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DAYBREAK
Galway Kinnel
On the tidal mud, just before sunset,
dozens of starfishes
were creeping. It was
as though the mud were a sky
and enormous, imperfect stars
moved across it slowly
as the actual stars cross heaven.
All at once they stopped,
and as if they had simply
increased their receptivity
to gravity they sank down
into the mud; they faded down
into it and lay still; and by the time
pink of sunset broke across them
they were as invisible
as the true stars at daybreak. Here, the appreciation I have for this piece is primarily in the feeling, in its ability to share wonder. I can very much connect with the idea of sitting near the shore for an extended period of time observing the slow, nearly imperceptible meanderings of starfish with the backdrop of a sunset. I think, above all else, this is what makes me appreciate art in all its incarnations: in music, sculpture, painting and prose, as well as poetry. I read or observe, and I feel a link with the artist; I realize that this person feels the same passion for form or substance or composition that I admire each day as I move through the world, and in that moment I feel a kinship, a connection. That is what made me take note of the above poem, after encountering so many lackluster works in this volume, but Kinnel's piece still lacks form in my mind; it would be equally powerful as prose, albeit terse.
Still lacking somewhat in form, in style, as with most of the poems in this collection, but not as much and to this one I will give the benefit of the doubt, particularly as it is translated from Hebrew. Being an enthusiast of reading French and, to some extent, Spanish, I realize how very often the ardor is inescapably lost when bringing words to English; this is through no fault of the translator, it is merely that each tongue possesses a simple beauty in words that is unique unto the language, often independent of the meaning. Perhaps my favorite activity in the world, the one pursuit beyond any other has never failed to give me joy and in memories of which I can remember what happiness feels like, regardless of my current state of mind, is observing nature. The next three authors examine this, but each in a different way. The first is by contemporary Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska. As Milosz points out in his introduction, this poem "opposes the human (i.e. language) to the inanimate world and shows that our understanding of it is illusory." He goes on to say that he personally feels "that she is too scientific and that we are not so separated from things." That may be, though in reading this I thought back to the many times I've rested on a thick bed of moss alongside a clear mountain stream or reclined against a piece of driftwood by the surf of the ocean and pondered how the beauty, the movement, the music of the water continues regardless of my presence. And what's more, she's got some style...
The next, translated from French, shows that while we are often detached we can also be a part. Though stylistically this didn't do much for me at all (again, a translation), it made me think of all the times I've stood in the forest on a moist autumn afternoon or a temperate summer night, examining the tiny amphibian cradled in my palm, in awe.
The final, and also my favorite of the three, concerns the transience of natural events, moments that are inconsequential in the grand scheme of the world, but which hold magic in the heart of the observer. The morning when I saw the cougar leap off the rock wall into the pre-dawn darkness, the night when I watched the meteor ablaze over the forelands, the lynx who did not run but instead stopped to examine me, the first time I witnessed foxfire, all these and more came to mind in reading this.
In my life I have seen a great deal of natural beauty. I have embraced it in my occupation, have made it my life, and in doing so have made it possible to see far more than anyone else I know, save for the others in my line of work. I have saturated my existence in the wonder of the earth, and there exists from time to time a guilty complacency in my actions as a result. A clear summer day dawns over the Fairweather Range of southeastern Alaska, full of the promise of sun, and rather than seek out a flat rock beside the iceberg-laden lake, rather than paddle my canoe down the Tawah to the Lost, rather than stroll among the towering spruce, I sit at home with the knowledge that there will always be another sunny day, and there's a sadness in that. I no longer live in the mountains of my youth. I moved from them quite unexpectedly, having never seen the glory of the flame azaleas in full bloom on Gregory's Bald, a fact I regret still. Will I see that before I die? There is no guarantee. Why I did not learn a lesson from that, I do not know. Though I have a finite amount of time, I have yet to walk to the eastern most edge of Chaix Hills, climb to the top, and peer up the Agassiz Glacier to the base of Mt. St. Elias, despite the fact that I think of it every single time I fly over that area. In the back of my mind, I know that this procrastination will probably result in me never attempting that journey, and there will be no suitable excuse.
Until pulling this international anthology from the shelf, I'd generally restricted myself to the poetry of English, French, and Spanish speaking authors. I have denied myself great things. The next five poems, all by Chinese poets who lived over a millennium ago, are included here to remind me that I must seek out more of their work and perhaps the work of their contemporaries.
On a final note, because the idea of having a dozen poems included here rather than a mere eleven appeals to me, and because this is the first haiku that I've ever really appreciated, and because if I include this haiku I will have documented all the poems of the over two hundred poems in this book that I truly enjoyed and will therefore feel less inclination to purchase this text after returning the book to the library, here is a poem by Issa, who lived from 1763 to 1827:
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