My use of the words "fractal" and "astronomical" consistute a weak analysis of your poem, Ray, which deserves much better. I've written the following essay, which will hardly do justice to your poem, but it's the best I can come up with. Here are my thoughts for Part I:
The poem's Part I, is fractal in a vague sense, that is it shows some coherence across spatial scales, but now I read it a second and third time, I also note a few interesting symmetries. The "grove
where we talk— where two places /blend into one" has a nice resonance with the firat stanza, in which you develop the blend between the "green deep" sea and the location where "long grass bows/both sides of me/ waves of wind briefly deepening". Your images seem to cling to each other by a shared sense, whether it be colour, in the case of the first stanza, or wind or others.
.
This is pure poetry, and like a stroll down the path of the unconsious because it's images aren't following a pattern and yet they each fit together continuously. [This is a quality that for instance, my poetry doesn't have, because I have yet to properly develop a sense of how symbols should move from one to the other. I sometimes get hung up on a process, or a small idea and repeat it too much within a poem.] Your poem freely transitions between images and plays, sort of inventing like James Joyce does in Ulysses (the first half that I've read), though there are major differences in style. I'm just referring to the virtuosity of the poetry here.
.
Consider this triple of lines as an example of the symmetrical doubling of modes, one an experienced mode and one a simulacrum,
"how forth from deepest blue
came the grove— its peace
a double image"
There are many "doubled" things herein. The "palimpsest" (a document where the scraped away text is still visible) which was the "landscape bestowed" right after the "path southward" is followed by the parenthesised "a description of". But nothing is a rule, because you are not only doubling, you are also using side-by-side justaposition, as in "— the many strokes
that compose one figure
“girl-and-bird”",
Or in the line, "angels ring sky’s corneal substance". And not to mention now, your poem (Part I) really is a fractal - a poem within a poem, i.e. the haiku
"oh, a haiku, but
like smoke ….
traces, ruins"
The lines near the end of Part I are striking. "— angels ring sky’s corneal substance
how all leaves mediate—
what net-work! the branches’ arterial
flights
— the melting sun threads"
Perhaps Part I itself is like wisps of cirrus clouds, with houses of feathers, memories of your trip southward. It follows no law, and yet is totally coherent in its exploration of detail.
The geometry of the eye holds a double, a surface of reflection of the world, but it is also is a part of the world. Again, the ruse is complex here, as your line breaks and constant innovation in form show. We shoot off at the "angle of the arm" ... like directed rays of light. Indeed it is light as "sweet/ and within longing,
hope (contains)
“tree-at-river”
and opening, under overhang
silver light
(concomitant)
Just to say
that ‘we are alone’
cold’s trace
the rain falls"
.
Part I, began with a sea rising to "seed", and Part II contains "the seed of all art /a whirling labyrinth/ geese along skyways, again
sunken lake, a lament
sparrow with white throat serenades
pauses its songcontinues
it was/ a childish secret
it was/of grace and sensuousness
it was..."
Like all great poetry, you invoke repetition at the correct moment, "it was" the moment of a "childish secret".
"To dampened shade
that spans the limits of this world
being a species of—
being an individual of
this species of world
the branch is heavy
with falling"
So you hopefully see why my instinct was to say your poem finds the "astronomical" within the fold of terrestrial, natural imagery. Its implications are that pure poetry is still being written.
A fractal descent into detail, and all of its astronomical implications. Your poem is like a kind of path through the subconsious. So many magnificent lines.
Marvelous
Thank you Marcel
What is this painting?
The Hermit (Il solitario) by John Singer Sargent. I need to get in the habit of including these things
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/12110
My use of the words "fractal" and "astronomical" consistute a weak analysis of your poem, Ray, which deserves much better. I've written the following essay, which will hardly do justice to your poem, but it's the best I can come up with. Here are my thoughts for Part I:
The poem's Part I, is fractal in a vague sense, that is it shows some coherence across spatial scales, but now I read it a second and third time, I also note a few interesting symmetries. The "grove
where we talk— where two places /blend into one" has a nice resonance with the firat stanza, in which you develop the blend between the "green deep" sea and the location where "long grass bows/both sides of me/ waves of wind briefly deepening". Your images seem to cling to each other by a shared sense, whether it be colour, in the case of the first stanza, or wind or others.
.
This is pure poetry, and like a stroll down the path of the unconsious because it's images aren't following a pattern and yet they each fit together continuously. [This is a quality that for instance, my poetry doesn't have, because I have yet to properly develop a sense of how symbols should move from one to the other. I sometimes get hung up on a process, or a small idea and repeat it too much within a poem.] Your poem freely transitions between images and plays, sort of inventing like James Joyce does in Ulysses (the first half that I've read), though there are major differences in style. I'm just referring to the virtuosity of the poetry here.
.
Consider this triple of lines as an example of the symmetrical doubling of modes, one an experienced mode and one a simulacrum,
"how forth from deepest blue
came the grove— its peace
a double image"
There are many "doubled" things herein. The "palimpsest" (a document where the scraped away text is still visible) which was the "landscape bestowed" right after the "path southward" is followed by the parenthesised "a description of". But nothing is a rule, because you are not only doubling, you are also using side-by-side justaposition, as in "— the many strokes
that compose one figure
“girl-and-bird”",
Or in the line, "angels ring sky’s corneal substance". And not to mention now, your poem (Part I) really is a fractal - a poem within a poem, i.e. the haiku
"oh, a haiku, but
like smoke ….
traces, ruins"
The lines near the end of Part I are striking. "— angels ring sky’s corneal substance
how all leaves mediate—
what net-work! the branches’ arterial
flights
— the melting sun threads"
Perhaps Part I itself is like wisps of cirrus clouds, with houses of feathers, memories of your trip southward. It follows no law, and yet is totally coherent in its exploration of detail.
In Part II, I am drawn to the stanza,
"Tender are movements
that can evoke the possibilities
of a world
Space enough made to shade those
who will meet in rain
as sparrow measures for its nest
to be— parting,
to be huddled inside
dark-eyes’ geometry"
The geometry of the eye holds a double, a surface of reflection of the world, but it is also is a part of the world. Again, the ruse is complex here, as your line breaks and constant innovation in form show. We shoot off at the "angle of the arm" ... like directed rays of light. Indeed it is light as "sweet/ and within longing,
hope (contains)
“tree-at-river”
and opening, under overhang
silver light
(concomitant)
Just to say
that ‘we are alone’
cold’s trace
the rain falls"
.
Part I, began with a sea rising to "seed", and Part II contains "the seed of all art /a whirling labyrinth/ geese along skyways, again
sunken lake, a lament
sparrow with white throat serenades
pauses its songcontinues
it was/ a childish secret
it was/of grace and sensuousness
it was..."
Like all great poetry, you invoke repetition at the correct moment, "it was" the moment of a "childish secret".
"To dampened shade
that spans the limits of this world
being a species of—
being an individual of
this species of world
the branch is heavy
with falling"
So you hopefully see why my instinct was to say your poem finds the "astronomical" within the fold of terrestrial, natural imagery. Its implications are that pure poetry is still being written.
A fractal descent into detail, and all of its astronomical implications. Your poem is like a kind of path through the subconsious. So many magnificent lines.
What are these astronomical implications?