Tag marriage

william james: a lyrical alignment

José Angel Araguz 3 Comments

So, earlier this week, THIS happened:

* bling bling *

* bling bling *

I’m delighted to share the news of my having become married. 🙂

Those of you who’ve followed me on the Influence for a while may have caught me speaking about a previous divorce. I’m happy to have been keeping up this blog long enough to show that life has turns and revolutions, and that life moves on.

In keeping with this spirit of movement and (new) connections, enjoy the lyrical alignment below, in which William James connects more than a few dots for us. James’ knack for being at turns psychologist, philosopher, and mystic (usually all in one paragraph) always impresses me.

***

The Charm – William James

a lyrical alignment from The Will to Believe

Who does not feel the charm of thinking
that the moon and the apple are,
as far as their relation to
the earth goes, identical;
of knowing respiration and
combustion to be one; of
understanding that the balloon
rises by the same law whereby
the stone sinks; of feeling that
the warmth in one’s palm when one
rubs one’s sleeve is identical
with the motion which the friction
checks; of recognizing the difference
between beast and fish to be
only a higher degree of that
between human father and son;
of believing our strength when we
climb the mountain or fell the tree
to be no other than the strength
of the sun’s rays which made the corn grow
out of which we got our morning meal?

***

Happy charming!

Jose

* Jack Gilbert, unfortunate cats, & the friday influence

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

Married – Jack Gilbert

I came back from the funeral and crawled
around the apartment, crying hard,
searching for my wife’s hair.
For two months got them from the drain,
from the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator,
and off the clothes in the closet.
But after other Japanese women came,
there was no way to be sure which were
hers, and I stopped. A year later,
repotting Michiko’s avocado, I find
a long black hair tangled in the dirt.

***

For today’s friday influence I present the above poem by Taurus poet Jack Gilbert.

The marvel of this poem is how it has no outright metaphor or simile but rather builds a metaphor out of the details of the life lived, the idea of being ‘married’ made up of peopletangledin the dirt.

To give you an idea of the metaphor-making mind of Jack Gilbert: in a workshop, he spoke once of how workshopping a poem can be like dropping a dead cat on the table.  You can say whatever you want of it, it’s still a dead cat.  You want a live cat.  Damn it.

(the ‘damn it’ is, admittedly, my own)

***

On the road at the moment.  The reading went great.  Mas later.

Happy tangling,

J