangement" (Coleridge 2:13)

the illegitimacy 

of time and poems

and star straddled nights

is what makes the moments

of between the lines,

the negative space,

the unspoken words

that pass between 

all that exists,

legitimately 

                 and illegitimately.

a hat blows in the wind

and a bird catches it mid-flight

on her way to an unknown space

where negative space,

unspoken words,

passes between her.

 

Ber and Dad One

 Revised Edition, 8/5/21: Download Ber Dad One

 

 

Windflower

 

Come with me, two

three jumps but

don’t look back.

Lately angels

have been falling.

The garden is rank

With anemone.

 

 

As Beautiful As Ever

   As Beautiful As Ever

                 for my students

If you watch the ripples spread out

from what was once the smooth, blue surface of a pond

before you threw a rock, searching for an answer

for what troubles you, scattering the light, 

and if you wait,

for however long it takes

for the smooth, blue surface to return,

you will feel the ripples yet spreading within you

from the very center of creation

and you will have your answer. 

Everything has changed

and you, dear ones, are born again

just as you are, as beautiful as ever.

 

On the necessity of poetry

Note to my friend:

This is the first poem that I have ever referenced you directly.
I wish it were better. It is at best a ramble.
Just don’t hiss, haggle, and, for goodness sakes, don’t yodel.
(I know that’s as hopeless as winter and spring.)

On the Necessity of Poetry

Are birds necessary?
Are flowers?
Is this poem necessary?
Are you?

Nothing beautiful is necessary.
We can live without Sundays in the Park
Where she and I would hide
So no one would know
How necessary we once were
To each other

Those were beautiful moments
Entangled in shadows green as grass

And now? The park gone,
Sundays spent in solitude
It all seems unreal
And unnecessary
And beautiful.

Charles says 'what is necessary'
Is too subtle a question for poetry
But then out the window sees what
Should not be there
A solitary owl
From another time
That has lost its way
And come home.

Addendum: My friend
can hoot and yodel
with the best of them.

 

Omission of Key Words in Old Age

What will leave out next?

Perhaps "I".

Pretend death does exist.

Perhaps "not". 

 

What movesmoves

What movesmoves us

Like distant thunder

Before the lightning strikes

And we run for cover

 

Nothing Shines Like Back

 

Nothing Shines Like Black

 

play you play you
Circe’s bouncing boy
ol' man bring back
your leaping joy!

play you ol' man
wolfish grin to hide
moly moly
molly in her sty. 

playyou playyou
Circe’s whip and crack
O O O NO
nothing shines like black. 

Note: Circe is a dark lady for many reasons. Most readers will know her from The Odyssey. It is told there that Odysseus spent a year with her on the island of Aeaea on his way home to his beloved and faithful Penelope. Circe is the one who turned Odysseus' men into pigs, a consequence our hero avoided by using against her the magic of the herb 'moly', all white but for its black root. The herb had been an unlooked for resource provided by Hermes, that traveler between the worlds of light and dark, known thereby as Psychopompos. The herb worked! Later it would be Circe who sends Odysseus far west to where the Titan Helios does not shine (i.e. Homer's version of the Underworld, at least in The Odyssey). Helios does, however, sometimes threaten to bring his light to this dark region of the earth. And so, Odysseus is off to the far shore of Oceanus. Such is the fate of the moly-bearer. It is in the Far West that Odysseus learns from the prophet Tiresias, the only shade among the dead who yet keeps his nous (i.e. mind), how to navigate the dangerous journey home to Ithaca.

 

The 'Molly' here makes a guest appearance here from JJ's  Ulysses; she appears in that work as a thinly disguised Penelope. In Dante's version, however, Odysseus chooses upon his departure from Aeaea to sacrifice home and hearth for still more adventures at sea. Apparently, he does not want to give up his Oar, as Tiresias tells him he must. Ultimately, in Dante's version, he goes down with his ship, landing in The Inferno in the company of other great liars.

 

And so it goes. Sometimes it best to know when to say no more. Let others suppose, provided they do not know. (Let's see, the Latin for that would be: Alii cogitent dum nesciant. Keep it handy. A little gift from your Hermes on your travels to the Far West.

Words for War

You say you want the sadness

the aching for what you’ve lost

and are sure to lose again

only the next time your loss

will lie in the shattered

streets with others.

You want this? Yes!

Better that reality, that truth

than to live that other lie:

that life is precious, yours

as much as mine.

 

 

The High Ridge

   
   The mist on the mountains lifts

ghostly greens glimmer

   and a new day darkens the valley

far below—your fingers tracing

   a line across the high ridge

that runs just above my eyes:

   I hold my breath—a sudden

swoop of wind and wing

 

A Teacher's Valentine Valedictory

Examples of transferred epithets (hypallage – sounds like hīpólogy)

The One and the Many

A hundred hands, a hundred eyes
Tore it all to bits. She said I lied.
“Just once,” I said, too many times

More or Less

Only the birds heard her taloned cries.
The man had told her feathered lies.

The Lesson

Don’t lie unless you have the art
To say it true and strike her heart.

Valedictory

Off with his head, the pirate cried.
Her sword was true. The creature died.  

 

O Lovely Night! O Lovely Day!

(I keep returning to the same idea,
but then I think it is how day
follows day and so praise the night.
But does saying it over
and over make it real?
If it’s the heart that speaks?)

O Lovely Night! O Lovely Day!

for Michaela, again

It’s the running way
That gives the night its claw.

Turning on the lights
Just gives it a place to hide.

You’ll have to set yourself
On fire to burn it out.

Lovers seek the darkness
As if it were the light.

Others shake
And pray.

What can we do
But wrap the night

In song, the heart
Beating one two

One two
One two

Until the other comes:
O lovely night,

O lovely day?