Seven Deer

Seven Deer

Pervasive quiet

A glow in the eastern sky

Before the sunrise

The warmth of the windless air

The warmth of a dusty road

A bird sings in code;

Perhaps we don’t understand

The way of nature

Attending a long lecture

Regarding evolution

Waves by the ocean

Slowly transforming the coast

Transforming a pier

Seagulls suddenly appear

As the sun dissolves the fog

A passive prologue

To a thickly scheduled day

Of obligations

Heart-felt associations

That draw us into the world

Like a flag unfurled

Blowing in a constant wind

Next to the town square

An old car needing repair

Rusting in the parking lot

Something she forgot,

When she was a little girl

How she felt secure

How illness was quickly cured

By the concern of parents

How they paid the rent,

How they cooked and served her meals,

How they bought her clothes,

How they helped though indisposed,

Though they were very busy

Trapped in the city,

Trapped by fate and by karma,

By astrology

As the planets glide slowly

Singing their songs in the sky

Planet earth relies

On the seasons of the sun,

The wheel of the year

The Spring Equinox is here

By the stream are seven deer

The water is clear,

On the bank a well-worn path

Where young students walk

That is where they smile and talk

As they’re strolling hand-in-hand

They think life is grand,

That this will last forever,

That time will stand still,

But for better or for ill,

Though they thought that this would last,

Love becomes the past,

Even grasses do not last,

Even mist dissolves

As the second hand revolves

On the public courthouse clock

It’s time to take stock

At the local statue store

Deities galore

Gods and Goddesses implore

That we put an end to war

Turning to the four

Directions, finding a place

In the stream of space

An angel flies, filled with grace

Above the field of the past

Where our hopes, at last,

Join with dreams and hand-in-hand

Create our future

A dance of many creatures

On the ground and in the air

Where a white-maned mare

Gallops on a field of stars

While the planet mars

Steadily observes the cars

That fill the rush-hour highway

The night of payday

Two friends heading to a bar

Feel the fist of cold

Even though they are not old

They pull their gloves on tighter

The snow looks whiter

Than the snow from last winter,

Maybe that’s because

The snow was thin, it would thaw,

Mixing with exhaust and dirt

Where it would convert

Into shiny slick black ice,

Slippery, like vice,

Slippery, like promises,

Slippery, like last week’s cash

Or the drugs he stashed

Behind his favorite books

Where no-one would look

As the ancient moonlight shook

The foundations of his dreams

All his hopes, it seems,

Did not work out in the way

That he hoped they would

Like some badly knotted wood,

Like a garden that turned dry,

Like a friend whose sly

Words covered a deception

Like a poisoned meal

‘Come on, it’s not a big deal,’

As she turns and walks away

The sky’s touched by gray

By a subtle hint of light,

A prelude to dawn

He wakes in bed, then he yawns,

There’s the first frost on the lawn

As crisp leaves hold on

For another week or two

Prior to a storm

Whose wind totally transforms

The way that the garden looks

The flow of a brook

Carries a discarded chair

Planks of rotting wood

Like words we’ve misunderstood,

Given half a chance we could

Have made it all good,

But that was not meant to be,

Like one lost at sea

Or a cup of bitter tea,

Or a song that’s badly sung,

Or a bell that’s rung

Fading into the warm air

Of the afternoon

With the cherry trees in bloom

Outside of the living room

They’ll soon come to doom

Shaken from their branches,

The simple fact is

Years have passed and now I’m old

Like a moss covered oak tree

That she stops to see

Next to the new masonry

The shadows are long

As the sunrise sings its song

As the new grass grasps the light

Seven larks in flight

Disappear behind the sight

Of the dancing white

Cloud formations, the polite

Children at kindergarten

Watch the new fountain

That was finished yesterday,

That was donated

By a man who was fated

To always feel insecure

To not know for sure

What he should do or should say

And that was the way

That he lived day after day

So he became reclusive,

Someone elusive,

Like a sound that’s barely heard,

An unuttered word,

Like the moon behind a cloud,

Like a letter never sent,

Like a fabric rent,

Like a rock beneath the snow,

Like a dream that I

Can’t understand though I try

To unravel the meaning

It stays unyielding,

The mist of time concealing

What we are dealing

With, like incense dispersing

When the morning Mass is through

And there are a few

People sitting on the pews

Quietly in prayer

‘Times like this in life are rare,’

