Main Body
November
November 1
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
The steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.
In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valley, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
— Gary Snyder, “For the Children”
November 2
Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me,
in the old ways.
What did I know
thinking myself
able to go
alone all the way.
— Robert Creeley, “Love Come Quietly”
November 3
Build now your Church, my brothers, sisters. Build
never with brick or Corten nor with granite.
Build with lithe love. With love like lion-eyes.
with love like morningrise.
with love like black, our black—
luminously indiscreet;
complete; continuous.
— from Gwendolyn Brooks’ “The Sermon on the Warpland”
November 4
The Marriage
You have my
attention: which is
a tenderness, beyond
what I may say. And I have
your constancy to
something beyond myself.
The force
of your commitment charges us—we live
in the sweep of it, taking courage
one from the other.
The Marriage (II)
I want to speak to you.
To whom else should I speak?
It is you who make
a world to speak of.
In your warmth the
fruits ripen—all the
apples and pears that grow
on the south wall of my
head. If you listen
it rains for them, then
they drink. If you
speak in response
the seeds
jump into the ground.
Speak or be silent:
your silence
will speak to me.
— Denise Levertov, two poems about marriage
November 5
my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height
this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm
newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots
and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow
Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin
joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice
keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely)stood my father’s dream
his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile
Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain
Septembering arms of year extend
Yes humbly wealth to foe and friend
Than he to foolish and to wise
Offered immeasurable is
Proudly and(by octobering flame
Beckoned)as earth will downward climb
So naked for immortal work
His shoulders marched against the dark
His sorrow was as true as bread:
No liar looked him in the head;
If every friend became his foe
He’d laugh and build a world with snow
My father moved through theys of we
Singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
Danced when she heard my father sing)
Then let men kill which cannot share
Let blood and flesh be mud and mire
Scheming imagine,passion willed
Freedom a drug that’s bought and sold
Giving to steal and cruel kind
A heart to fear,to doubt a mind
To differ a disease of same
Conform the pinnacle of am
Though dull were all we taste as bright
Bitter all utterly things sweet
Maggoty minus and dumb death
All we inherit,all bequeath
And nothing quite so least as truth
–i say though hate were why men breathe–
Because my Father lived his soul
Love is the whole and more than all
— e.e. cummings, “My Father Moved Through Dooms of Love”
November 6
Father who grows in the plant,
Father who moves the animal,
Father whose anguish is because of our suffering,
Father whose presence means there is joy even in hell,
Father who must find His face in a mirror of me,
Father uncreated, Father evolving,
Father whose signature is in the chemical bond,
how long you have searcht for me;
I am your son.
— from Robert Duncan’s “A Sequence of Poems for H.D.’s Birthday, September 10, 1959”
November 7
Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking. We should amass half dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourd at each other, to wake up; instead we watch television and miss the show.
The artist is willing to give all his or her strength and life to probing with blunt instruments those same secrets no one can describe in any way but with those instruments’ faint tracks. Admire the world for never ending on you—as you would admire an opponent, without taking your eyes from him, or walking away. One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better … Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
— Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
November 8
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground.
And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents.
And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.
And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them. And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted.
— Exodus 16: 11-21, from the King James Version of the Bible
November 9
This is just a place:
we go around, distanced,
yearly in a star’s
atmosphere, turning
daily into and out of
direct light and
slanting through the
quadrant seasons: deep
space begins at our
heels, nearly rousing
us loose: we look up
or out so high, sight’s
silk almost draws us away:
this is just a place:
currents worry themselves
coiled and free in airs
and oceans: water picks
up mineral shadow and
plasm into billions of
designs, frames: trees,
grains, bacteria: but
is love a reality we
made here ourselves—
and grief—did we design
that—or do these,
like currents, whine
in and out among us merely
as we arrive and go:
this is just a place:
the reality we agree with,
that agrees with us,
outbounding this, arrives
to touch, joining with
us from far away:
our home which defines
us is elsewhere but not
so far away we have
forgotten it:
this is just a place.
— A. R. Ammons, “In Memoriam Mae Noblitt”
November 10
What would it mean to actually encounter the world for the first time? … Trees as a class of beings only exist after the repetition of the experience, and the comparison of the experience with those of other people … there could never be a knowledge of “dog” unless there were “dogs,” for it is the statistical regularities of the group that are indicated by the name. What there is, instead, is a miracle: an animate entity, warm, self-willed, and incontrovertibly other … [The first encounter produces a] realization that there is an other, something in experience which cannot be contained in the self and is, therefore, uncanny—and wild. To encounter the wild other, to greet another “I am,” is to accept the other’s existence in one’s life world … the experience of genuine otherness, the frog in the pond or the bird in the tree, discloses one’s own existence …
It might be fair to say that the experience of radical otherness is at the base of all astonishment or awe, all “numinous” experience. It is that shock of recognition that generates the acknowledgement of mystery that we can characterize as religious. … [If we look honestly at our perceptions] without the need to assume a human organization in the world, what one encounters is simply the other, on its own terms: a “divine chaos.” And this, it would seem, is the most difficult thing for us to do. We must make it ours, by one means or another. In the most literal sense, we make nature ours in the domestication of plants and animals. In a more personal sense, we make it ours by assuming it is an extended self, or at least a thing like ourselves. … But the divine chaos … is exactly the opposite: it is its own, and not ours at all. … Wildness is the quality of this divine other, and it is wildness that is destroyed in the very act of “saving”
it. Wildness is not “ours” — indeed, it is the one thing that can never be ours. It is self-willed, independent, and indifferent to our dictates and judments. An entity with the quality of wildness is its own, and no other’s. When domestication begins, wildness ends.
