Chase Twichell, "Pine"
Out in the woods, by the lake and among the monks, resides the question of who we want to be.
Hi all –
Like you, like a normal person, I don't want to declare "this is exactly what's important" every single moment. For the most part, I want to write, put it out there, and trust y'all to do something with it. Honestly, I think that's implicit with a lot we create, especially when considering an online audience. People actively search for other people's thoughts, hoping to expand on ideas they're working on. They don't need you to walk them through the precise relevance of everything you've written. They only need an invite to the conversation.
I don't think that approach quite works in the current media environment. Everything is horribly fragmented. And you might think that favors an approach like mine, but it actually doesn't. Yeah, I'm trusting everyone to put it together their own way, but I do believe there is something to put together. You can see how the posts on Emily Dickinson engage themes like love and ultimately ask, for example, what it takes to appreciate another person or how to grapple with the power of nostalgia. Commenting on poetry is an opportunity to think through how we navigate emotions, norms, and ideals, and the work is adjacent to political philosophy. Consider what Seamus Heaney is trying to see in his poem "North," how he illustrates the logic and legacy of empire. I am a mess of contradictions and mistakes who needs to do more research and read more carefully, but you have the right to treat this blog like I'm building something. That can be hard to see and going further I have to be more explicit.
I don't believe I can get to the larger questions properly by inserting myself directly into a debate between, say, Plato and Heidegger. I have to address how Plato's Cave operates, how we are seduced by a false sort of knowledge catering to our desires for pleasure and dominance (e.g. gamblers calling themselves strategists). And I have to consider how we may get to an authentic self, one that can confront the question of why anything exists at all. With both of those efforts made, one thing is clear: they're not enough. I'm not interested in outlining an argument as much as sketching how people actually live within ideas. And seeing that happens through a multitude of means. For myself, I've found the hard thinking happens through poetry. Chewing on what words mean is vital; Heidegger plays with the idea that "all art is in essence poetry." It's more complicated than that, but this isn't disconnected from his holding that "language itself is poetry in the essential sense." (1)
The danger is that you can always present the argument perfectly phrased. Wrapped up in a gift box, shining from surrounding lights, proportions exactly symmetrical. And you have no idea what any of it means. A cat has more understanding, as it sees a box to play with.
Chase Twichell, "Pine"
Out in the woods, by the lake and among the monks, resides the question of who we want to be. Twichell conjures a fire at night during winter: "The first night at the monastery, / a moth lit on my sleeve by firelight, / long after the first frost." You feel the cold, you see the flickering flame, and you witness Twichell and the moth observe it together.
I found this poem in a journal of mine from 16 years ago. I did not make a single note about its content then; the rest of my entries from that time are angry and arrogant. I understand why–I was certainly not being treated well–but there isn't a hint I would appreciate a moth gently landing on me to watch a fire.
Pine (from Poetry) Chase Twichell The first night at the monastery, a moth lit on my sleeve by firelight, long after the first frost. A short stick of incense burns thirty minutes, fresh thread of pine rising through the old pine of the hours. Summer is trapped under the thin glass on the brook, making the sound of an emptying bottle. Before the long silence, the monks make a long soft rustling, adjusting their robes. The deer are safe now. Their tracks are made of snow. The wind has dragged its branches over their history.
Twichell's second stanza brings us nothing but the scent of pine. "[F]resh thread of pine" courses through the "old pine," the world of the old incense and the old forest. Smell, maybe the most powerful of our memories, conjures time. The same object resolves into two distinct ones, both present: "A short stick of incense burns / thirty minutes, fresh thread of pine / rising through the old pine of the hours." I almost don't want to say "thirty minutes" exists. The only presences are the scents of pine and their evocations. Pine as desire, our wanting things erotic and transcendent. Pine as the natural world, those trees with their resilient green. Pine as ritual.
A fire and a scent are accompanied by sound: "Summer is trapped under the thin / glass on the brook, making / the sound of an emptying bottle." Seasons flow one into the other, meaning one season hides within the other. Listen carefully and you can hear it. You can hear water melt with the energies of summer. For those of us wanting change, we need to know what we must pour out and what we can pour in. It is both a beautiful and tough proposition to realize that you have more of what you need than you thought.
And then, everyone else. Monks like trees, making quiet noises and perhaps resting moths. "Before the long silence, / the monks make a long soft rustling, / adjusting their robes." Is this who you want to be? I can say a big difference between me now versus 16 years ago is that I hold it is not possible to do too much meditation. Every breath carefully taken, every detail thoughtfully held, makes more of life. You accept the moth on your robes; you watch the flame together.
The largeness of what seems like advice for life cannot be overstated. There's a reevaluation here of what is termed "dominion." We don't need to threaten or conquer the natural world as we learn to understand and accept the nature of things. "The deer are safe now. Their tracks / are made of snow. The wind has dragged / its branches over their history." The deer are a mystery best left a mystery. The world isn't a place for an excess of anger or proclamations of victory. A similar theme, strangely enough, can be found echoing in my latest read, Heidegger's Addendum to "The Origin of the Work of Art," were "laying" and "placing" are emphasized in how beings are brought forth into presence. Often, you don't make a genuine realization by forcing the issue. Thinking which skips to violence, control, and destruction stands woefully incomplete.
References
Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art" in Poetry, Language, Thought, translation Hofstadter. New York: HarperPerennial, 2001. 70-72.