[Carol Taylor]

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<tr><td>The Nature of This

The summer's coming to a close.
The river where we panned for gold
will soon be strewn with broken leaves.
The sego lily and the rose
have quieted. Today it seems
that all the world is gentling.
We have let go of clutching things.
Here we watch the seasons go
and come with a surprising ease.

It isn't that we're growing old.
It isn't that we've bested fear
or that we never wake to know
in spite of love, we die alone.
The air is cool and sweet with change.
Breathe in, it says, and let go.
It is enough to fall in love.
To fall in love and watch the world unfold.

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I like the way this poem uses the "close/gold/know" rhymes and half-rhymes to thread the lines together. It has a bell-like quality, that repetition, that works well with tetrameter lines. The lines tend to such regularity that the three different ones--lines 6 and 15 one syllable short, and 17 longer by a foot--feel unjustified and not quite satisfying. If the differences had been greater, maybe they would have worked better: small differences in meter seem to trouble the ear more than big ones, because they feel just "off" enough to be mistakes and not enough to be deliberate play.

The ending doesn't feel quite justified by what precedes it, either. Seasonal imagery suggests aging, regret for lost youth, not the value of falling in love, and certainly not watching "the world unfold." If there is a connection between the "letting go" theme of stanza one and this very surprising ending, I'm missing it and hope someone will point it out to me.

~Rhina

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[Mark Allinson]

Rhina,

I agree with everything you say in your first paragraph on this poem. One of the short lines you point out - "that all the world is gentling" - would be perfect with one more syllable. And perhaps the writer even intended it to be read as "gentle-ing", but it doesn't say that on the page. What a difference such small things make.

As far as the meaning of the poem goes, I am much more rewarded by this poem than you seem to be. This, to me, is one of those "mystical" poems we have been discussing recently on a thread at "Mastery". It is, in fact, very "Chinese" in its approach to nature. I read it as a poem in the sub-genre of nature mysticism. The poem's title also points in this direction: "The Nature of This" - the nature of the great "is" of life. There is also a Zen feeling in such lines as - "We have let go of clutching things". The second of the "Four Noble Truths of Buddhism is to the effect that the world is frustrating or bitter due to trishna, or “grasping” based upon avidya (“ignorance”). The last two lines of the first stanza:

Here we watch the seasons go
and come with a surprising ease.

puts me in mind of a couplet from the Buddhist poem the Zenrin Kushu, which goes:


Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself

The next movement of the poem is slightly vague, but gives me a sense that, essentially, there is no reason for this state of being. No formal, objective reason for the speaker to be in this situation, which is again in keeping with Zen doctrine that enlightenment entails "nothing special", life goes on as it did, apparently with no change, but with what a deep and subtle difference.

The last movement of the poem, to my reading, is masterful, and rises to the ranks of the best poems posted on the "Mystical" thread.


The air is cool and sweet with change.
Breathe in, it says, and let go.
It is enough to fall in love.
To fall in love and watch the world unfold.

This surrender of the self, and immersion of consciousness in Nature, is, to me, and obviously to this poet, precisely to "fall in love". Attention to the world is love for the world. I don't think we should automatically assume human objects when we hear the word "love". Trees and birds and rivers may be loved with as much passion and reward as any romantic affair. And as the world is watched and loved, it "unfolds", moment by moment, just as the poem says. Here is how a Zen-flavoured haiku speaks of that same love:


Wind subsiding, the flowers still fall;
Bird crying, the mountain silence deepens.

All in all, this poem is certainly one of my favourites on this board at the moment. For sheer joy of being (although the Ray poem is up there as well) this poem is outstanding. And apart from the short-line jolts, the the rest of the poem sounds fine.

Rhina, I don't know if all this will change your view of the poem - often such a reading acts like an explained joke. You get the point, but not the belly-laugh. But I hope it helps.


------------------
Mark Allinson

[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited November 26, 2004).]

[Margaret Moore]

Rhina,

I agree that the connection between 'letting go' and the surrender implicit in the notion of 'falling in love' isn't clearly made. There is also I feel overuse of abstractions in st 2.

(Coincidentally, one of my recent ideas-for-poems that typically take ages to incubate plays on elaborations of the phrase 'letting HERSELF go'. This is/was colloquially applied to older women with negative import, but it can be amusing to ask 'Gog where?' and dream up agreeable fantasy destinations. Sorry for the deviation!)

Dear Anon,

Would suggest reworking st 2 with the aim of substituting something more specific for the 'love'in l 4 and possibly repeating 'let' for emphasis in the last or penultimate line. E.G. 'let yourself love and let the world unfold'. But I'm sure you'll come up with something far better!

Best wishes,
Margaret.

PS Many apologies for misattributing this piece to Carol (purely because her name - as poster - was on the sidebar). This was an unforgiveable lapse as I'd read her introductory spiel and fully support her proposal that poets (when known) should NOT be identified!!
M.

[This message has been edited by Margaret Moore (edited November 26, 2004).]

[Tim Murphy]

My reading accords exactly with Mark's. This is the most formal poem I have seen by the most elusive, allusive, practitioner at the DE. I am untroubled by the pentameter (in fact, I am accustomed to far greater liberties from this poet!) And I welcome this discussion, tying as it does to the Mystical thread at Mastery. I suspect Rhina's response to this points to the gulf befween Zen and Taoism on the one hand, and the bride of Christ theme in the West typified by Herbert and the saint Alan so excruciatingly calls Wanda la Cruise!

[Carol Taylor]

Margaret, even though my name's beside the poem (and all the poems) I'm not really the poet. I'm just posting them all so the poet remains unidentified till the end.

Carol

[oliver murray]

I like this poem, which I haven't seen before, a lot and, if the poet is who I think, from Tim's hints, she is usually a hell of a lot too allusive for me. I don't mean I object to that, I don't, but too allusive to need or hope for any help from me. I read it with a lot of pleasure, but I am wary of the expression "in love" which I think may let the poem down, and feel if we can just "love" instead we have still have a rightful place in the world.

[Chris Childers]

I would like to say that I read "gentling" as 3 syllables, because the meter demands it, & I put a stress on "and" in line 15, once again, at the meter's instigation. Further, when read in this manner, the line gains a pleasing cadence effectively mimetic of the way meditation directors speak when leading breathing exercises, etc. Thus I find no metrical glitches in this poem & nothing else, really, to complain about. It's only lovely. (And of course I can guess who wrote it.)

Chris

[Margaret Moore]

Carol,
Please see my amended post above for an apology for muddying the waters!
Margaret.

[Mark Allinson]

Chris, I am so glad to hear that you read "gentling" as 3 syllables, as I do, too. The problem is the appearance of the word on the page which says "gent-ling". It is just one of those awkward words.

I have no problem with the expression of "love" in this context, especially since it is a "fall in love" which comes after letting go. And that's what happens when you "let go", you "fall". It is entirely consistent with the rest of the poem, and accords with mystical tradition.

A one minute google turned up this quotation from an article on a Catholic website entitled - "Love and the Message of the Mystics".

But, said in a general way, mysticism is a giving in to falling in love, freely, and with determination.
]http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1484

This poem, for me, gets better and better with each reading.

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Mark Allinson

[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited November 26, 2004).]

[Janet Kenny]

This poem is one of many where I wish there were some way of indicating rests and pauses in poetry more clearly than the em dash. The lilt of it makes me think of A. E. Houseman's "Is My Team Ploughing?"
If an em dash followed "gentling" I think the poem would read more comfortably.

Rhina I feel that the ending is saying--don't expect more than you have already. You have had the experience of love and the richness of its consequences. I read it as a poem of acceptance. A goodbye to love and life without rancor.
Janet

PS: I've edited back in to say I definitely read "gentling" as two syllables followed by a caesura.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited November 26, 2004).]