— Neil Evernden, The Social Creation of Nature
November 12
By the middle of the morning he was on the rim of the Valle Grande, a great volcanic crate that lay high up on the western slope of the range. It was the right eye of the earth, held open to the sun. Of all places that he knew, this valley alone could reflect the great spatial majesty of the sky. It was scooped out of the dark peaks like the well of a great, gathering storm, deep umber and blue and smoke-colored. The view across the diameter was magnificent; it was an unbelievably great expanse. As many times he had been there in the past, each new sight of it always brought him up short, and he had to catch his breath. Just there, it seemed, a strange and brilliant light lay upon the world, and all the objects in the landscape were washed clean and set away in the distance. In the morning sunlight the Valle Grande was dappled with the shadows of clouds and vibrant with rolling winter grass. The clouds were always there, huge, sharply described, and shining in the pure air. But the great feature of the valley was its size. It was almost too great for the eye to hold, strangely beautiful and full of distance. Such vastness makes for illusion, a kind of illusion that comprehends reality, and where it exists there is always wonder and exhilaration.
— N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn
November 13
“They keep us on the north side of the railroad tracks, next to the river and their dump. Where none of them want to live.” [Betonie, the medicine man] laughed. “They don’t understand. We know these hills, and we are comfortable here.” There was something about the way the old man said the word “comfortable.” It had a different meaning—not the comfort of big houses or rich food or even clean streets, but the comfort of belonging with the land, and the peace of being with these hills. But the special meaning the old man had given to the English word was burned away by the glare of the sun on tin cans and broken glass, blinding reflections off the mirrors and chrome of the wrecked cars in the dump below. Tayo felt the old nausea rising up in his stomach, along with a vague feeling that he knew something which he could not remember.
— Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
November 14
I cried very hard, and I thought it might be better if my crying would kill me; then I could be in the outer world where nothing is ever in despair.
And while I was crying, something was coming from the south. It looked like dust far off, but when it came closer, I saw it was a cloud of beautiful butterflies of all colors. They swarmed around me so thick that I could see nothing else.
I walked backwards to the flowering stick again, and the spotted eagle on the pine tree spoke and said: “Behold these! They are your people. They are in great difficulty and you shall help them.” Then I could hear all the butterflies that were swarming over me, and they were all making a pitiful, whimpering noise as though they too were weeping.
— Black Elk & John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks
November 15
And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?
And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there; and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever; And thou hast taken Zion to thine own bosom, from all thy creations, from all eternity to all eternity; and naught but peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?
The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood; … Wherefore, I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made; and mine eye can pierce them also, and among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren. But behold, their sins shall be upon the heads of their fathers; Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?
— Moses 7: 28-33, 36-37 from the Pearl of Great Price, translated by Joseph Smith, Jr.
November 16
Things are swift to fade and become mere matter for tales, and swiftly too complete oblivion covers their every trace. And here I am speaking of those who shone forth with a wonderful brightness; as for all the rest, the moment that they breathed their last, they were ‘out of sight, out of mind’. And what does it amount to, in any case, everlasting remembrance? Sheer vanity and nothing more. What, then, is worthy of our striving? This alone, a mind governed by justice, deeds directed to the common good, words that never lie, and a disposition that welcomes all that happens, as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same kind of origin and spring.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
November 17
All those who are unhappy in the world are so as a result of their desire for their own happiness. All those who are happy in the world are so as a result of their desire for the happiness of others. Without forsaking one’s own self, one cannot avoid suffering, just as without avoiding fire one cannot avoid being burned. Therefore, in order to alleviate my own suffering and to alleviate the suffering of others, I give myself up to others and I accept others as my own self.
— Santideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life
November 18
— Mary Oliver, “Last Days”
November 19
Since the world
has been my tuning fork
I must have struck
a note myself
from time to time
which pays my debt
with honest affection
undivided between
head and spring.
— Carl Rakosi, “Grace Note”
November 20
The art of storytelling — the art of putting one word after another, one line after another, one sentence after another, explaining one thing at a time, without allusions or reservations, calling bread bread and wine wine — is just like the ancient art of weaving, the ancient art of putting one thread after another, one color after another, cleanly, neatly, perseveringly, plainly for all to see. First you see the stem of the rose, then the calyx, then the petals. You can see from the beginning that it is going to be a rose, and for that reason the townsfolk think our products coarse and crude. But have we ever gone to town and tried to sell them? Have we ever asked townspeople to tell their story in our way? No, we have not.
Let everyone, then, have the right to tell his own story in his own way.
