This DS continues a movement that has been building, away from fame and the trappings of fame, into a valuing of the experience of life and the life of experience. His hope, I gathered before, was that since his body is dying (like anyone’s: will die), and there’s no real faith in any spiritual existence after death, one’s hope for immortality lies in producing a lasting body of work. This will begin the reverberation of a voice that will echo down the years, and that is certainly something. But much of what this ends up really bringing to the still-living poet is junk: Who’s Who (whoo-hoo, he implies: big deal), public events, yadda yadda. It all strikes him now as “a list of failures.” Why failures? Because these things don’t address what turns out to matter: childhood, meaningful moments in real places, and sure, that time he got laid next to a pool by some famous daughter who had a famous mother. Books, jobs, awards: “silliness.”
This is real enough, but thinking this way is also a luxury
afforded to someone who has made his way through the rat race and, win, place
or show, got his trophy. In the
progression of life stages, this is post-ambition. Warriors don’t think this
way. Elders think this way. So what is the post-modern elder telling us in his
hard-earned wisdom anyway? Because he’s the wise old guy whose work we’re
turning to—late at night, under a dim lamp, in a cold apartment, cats purring
in our laps, herbal tea growing cold in our one hand-thrown ceramic mug. Ready
for this?:
I should have been a noted crook
or a cat in
a loud slum yes.
Well, okay, and so much for artistic ambition and voices
echoing hard-earned wisdom down the centuries. So much for eager thoughtful
readers struggling to understand the complexities of their lives. Except, he
makes no real pretense of proffering wisdom, does he? Only this much, and I’ll
grant him: It’s something. The Old Testament framed it first:
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity
of vanities; all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his
labour which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away, and
another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. (Ecclesiastes 1:
2-4)
A spouse of one of my older, mid-distance cousins was
sitting across from me during the final stretch of a big, expensive wedding
reception when I was about 16, and we were both drinking whiskey (he more than
me). This would have been about 1975. I was wearing a bright scarlet-red shirt
with French cuffs, gold cufflinks with domed oval opaloid faux-stones, a red
and gold satin tie, and plaid pants. Quite stylish. “Look at you—young, smart,
all that class. Don’t do what I did. Do what I didn’t do. Don’t end up like me.”
Truth be told he actually wasn’t such a bad guy, and certainly not the loser he
was portraying himself as, under the slosh of all that mid-range Kentucky
bourbon. His point, maybe, in retrospect, is that it doesn’t matter what you do
or how well you do it. If you don’t have faith in something, then it all eventually vapors away into curls of vanity.
That in itself is a piece of strategic and actionable wisdom. And that something you put your faith in, it has
to be solid too. If the earth abides forever, then that’s where I’m placing my
spiritual bet. Ante up. Now, the earth turns out not to be abiding so well at the moment, but that’s because our vanity is
outstripping our faith. That won’t last much longer. It can’t. This doesn’t
change anything: When I look for heaven, I look down. Reading and writing about all these fucking Dream Songs has
helped me determine where to look. So thanks for that, wise guy.
"When I look for heaven, I look down."
ReplyDeleteStart a poem with that line, sir.