Dear Colleagues, you may have noticed that Richard Wilbur will be our guest lariat starting February 4 or so. I have traditionally welcomed my guests by initiating a thread at Mastery. Let's start with the title poem of Dick's latest collection, published to coincide with his 80th birthday in 2000. I have used initial dashes to indicate indentation.

Mayflies

In somber forest, when the sun was low,
I saw from unseen pools a mist of flies
— — In their quadrillions rise
And animate a ragged patch of glow
With sudden glittering—as when a crowd
— — — Of stars appear
Through a brief gap in black and driven cloud,
One arc of their great round-dance showing clear.

It was no muddled swarm I witnessed, for
In entrechats each fluttering insect there
— — Rose two steep yards in air,
Then slowly floated down to climb once more,
So that they all composed a manifold
— — — And figured scene,
And seemed the weavers of some cloth of gold,
Or the fine pistons of some bright machine.

Watching these lifelong dancers of a day
As night closed in, I felt myself alone
— — In a life too much my own,
More mortal in my separateness than they—
Unless, I thought, I had been called to be
— — — Not fly or star
But one whose task is joyfully to see
How fair the fiats of the caller are.

Tim:
This was one of those rare poems that reminds me why I keep reading and reading despite the frequent disappointment of mediocre verse, my own included. It took hold of me from the first reading and does so anew with each subsequent reading, getting better and better. Thanks for posting it.
RPW (no, not THAT RPW!)

I may have told this story here, but the first time we heard Mayflies, Richard brought it down, pencilled on tablet, from his loft at Key West, and read it aloud. As usual, he was somewhat nervous and bashful. And no sooner had he finished it than he said he was uncomfortable with "fiats" in the last line. "Is it too obscure?" Thought maybe it should be "dictates." Charlee said "Hell no," and Alan cried "Fiat lux!" Charlee and the EfH saved the day.

Tim-

I don't have time to respond to the poem (this one isn't in the "Complete Poems", is it?), but I can help you with the indentations--just put [color= wite] (I've intentionally mispelled it so the text will show up here) [/color] around the dashes or periods and they won't show up.

Mayflies

In somber forest, when the sun was low,
I saw from unseen pools a mist of flies
— — In their quadrillions rise

"Quadrillions" is a gorgeous sound, but it takes huge poetic license.

And animate a ragged patch of glow
With sudden glittering—as when a crowd
— — — Of stars appear
Through a brief gap in black and driven cloud,


This could only be the Milky Way, and I'm not sure that it comes close (visibly) to "quadrillions." "Crowd" drives it, so it appears that the image is rime-driven.


One arc of their great round-dance showing clear.

It was no muddled swarm I witnessed, for
In entrechats each fluttering insect there
— — Rose two steep yards in air,
Then slowly floated down to climb once more,
So that they all composed a manifold
— — — And figured scene,
And seemed the weavers of some cloth of gold,
Or the fine pistons of some bright machine.


I'm deeply into mayflies, and I find this splendid.


Watching these lifelong dancers of a day
As night closed in, I felt myself alone
— — In a life too much my own,
More mortal in my separateness than they—
Unless, I thought, I had been called to be
— — — Not fly or star


Shouldn't this be "Not fly nor star"?


But one whose task is joyfully to see
How fair the fiats of the caller are.


Utterly Shameless O'Clawson, the Gnatpicker





[This message has been edited by Robert J. Clawson (edited January 26, 2003).]

Tim--

Thanks for posting "Mayflies," which is one of my favorite Wilbur poems (along with "For C." and "A Barred Owl" from the same book--unlike everyone else, Wilbur seems to get better and better with age).

And what a great story about the ending! Alan, even with all your other fine editing work here, and for Tim, and I'm sure elsewhere, it must be a highlight to have helped dissuade such a great master from second-guessing himself and tinkering with perfection!

Best regards.

--Bruce

Bruce, Dick isn't the only one getting better with age. Tony Hecht's new The Darkness and the Light is Murphy's favorite Hecht collection. Tony turned 80 this month, and he's giving Dick a run for his money. I'm glad you mentioned For C, along with Hamlen Brook, one of my two favorite Wilbur poems. He read it to us about two weeks before its Valentine's Day, 1997, appearance in The New Yorker.

For C.

After the clash of elevator gates
And the long sinking, she emerges where,
A slight thing in the morning’s crosstown glare,
She looks up toward the window where he waits,
Then in a fleeting taxi joins the rest
Of the huge traffic bound forever west.

On such grand scale do lovers say goodbye-
Even this other pair whose high romance
Had only the duration of a dance,
And who, now taking leave with stricken eye,
See each in each a whole new life foregone.
For them, above the darkling clubhouse lawn,

Bright Perseids flash and crumble; while for these
Who part now on the dock, weighed down by grief
And baggage, yet with something like relief,
It takes three thousand miles of knitting seas
To cancel out their crossing and unmake
The amorous rough and tumble of their wake.

We are denied, my love, their fine tristesse
And bittersweet regrets, and cannot share
The frequent vistas of their large despair,
Where love and all are swept to nothingness;
Still there's a certain scope in that long love
Which constant spirits are the keepers of,

And which, though taken to be tame and staid,
Is a wild sostenuto of the heart,
A passion joined to courtesy and art
Which has the quality of something made,
Like a good fiddle, like the rose's scent,
Like a rose window or the firmament.

After hearing something like this from the horse's mouth, it's hard not to wonder "What the hell am I doing in this game?"

Tim, for the last line of Mayflies, how I wish one of you present, as you related elsewhere, might have experienced a vision of the Caller's fleet of Italian cars and suggested that Mr. Wilbur either use his alternative, "dictates," or else another fitting word such as measures, mandates, canons, choices, etc. "Fiats" makes for neat alliteration, is shortest, and does invoke 'Let there be light' for latinists, but the pesky automobile connotation probably subverts the line a little for a number of readers.


W/G

[This message has been edited by Golias (edited January 28, 2003).]

[quote]Originally posted by Golias:

"Fiats" makes for neat alliteration, is shortest, and does invoke 'Let there be light' for latinists, but the pesky automobile connotation probably subverts the line a little for a number of readers."

Yes, but not so badly as, say, "how fair Bugatties for the caller are."

"Quadrillions" was chosen not simply for
its suggestion of innumerable mayflies,
but for its echo of "quadrille." The poem
is built around dance metaphors.

Yet the "caller" is more than just a
square dance caller. In Wilbur's
Christian perspective, He is the "Caller"
who summons us all to Him. That makes
"fiat" not only quite beautiful, but brilliant.