— Ignazio Silone, Preface to Fontemara
November 21
Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and all the colors of the dawn and dusk.
— N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain
November 22
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment. And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all. Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof?
Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great? Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth? Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?
Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. … Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are? Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven, When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together?
— Job 38: 1-30, 33-38, from the King James Version of the Bible
November 23
We have only this single virtue: to begin,
each morning, our life—in the face of the earth,
beneath a hushed sky—awaiting an awakening.
Some are amazed that dawn is such hard work;
from making to waking a task is completed.
But we live merely to give with a shudder
to the future work and to wake up the earth once.
And sometimes it wakes. Then returns to our silence.
— from Cesare Pavese’s “Imagination’ End”
November 24
In almost no [nursing home] does anyone sit down with you and try to figure out what living a life really means to you under the circumstances, let alone help you make a home where that life becomes possible.
This is the consequence of a society that faces the final phase of the human life cycle by trying not to think about it. We end up with institutions that address any number of societal goals—from freeing up hospital beds to taking burdens off families’ hands to coping with poverty among the elderly—but never the goal that matters to the people who reside in them: how to make life worth living when we’re weak and frail and can’t fend for ourselves anymore.
— Atul Gawande, Being Mortal
November 25
We’re running out of O2
screaming down the Southwest Freeway in the rain
the nurse-practitioner and me
rocking around in the back of an ambulance
trying to ventilate a preemie with junk for lungs
when we hit
rush hour
Get us the hell out of here
You bet the driver said
and pulled right onto the median strip
with that maniacal glee they get
I was too scared for the kid and drunk with the speed
—the danger didn’t feel like danger at all
it felt like love—to worry about my life
Fuck that
Get us back to Children’s so we can put a chest tube in this kid
And when we got to the unit
the attending physician—Loretta—was there
and the nurses
the residents
they save us
Loretta plants her stethoscope on the kid’s chest
and here comes the tech driving the portable
like it’s a Porsche
Ah Jesus he says
The baby’s so puny he could fit on your dinner plate
X-ray says the tech
and everybody backs up
except for Loretta
so the tech drapes a lead shield over her chest
X-RAY! says the tech
There’s a moment after he cones down the lens
just before he shoots
You hold your breath
You forget
what’s waiting
back at your house
Nobody blinks
poised for that sound
that radiological meep
And Loretta with her scrub top on backwards
so you can’t peep down to her peanutty boobs
Loretta with her half-Chinese, half-Trinidadian
half-smile
Loretta, all right, ambu-baggin the kid
never misses a beat
calm and sharp as a mama-cat who’s just kicked the dog’s butt
now softjaws her kitten out of the ditch
There’s a moment
you can’t even hear the bag
puffing
quick quick quick
Before the tech shoots
for just that second
I quit being scared
I forget to be scared
God
How can people abandon each other?
— Belle Waring, “Twenty-Four-Week Preemie, Change of Shift”
November 26
tough shells—the smooth chocolaty
skin of them—thanks for the boiling water—
itself a miracle and a mystery—
thanks for the seasoned sauce pan
and the old wooden spoon—and all
the neglected instruments in the drawer—
the garlic crusher—the bent paring knife—
the apple slicer that creates six
perfect wedges out of the crisp Haralson—
thanks for the humming radio—thanks
for the program on the radio
about the guy who was a cross-dresser—
but his wife forgave him—and he
ended up almost dying from leukemia—
(and you could tell his wife loved him
entirely—it was in her deliberate voice)—
thanks for the brined turkey—
the size of a big baby—thanks—
for the departed head of the turkey—
the present neck—the giblets
(whatever they are)—wrapped up as
small gifts inside the cavern of the ribs—
thanks—thanks—thanks—for the candles
lit on the table—the dried twigs—
the autumn leaves in the blue Chinese vase—
thanks—for the faces—our faces—in this low light.
— Tim Nolan, “Thanksgiving”
November 27
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is
— W. S. Merwin, “Thanks”
November 28
At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add
–Richard Newman, “Bless Their Hearts”
November 29
Grainier felt sure this dog was got of a wolf, but it never even whimpered in reply when the packs in the distance, some as far away as the Selkirks on the British Columbia side, sang at dusk. The creature needed to be taught its nature, Grainier felt. One evening he got down beside it and howled. The little pup only sat on its rump with an inch of pink tongue jutting stupidly from its closed mouth. “You’re not growling in the direction of your own nature, which is to howl when the others do,” he told the mongrel. He stood up straight himself and howled long and sorrowfully over the gorge, and over the low quiet river he could hardly see across this close to nightfall … Nothing from the pup. But often, thereafter, when Grainier heard the wolves at dusk, he laid his head back and howled for all he was worth, because it did him good. It flushed out something heavy that tended to collect in his heart, and after an evening’s program with his choice of British Columbian wolves he felt warm and buoyant.
— Denis Johnson, Train Dreams
November 30
The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good. I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and flight and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it’s possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us. I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz , a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, even the categories of scientific description. To meet God or Medusa face to face, even if it means risking everything human in myself. I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with a nonhuman world and yet somehow survives still intact, individual, separate.
— Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire