I'll follow Elaine's lead, and share two - one of mine about an old bird (not so funny) and another about habit and taking orders that I find very funny - Carolyn
Photo of Sandhill Cranes at dawn, Sacramento Delta, 2011
Being the Bird
I have sometimes watched in quiet focus
long enough that I sometimes remember “being” the bird.
I am an old crane in a flooded field
one of many, balancing, feet in chill water
non-feeling stick-legs with scales like fish
numb to the wet-cold surround
feathers blanketing, folded through the night
rotating watch in the way of the ancestors
trusting the watch-bird all night long
sleeping while standing
tucking head until early light
still, calm-standing in the flooded field
dreaming of flight on thick-scented thermals
feeling the shift of my brother beside me
perhaps through the night, the water will deter
the hunger-driven impulse of yonder coyote
watching us
Lift Your Right Arm
by Peter Cherches Lift your right arm, she said.
I lifted my right arm.
Lift your left arm, she said.
I lifted my left arm. Both of my arms were up.
Put down your right arm, she said.
I put it down.
Put down your left arm, she said.
I did.
Lift your right arm, she said.
I obeyed.
Put down your right arm.
I did.
Lift your left arm.
I lifted it.
Put down your left arm.
I did.
Silence. I stood there, both arms down, waiting for her next command. After a while I got impatient and said, what next.
Now it's your turn to give the orders, she said.
All right, I said. Tell me to lift my right arm.
from Condensed Book, 1986
I love the synchronicity of this blog and how the Hirsh poem (below) couples with the arms above. May we move our arms from both sides.
ReplyDeleteI love the old crane. It's hard to read it and not "be" the bird for a couple of magical moments.
ReplyDeleteOh my, "Lift Your Right Arm" is so funny because it's not funny!
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of sense of humor have I?! The final line in your poem made me chuckle, Carolyn.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, the center two stanzas are absolutely beautiful in their lyrical attention to bird-being. And I love your harkening back to the sense (and non-sense) of that idea of inter-weaving time and timelessness (in "Last"): "rotating watch in the way of the ancestors/trusting the watch-bird all night long."
Those lines, read aloud, sing what they say.
How lovely to read your poem, Carolyn. Being a fan of your photographs, knowing how you observe the herons and cranes for hours in the early morning Central Valley fog, I know you know of which you speak. And last night, at Pegasus, a slim volume of Jane Hirshfield was mis-filed in with the "S"s, and I picked her up to put her right, and opened to this poem (which eerily echoed your poem to me):
ReplyDeleteHope and Love
All winter
the blue heron
slept among the horses.
I do not know
the custom of herons,
do not know
if the solitary habit
is their way,
or if he listened for
some missing one--
not knowing even
that was what he did--
in the blowing
sounds in the dark.
I know that
hope is the hardest
love we carry.
He slept
with his long neck
folded, like a letter
put away.
-- Jane Hirshfield
RUTH, I'm so glad you posted Hope and Love. That's one of my veryveryvery favorites of Hirshfield's. I kept it tacked to our kitchen wall (well, not really a wall, it's insulation board, thus my ability to "tack" a sheet of paper to it) for a couple of years, until the winds took it away.
ReplyDelete"hope is the hardest love we carry" -- suitable for a tatoo, wouldn't you say?
Gene, tatoo! I thought you said never!
ReplyDeleteCarolyn, Ah, to know you love cranes & herons. How great. Perhaps at the end of a year (or half year) we could have a poetry retreat. If we come to the Lake County we can go hang out with the herons/egrets/pelicans etc.
The operative word is "a" (not "my") (tatoo).
ReplyDeleteIf there is an "if" for "my", I think I'd ring my left arm, just above the elbow with the Machado quote:
Caminante, no hay camino
Se hace camino al andar.
Ah, "a" tatoo not "your" tatoo and certainly not "my" tatoo! It all becomes clear. But heck, wouldn't a tatoo in spanish be kind of like all those chinese characters people have on their skin? Oughtn't we to use our native language? or ew, we could make up a language! Now there's a thought.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think "my" tatoo in Spanish would be true to the intent of the lyric. It was, after all, written in Spanish, which is Machado's native tongue. Perhaps this would then call for a second tatoo, circling the right arm with the English translation:
ReplyDeleteWalker, there is no path
You make the path as you walk.
(Admittedly, I prefer the Spanish. So, "if", I'd stick with the original.)
I've considered having a map tattoo'ed on my back. What language is that?
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of Gene getting Machado's lines circling her right arm. Different I think, than the Chinese characters (which for all we know mean "hockypuck") which for us non-native Chinese speakers become symbols/signals more akin to the markings on a map.
Word Origin & History
tattoo
"signal," 1688, "signal calling soldiers or sailors to quarters at night," earlier tap-to (1644, in order of Col. Hutchinson to garrison of Nottingham), from Du. taptoe, from tap "faucet of a cask" (see tap (2)) + toe "shut." So called because police used to visit taverns in the evening to shut off the taps of casks. Transf. sense of "drumbeat" is recorded from 1755. Hence, Devil's tattoo "action of idly drumming fingers in irritation or impatience" (1803).
tattoo
"mark the skin with pigment," 1769 (noun and ver, both first attested in writing of Capt. Cook), from a Polynesian noun (e.g. Tahitian and Samoan tatau, Marquesan tatu "puncture, mark made on skin").
Oh dear, if Ruth does a map I'll throw in my chips and do Machado. But ringing the left arm. (Why does it seem imperative to state like a child stamping her foot? My left arm, not my right, my left arm. And in Spanish. I want it in Spanish. I can conjugate Machado's verbs. I know his pronouns.)
ReplyDeleteThen But creeps in -- Tatoos: Signals calling soldiers to their quarters; the shutting of cask taps? I want nothing to do with such a noun.
The left-right confusion is understandable, given the poem Carolyn posted. And just today, my work project partner was noting she has no north-south confusion (when referring to a direction on a map) but she has profound left-right AND west-east confusion.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, I too quickly conjured "right arm" (though in my defense, you did say you would have the translation on the right arm?). And Spanish should be one our native languages, as in French and English in Quebec. And Gene, you've earned the stripes.
But now I stamp my feet: it's tattoo with two (or rather three total) t's, is it not? And the military meaning is from the Dutch (taptoe); the origin of the skin writing is Polynesian (tatau). Etymology (I almost said "entomology", a different critter altogether) saves the day. Let's get our tattoos!