Charles Bukowski: The Laughing Heart

Charles Bukowski

American-German Poet

(August 16, 1920 — March 9, 1994)

In honor of the poet Charles Bukowski, who was born one hundred years ago today, I would like to share one of my favorite poems:

The Laughing Heart

 by Charles Bukowski

                                       your life is your life

                                       don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.

                                       be on the watch.

                                       there are ways out.

                                       there is light somewhere.

                                       it may not be much light but

                                       it beats the darkness.

                                       be on the watch.

                                       the gods will offer you chances.

                                       know them.

                                       take them.

                                       you can't beat death but

                                       you can beat death in life, sometimes.

                                       and the more often you learn to do it,

                                       the more light there will be.

                                       your life is your life.

                                       know it while you have it.

                                       you are marvelous

                                       the gods wait to delight

                                       in you.

AN AFTERNOON WITH SWALLOW-TAIL KITES

Swallow-tail Kite

I spent a little time yesterday afternoon watching five swallow-tail kites perform an aerial ballet above the trees and fields a few miles for my house.  The swallow-tail kite is the most elegant and graceful member of the raptor family, and its essence was beautifully described many years ago by John James Audubon in his famous book, The Birds of America (1828 —1837):

The flight of this elegant species of Hawk is singularly beautiful and protracted. It moves through the air with such ease and grace, that it is impossible for any individual, who takes the least pleasure in observing the manners of birds, not to be delighted by the sight of it whilst on wing.  Gliding along in easy flappings, it rises in wide circles to an immense height, inclining in various ways its deeply forked tail, to assist the direction of its course, dives with the rapidity of lightning, and, suddenly checking itself, reascends, soars away, and is soon out of sight.

Here are some of the other images I made yesterday, punctuated by some important observations about birds:

In order to see birds

it is necessary to become a part of the silence.

Robert Lynd

The very idea of a bird

is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet.

A bird seems to be at the top of the scale,

so vehement and intense is his life,

large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic,

his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.

John Burroughs

Birds are indicators of the environment.

If they are in trouble, we know we'll soon be in trouble.

Roger Tory Peterson

Happy of happy though I be,

like them I cannot take possession of the sky,

mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there,

one of a mighty multitude whose way

and motion is a harmony and dance magnificent.

William Wordswoth

I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

E.E. Cummings

Illustration of Swallow-tailed Hawk

(now classified as Swallow-tailed Kite)

by

John James Audubon

The Birds of America

A TIME TO WAIT AND TRUST THE HOURS

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

With a corrupt and incompetent American president, a deadly pandemic that continues to ravage the country, and growing racial strife that often ends in violence, it is challenging to get through the days without falling into despair.  It helps, however, when I come across a fine piece of writing that captures my frustration and points to a way forward.  That was the case yesterday when I came across this Galway Kinnell poem in The Writer's Almanac.  I found the poem to be both wise and inspirational.  Perhaps it will resonate with others as well.

                                                                    Wait

                                                         by Galway Kinnell

                                Wait, for now.

                                Distrust everything if you have to.

                                But trust the hours.  Haven't they 

                                carried you everywhere, up to now?

                                Personal events will become interesting again.

                                Hair will become interesting.

                                Pain will become interesting.

                                Buds that open out of season will become interesting.

                                Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;

                                their memories are what give them

                                the need for other hands.  And the desolation

                                of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness

                                carved out of such tiny beings as we are

                                asks to be filled; the need

                                for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

                                Wait.

                                Don't go too early.

                                You're tired.  But everyone's tired.

                                But no one is tired enough.

                                Only wait a little and listen:

                                music of hair,

                                music of pain, 

                                music of looms weaving all our loves again.

                                Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,

                                most of all to hear

                                the flute of your whole existence,

                                rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

LIVING THE AUTHENTIC LIFE

Tricolored Heron

Lines from

As Kingfishters Catch Fire

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

                             As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

                             As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

                             Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

                             Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

                             Each mortal thing does one thing and the same;

                             Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

                             Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

                             Crying What I do is me; for that I came . . .

THE WISDOM OF A MAD FARMER

Spears Road, Anderson County, South Carolina

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places and desecrated places.

Wendell Berry

I rise early each morning, take a quick shower, feed our dog, grab a large cup of dark roast, and then set out with my binoculars and camera to discover that is unfolding on the rural backroads of upstate South Carolina. While I never know what to expect, experience has taught me that something extraordinary and beautiful will likely come my way, and whatever it is, it will surely be more satisfying that the political news of the day.

As I move from towns to farm roads, I'm often thinking about one of my favorite writers, the poet, essayist, and passionate environmentalist, Wendell Berry.  Through his poems and essays, as well as myriad speeches and interviews, Berry has given me better eyes to see and understand the natural world.  More importantly, perhaps, he has continued to remind me of how much we are threatened by corporate agriculture, a mechanistic economy, and a modern culture that is more concerned with consumption and convenience that it is with protecting the health of the planet.