Two old friends are hand-in-hand

Like the cliffs they stand,

Monuments to endurance

As the seasons change

Like a fluid mountain range,

Like cool fog above a stream,

Things swirl, planets dream,

Things swirl, it’s the first frost’s sheen,

Things swirl, stars careen,

Things swirl, they are inbetween,

Things swirl, the wind stirs the trees,

Things swirl, falling leaves

Skitter past a silent fox

To a fence that blocks

A path to some glacial rocks

Lying at the farm-field’s edge

Near a shaggy hedge

By a new development,

Sixteen new houses

Empty, and the problem is

That no one can afford them

Words from an anthem

No longer seem to inspire

Like an off-key choir

After the divorce she’s mired

And the kids, though grown, require,

Because things are dire,

More assistance, more support,

Than she expected

Life is tough, things neglected

Have a way of coming back

Dark, the road is black,

The swift outline of a bat,

Slowly thunder claps,

Somewhere a twig snaps,

A feral cat eats a scrap,

Time bends, there’s a gap,

An angel looks at a map,

He must arrive at

A cop at a speeding trap,

On the street a missing cap

Like other things that

Disappear without a trace

Cities that vanish,

A conjuration banished,

An ancient sea now deceased,

An apartment leased,

A full eclipse of the sun,

Days of joy and fun

When we used to play and run

On the shore of Elbow Lake

August was a break,

A motorboat left a wake,

On our vacation

We would joke and would mention

How the night was filled with beasts,

They were friendly beasts,

Seven deer and fireflies

And the white-barked birch

Seemed to shimmer and give birth

To stories both new and old,

Stories always told,

Stories that I never heard,

Stories without words,

Stories that seem sometimes blurred,

Stories that the moss will tell,

Stories from a shell

That sails on the stream of time

Past all that is here,

Past all the things that appear

Beyond all that disappears

Poetry For Sale, by Pat Nolan -- A Review

Poetry For Sale

By Pat Nolan and Poet Friends

A Review

Renga is my favorite form of poetry.  Those who have read this blog regularly know that my personal poetic output is dominated by renga and that I have been involved in writing renga for over 30 years.  There are a few others who have found renga congenial, but the number of English language renga poets is very small.

like some awesome god

in my aspirations I’ll turn time

back after midnight

reflections in a black glass

eclipse of the autumn sun

reflections in a black glass

eclipse of the autumn sun

          visiting brother’s

          cigarette ember at dusk

          father’s ghost coughs

(Page 50)

Here is an interesting factoid about those renga poets in the U.S. – In the early to mid-80’s two of the tiny number of people who have spent a lot of time devoted to renga lived in a small town in Sonoma County, California.  The name of the town is Monte Rio.  It has a population of 1,152 people as of the 2010 census; less than that in the 80’s.  A third poet who has devoted a lot of time to renga is Jane Reichhold who lives just up the coast, in Southern Mendocino County.  So three people who found in renga a vehicle for their own poetic expression resided, at first unknown to each other, within easy driving distance, and two of them lived in the same rural town.

under a pay phone’s dim glow

static from long distance lies

          imported jonquils

          whole flock of ‘em in a jug

          hello, fake spring!

          imported jonquils

          whole flock of ‘em in a jug

          hello, fake spring!

damn tank takes forever to fill

one more flush should do it

(page 89)

In the early 80’s I moved to Monte Rio.  Soon after I started the first English language magazine devoted to renga.  I was completely unaware that residing in Monte Rio was Pat Nolan who was another person devoting a lot of time to the renga form.  Eventually I would meet Nolan; I learned about him through a mutual poetry friend.

Both Nolan and I were catalyzed into the world of renga by the work of Earl Miner.  When Miner published his Japanese Linked Poetry it opened up the world of renga in a way that no previous scholarly work had been able to do. 

I took to writing renga by adopting many of the features of topic placement and gradually learning about linking and shifting and primarily looking at renga as a solo form, though I have engaged with others poets in composing renga as well.  Nolan’s approach was more social than mine.    And Nolan found in Miner’s work specific features that he chose to replicate in his own explorations of the renga form.  A distinctive feature of Miner’s translations of Japanese renga was to repeat each verse (with the exception of the closing verse) to highlight the nature of the link and shift that takes place as the renga unfolds.  Nolan and his renga partners liked the effect this had on renga poetry and adopted this repetition procedure when writing, or leading, his own renga.  This is in some ways a new approach to renga; in Japanese renga the verses are not repeated.  Miner repeated the verses in his translations in order to shed light on certain ambiguous features of the Japanese language which can be used as pivots as verse X assumes different relationships to verse X - 1 and to verse X + 1.  For example, because the Japanese language uses pronouns less frequently than English, and because the Japanese verb does not decline by number or sex, it is possible for a verse to refer to a woman when linked to the previous verse, and then refer to a man when linked to the following verse.   But Nolan, and his cohorts in renga, found the effect of this repetition in itself esthetically appealing, adopting it as a distinctive feature of their approach to renga.

And now, after more than 30 years of writing renga, Nolan has gathered 11 renga into his latest book Poetry For Sale: Haikai no Renga (linked poetry).  The title is taken from one of the opening verses (hokku) in the collection which is derived from a haikai by Basho and Kikaku that has the title ‘Poetry Is What I Sell’.  It reads:

Mortality not debt

leads me to hoist another

poetry for sale

                   after Kikaku

 Poetry For Sale is a fantastic collection.  Anyone interested in the interaction between Japanese and English poetry needs this book.  And anyone interested in renga should definitely get it.  It is an immensely pleasing collection: entertaining, surprising, sometimes sharp and witty, sometimes introspective, sometimes descriptive, the renga unfold with great skill and elegance.  They are a pleasure to read.

a butterfly’s premonition

it’s safer not to move

          me and my paper lantern

          not surprisingly a scoop

          among a river of stars

          me and my paper lantern

          not surprisingly a scoop

          among a river of stars

the howl of dogs

hushed by the silence of birds

(Page 77)

I have to admit that the feature of repeating all the stanzas at first puzzled me.  It is not the route I have chosen with my own renga.  However, I have come to appreciate this innovation.  If you read the renga aloud you’ll get the pleasing effect the repetition has.  By repeating the verses they take on a chorus like feeling.  On November 6^th I heard a reading from Poetry for Sale; two of the poets, Pat Nolan and Sandy Berrigan, read from one of the renga and the effect of the repetition was soothing.  The innovation works in a musical way that I find very pleasing and attractive.  The repetition makes the renga journey accessible.  I suspect this is particularly true for those who have no previous experience with the form.

And speaking of the renga form, Nolan and his partners chose a respectful, but at the same time relaxed, relationship to the numerous formal regulations.  This is explained in Nolan’s introduction, “Hardly Strictly Haikai” and in the ‘Forewad’ to the haikai ‘Random Rocks’.  Generally speaking one finds seasonal and topic placement, a rough commitment to the overall syllabic shape, and a traditional sense of pacing.  It has been my observation that this respectful yet relaxed approach is the stance that all renga poets have had to adopt in their relationship to traditional Japanese renga.  Nolan compares renga to the music of a jazz combo and that feels right to me.  In good jazz there are rules and at the same time there is improvisation.  Nolan and his partners have a good grasp of what the rules are (for example, topic placement), but they also have an intuitive sense of when to let the renga find its own way.  This is actually how the great renga masters of Japan related to the form.  A good example is how Sogi lead a 100 verse renga that does not contain any summer verses; Sogi allowed the energy of the renga to flow where it was going.

The book contains, with a one exception, renga written by two or more poets, which is the standard procedure for writing renga.  Pat Nolan’s partners in renga are Keith Kumasen Abbott, Sandy Berrigan, Gloria Frym, Steven LaVoie, Joen Eshima Moore, Maureen Owen, Michael Sowl, and John Veglia.  It is a great cast of characters.  Each of them has a distinctive voice.

