[Musical accompaniment to this post: “Hejira”]
In the lore of flower symbolism, the lilac stands for
innocence in general, and the purple lilac in particular is for innocent first
love. This final image in DS 366 reminds me too much of the Orson Welles
character, Charles Foster Kane, at the beginning and end of Citizen Kane murmuring “rosebud.” After
all the experience, sins, accomplishments, stupid blundering mistakes, through
it all, buried, runs something old and innocent and pure and exciting: How it
felt to ride your very own sled down a hill in the snow for the first time. In
your secret heart you keep a grip on that always. I remember as clear as
yesterday the first day of Kindergarten, looking into the enormous blue eyes of
some beautiful little girl, thinking to myself how is it possible that anything
can be so beautiful? I think what really went through my head, not even five
years old yet, was, “She’s so pretty!”, but the idea’s the same. I was struck
speechless, by something I had never seen before. B.’s lilac symbolism isn’t
focused, but it’s somehow obviously a reference to his distant youth, the love
he felt for something, like maybe just life in general, before the sins and
experience, the grief, the struggle, all started and overwhelmed it. Rosebud.
And I have no doubt whatsoever that this poem was numbered
366 for a reason, because it’s just too much a New Year’s Day poem for that to
be a coincidence. He’s set himself in a pub, of course, which is sad, looking
back over his life to this point. Acknowledging that he’s about to strike out
(this may be an Irish pub in Dublin, but the speaker is American, so baseball
as a metaphor it is—metaphoric baseball runs deep in an American whether we
like it or not). He’s also looking back over his work and this enormous Dream
Song project, and this is the moment where he makes the critically important
and oft-quoted statement about these poems:
These Songs
are not meant to be understood, you understand
They are only meant to terrify
& comfort
They’re not always understandable
anyway, but with diligence and practice, that does get easier. I missed a few
of them badly, especially among the early ones. That happens to everyone who
takes these on. But I feel now that less and less slips by. But for those of us
who do take them on, for whatever reason, it’s comforting to know they’re not
meant to be understood. Our critical inadequacies are off the hook. You don’t
necessarily have to burrow into them and figure them out; just hold back and
let the things ooze into comforting/terrifying form.
This is among my favorite Dream Songs already, because of
the distinct emotional character of it. There is profound, profound sadness in
the emotion, but it’s not a grievous sadness it’s a melancholic sadness, and in
terms of melancholy, Joni Mitchell hit me hard enough with a line once that I will
never get past it: “There’s comfort in melancholy.” The real melancholy of the
poem is that there isn’t any forward looking happening in it. New Year’s Day is
the day you look back over the last year, sure, but also when you cast ahead
and make resolutions. I will make my life even better by doing this and this
and this. Resolutions. Commitments. A plan for growth. Not so in 366. He’s
almost done, and there isn’t much to look forward to. Backward looking and
melancholy. Comforting, in its sad way, and clutching that lilac.
Maybe he believed the DSs weren't many to be understood. Or maybe he's lifting the finger yet again to his critics, in effect saying, "If you don't understand these, you dumbass, I guess I'll pretend that was my intent."
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