One of my favorite Berry poems is Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. Set forth below, it offers some sensible advice on how to live on the earth with a sense of integrity, purpose, and responsibility.  Just one note of caution:  When you read the words "praise ignorance," do not hastily conclude that Berry is opposed to education.  He is simply reminding us that a good education should come with an understanding of man's historic inclination to eventually destroy or corrupt everything he discovers.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

By Wendell Berry

                                     Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

                                     vacation with pay.  Want more

                                     of everything ready-made.  Be afraid

                                     to know your neighbors and to die.

                                     And you will have a window in your head.

                                     Not even your future will be a mystery 

                                     any more.  Your mind will be punched in a card

                                     and shut away in a little drawer.

                                     When they want you to buy something

                                     they will call you.  When they want you 

                                     to die for profit they will let you know.

                                     So, friends, every day do something

                                     that won't compute.  Love the Lord.
                                     Love the world.  Work for nothing.
                                     Take all that you have and be poor.
                                     Love someone who does not deserve it.
                                     Denounce the government and embrace
                                     the flag.  Hope to live in that free
                                     republic for which it stands.
                                     Give your approval to all you cannot
                                     understand.  Praise ignorance, for what man               
                                     has not encountered he has not destroyed.

                                     Ask the questions that have no answers.
                                     Invest in the millennium.  Plant sequoias.
                                     Say that your main crop is the forest
                                     that you did not plant,
                                     that you will not live to harvest.
                                     Say that the leaves are harvested
                                     when they have rotted into the mold.
                                     Call that profit.  Prophesy such returns.

                                     Put your faith in the two inches of humus
                                     that will build under the trees
                                     every thousand years.
                                     Listen to carrion — put your ear 
                                     close, and hear the faint chattering 
                                     of the songs that are to come.
                                     Expect the end of the world.  Laugh.
                                     Laughter is immeasurable.  Be joyful
                                     though you have considered all the facts.
                                     So long as women do not go cheap
                                     for power, please women more than men.
                                     Ask yourself:  Will this satisfy
                                     a woman satisfied to bear a child?
                                     Will this disturb the sleep
                                     of a woman near to giving birth?

                                     Go with your love to the fields.
                                     Lie down in the shade.  Rest your head
                                     in her lap.  Swear allegiance
                                     to what is highest in your thoughts.
                                     As soon as the generals and the politicos 
                                     can predict the motions of your mind,
                                     lose it.  Leave it as a sign
                                     to mark the false trail, the way
                                     you didn't go.  Be like the fox
                                     who makes more tracks than necessary,
                                     some in the wrong direction.
                                     Practice resurrection.

THE SOLACE OF FOOD, BEAUTY, NATURE, AND ART

Open Window, Collioure
Henri Matisse

While the title of my blog, The Shape of Light, is primarily a reflection of my interest in photography, I'm also interested in sharing other kinds of light, including the enlightenment to be found in the words and ideas of good literature, particularly good poetry.  Indeed, as you can see from earlier postings, I'm usually inclined to pair one of my photographs with quotes or poems from writers I admire.  For better or worse, I find that words can amplify images, just as images can amplify words.

The image being used today, however, is obviously not one of mine.  It's an image of the Matisse painting, Open Window, Collioure, which was painted in 1905 and currently hangs in  the National Gallery of Art.  I was invited to take a new look at this painting when, this morning, I stumbled upon a wonderful poem by Ellen Bass. Titled "French Chocolates," the poem eschews the bromides that are offered by well-intentioned friends when we are facing difficulties, and reminds us that the simple pleasures of food, beauty, nature, and art will usually provide more solace than hackneyed expressions of sympathy or psychoanalysis. 

French Chocolates

by

Ellen Bass

                                If you have your health, you have everything

                                is something that's said to cheer you up

                                when you come home early and find your lover

                                arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.

                                Or it could be you lose your job at Happy  Nails

                                because you can't stop smudging the stars

                                on those ten teeny American Flags.

                                I don't begrudge you your extravagant vitality.

                                May it blossom like a cherry tree.  May the petals

                                of your cardiovascular excellence

                                and the accordion polka of your lungs

                                sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.

                                But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire

                                like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,

                                with bones brittle as spun sugar,

                                with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith

                                in the flaming forge of your skull,

                                may you be spared from friends who say,

                                God doesn't give you more than you can handle

                                and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.

                                May they just keep their mouths shut

                                and give you French chocolates and daffodils

                                and maybe a small, original Matisse, say
                                Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out
                                at boats floating on dappled pink water.       

"French Chocolates" is from
Like a Beggar, by Ellen Bass

SUNFLOWER-BORDERED ROADS TO FREEDOM

Roadside Sunflowers, Townville, South Carolina

Few things are as mesmerizing in summer as driving down a country road and suddenly discovering a vast landscape of sunflowers.  In field after field of yellow, red, and green, capped by sweeping blue skies and dazzling clouds, one cannot avoid the welcome sense of being completely liberated — if only for a moment — from the burdens and distractions of the spinning world.  As Willa Cather suggested in My Antonia, such experiences always leave us with the gentle assurance that we are on the right road, both literally and metaphorically:

The new country lay open before me: there were no fences in those days, and I could choose my own way over the grass uplands, trusting the pony to get me home again.  Sometimes I followed the sunflower-bordered roads.  Fuchs told me that the sunflowers were introduced into that country by the Mormons; that at the time of the persecution when they left Missouri and struck out into the wilderness to find a place where they could worship God in their own way, the members of the first exploring party, crossing the plains to Utah, scattered sunflower seeds as they went. The next summer, when the long trains of wagons came through with all the women and children, they had a sunflower trail to follow.  I believe that botanists do not confirm Jake's story, but insist that the sunflower was native to those plains.  Nevertheless, that legend has stuck in my mind, and sunflower-bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom."

From My Antonia

by

Willa Cather 

  

Willa Cather

1873 - 1947

THE BUTTERFLY DREAM

Monarch

Once upon a time,
I dreamt I was a butterfly,
fluttering hither and thither,
to all intents and purposes a butterfly.
I was conscious only of my happiness
as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. 

Soon I awaked, and there I was, 
veritably myself again. Now I do not know
whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Chuang Tzu
Chinese philosopher of 4th century BC
(also known a Zhuang Zhou and Zhuangzi)

THE QUESTION

Carolina Wren

                                        The question before me, now that I

                                        am old, is not how to be dead,

                                        which I know from enough practice,

                                        but how to be alive, as these worn

                                        hills still tell, and some paintings 

                                        of Paul Cezanne, and this mere 

                                        singing wren, who thinks he's alive

                                        forever, this instant, and may be.

 Wendell Berry

Sabbath Poems 2001, VIII

SWALLOWS: REVELRIES OF INDECISION

Barn Swallows

Swallows are the aerial acrobats of the avian world. They soar, dive, twist, roll, bank, glide, and engage in almost every other kind of flight movement imaginable, with the possible exception of flying directly backwards. The second-to-second directional changes are so quick and unpredictable that I am inclined to agree with something poet Leonora Speyer alluded to in the poem at the end of this posting: Swallows are masters of indecision.

My favorite swallow is the barn swallow, known for its deeply forked tail, its steely blue back, its bright blue crown and face, and its cinnamon-colored forehead and throat. Whenever I have a chance to observe these magnificent birds in their daily revelries, it's always a pleasure, and that's precisely what happened yesterday morning.

While driving slowly down a country lane in northwest Anderson County, I came across a young barn swallow perched on a fence post at the edge of a pasture . . .

After watching the swallow for a few minutes, I realized that it was anxiously searching the sky for something, and I presumed it was for one of his parents to return with a tasty breakfast.

My presumption turned out to be correct; the young swallow soon spread its wings and opened its mouth widely, suggesting that the parent swallow was quickly approaching.

Bam! The adult suddenly appeared in my viewfinder and hit its target, the gaping mouth of its offspring.

After hovering for not more than a second, the adult vanished and continued to forage for insects in the skies above the pasture.

The now-fed young swallow turned and began waiting impatiently on the next morsel to be delivered by its parent. Immediately, however, it was joined by a sibling which had obviously figured out that it needed to share the fence post feeding station if it wanted to share the food deliveries.  As you can see, the first young swallow was not enthusiastic about sharing either its spot or its food with the intruding sibling.

The first young young swallow then placed one of the wings over the newcomer, and appeared to be fending off any competition as the parent swallow was returning with another round of food. Frustrated, the newcomer left the perch for a moment . . .

. . . but returned aggressively as soon as the parent returned with food.

All hell broke loose for a second, but the first young swallow ultimately prevailed and got the reward once again.  As you can see, however, its sibling remained frustrated and visibly perturbed.  Such is life, I suppose.  It seems to happen among all species. 

So much for my morning with barn swallows. I'll close with the lovely poem I referenced at the outset. Written by Leonora Speyer (1872 - 1956), the poem captures beautifully the energy and spirit of most swallows 

Swallows

by Leonora Speyer

They dip their wings in the sunset

They dash against the air

As if to break themselves upon its stillness:

In every moment, too swift to count,

Is a revelry of indecision,

A furtive delight in trees they do not desire

And in grasses that shall not know their weight.

They hover and lean toward the meadow

With little edged cries;

And then,

As if frightened at the earth's nearness,

They seek the high austerity of evening sky

And swirl into its depth.

OTHER EYES THAT DELIGHT IN BEAUTY

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Butterfly Bush

Thanks to fellow blogger John The Barman, who recently called my attention to a quote from Christina Rossetti's beautiful poem, "To What Purpose is this Waste."  It's a lovely passage, especially to lovers of birds and other wild creatures, so I will share it with you here: 

And other eyes than our's

Were made to look on flowers,

Eyes of small birds and insects small:

The deep sun-blushing rose

Round which the prickles close

Opens her bosom to them all.

The tiniest living thing

That soars on feathered wing,

Or crawls among the long grass out of sight,

Has just as good a right

To its appointed portion of delight

As any King.