The collection starts out with a solo kasen renga by Pat Nolan.  (All the renga in the collection are kasen, or 36-verse, renga rooted in the style of Basho.)  Nolan achieves the effect of having multiple participants by selecting haiku, and then editing them, from Blyth’s collection to form the verses of the haikai.  It is an effective collage.

The other ten renga all have multiple participants, starting with two poets and ending up with five.  Several of the renga, ‘Yellow Music’, ‘Poetry for Sale’, ‘Bamboo Greeting’, which is dedicated to Earl Miner, and ‘Random Rocks’ have a running commentary.  On the left page are the verses of the haikai, and on the right page are comments from the author of the verse which illuminate what the poets were thinking or trying to accomplish with their link.  This is really interesting and helpful for people who want to compose renga themselves.

Nolan notes in the ‘Introduction’ that, with one exception, all of them were written via snail mail.  Remember that this began when the internet was still nascent and in many ways unreliable.  Eventually Nolan used email attachments; but that was towards the end of these efforts.  The effect of this is that each poet could take their time considering their link.  This gives the renga a polished feel. 

a raven on the blue post

office box silent – still silent –

all their beauty gone

the mud rut of a bike tire

through pale confetti

all their beauty gone

the mud rut of a bike tire

through pale confetti

ice islands in thawed lawn –

shiny dribble melts a spilled moon –

(Page 62)  

Nolan and his partners have done a great job adapting renga to an English language poetic context.  Renga is a unique poetic genre; I don’t know of any other form which has the effect that renga imparts.  It is a combination of the concrete details of life combined with a dream like sense of traveling, like some kind of strange astral journey.  It is a difficult form to do well.  It is remarkable how graceful this collection is.  My hope is that this collection will help others access this form so that they can also walk the journey down the renga road.

that was the reason I bought

the bamboo shower curtain

          at the merest touch

          flurries of blossoms cascade

          onto the bright grass

          at the merest touch

          flurries of blossoms cascade

          onto the bright grass

where the black rock fell off

a sunlit cliff – steam curls up

(Pages 143-144)

Poetry For Sale: Haikai no Renga (linked poetry)

Pat Nolan with partners and friends

Nuallain House, Monte Rio

$16.00

The book is only available directly from Nuallain House, which is on the web here:

http://nuallainhousepublishers.com/

Time

Time

The hot morning air –

All the flowers are wilting

Above brown-dry grass

A butterfly is searching

For drops of dew and nectar

Thin clouds, mere specters,

Dissolving before her eyes

Into the vast sky

Seasonal time won’t comply,

(Unlike our calendar years)

Oak leaves, crisp and sere,

Tumble down without a sound

On the sloping mound

No wind, falling to the ground

As daylight hours grow shorter

It’s the last quarter

Of a life of many years

Ghosts of friends appear,

Ghosts from times that I hold dear,

Ghosts of songs that I still hear,

Ghosts that linger here,

Ghosts from dreams, from other spheres,

Ghosts calm and austere,

Ghosts from streams that disappear,

Ghosts resembling a shy deer,

Ghosts from a frontier,

Ghosts are time and time is near,

Ghosts like distant trees

Seen through a cold howling freeze,

Seen through thickly falling snow

Streetlights barely glow

As a neighbor trudges home

After work is through

There was something he should do,

Something he has forgotten

The note he placed in

His shirt pocket has fallen

Out onto the street

When he paused to stop and greet

An old friend he had not seen

For years, though it seemed

That it was just yesterday

When it was routine

They would meet day after day

Exchanging quips and wordplay

But time eats away

At all our expectations,

Time burns like a fire

And all that is required

Is that she waits patiently

Hoping she will see

In the park where they once walked

His approach, his smile

But she’s surrounded for miles

By an emptiness that’s vile

Blossoms fall like tiles

Torn from the plum trees’ branches

In a bitter wind

He offers incense for his sins

And freshly picked daffodils

The courtyard is still

Something glows in the distance

Passing the roofline,

Like a musician keeping time,

Coursing through the dream-filled air

Moonlight, bright and fair,

Waning from full, like a sigh,

Surrounded by clouds

Hovering, like a thin shroud,

Angels’ wings don’t make a sound