"When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver

 

Cote des Neiges Cemetery, July 2022

When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse   to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox   when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,   I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?   And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility,   and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular,   and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence,   and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth.   When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.   When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.   I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.   I don't want to end up simply having visited this world

The season of October

Let's make October a season unto itself, that's how October felt this year; warm, blue sky, beginning with green leaves, then yellow leaves, and now the leaves have fallen. The transition from late summer to fall is impressive. There are even a few flowers left in the garden; so far, no frost.

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You know what poets need? They need to write a few poems that people like, that people refer to when they think of that poet's work. Poets don't need a lot of poems but they need at least one or two poems that speak to people, that speak to the inner being of people. If poets write and publish a lot of books and poems most of that output will be fairly meaningless, just more dross, if they don't have a few poems that are identified with them as poets. 

One of the worst things for a poet is to be obscure in their work. Mary Oliver isn't obscure in her work and some poets complain that her work lacks depth, but many others love her work and she is one of the most popular poets of the last thirty or more years. You can be obscure and some people will think you are clever and really smart, taking poetry to the next level, but it takes just one person to see that the obscurity in this person's work is meaningless, pretension, and then the whole house of cards will fall. A really good poet can be obscure and with time it will be explained or speculated on and it will be interesting to read about, it might even benefit that person's reputation as a poet; but minor poets, when they are obscure, it might be that they just aren't very good at writing poems, they didn't have anything to say. 

Here we are, walking on the hidden trail, just a few days ago. It's one of the most beautiful Octobers, it's the new season of October and it was a great day for a walk. 

It's Halloween, it's All Hallow's Eve

This home owner decorates their home for Halloween and the children love it, on their way home from school you might see ten or more children walking among these ghoulish characters. It's Halloween and the children are happy. On the corner of Chester and Montclair:

"The night is darkening round me" by Emily Bronte

This is the Sulpician Seminary, the College de Montreal, 
on Sherbrooke Street West near Fort and Towers, near Atwater;
that is one of the towers. Taken in 2013.

              

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me,

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow;

The storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

This little sparrow

This little sparrow had a great time jumping around the rim of the bird bath, then he'd stop and have a drink of water. He was a happy little sparrow, now he's moved on, hanging out at someone else's bird bath or on some maple tree branch near here.

Look at the little sparrow and don't worry about anything!

Last days of October

This has been a spectacular October, the autumn leaves have never been more colourful, tree lined streets with yellow or red leaves, and it's been mild, +24 C earlier this week. Who could ask for better than that? And birds love this mild weather. I guess they were mostly young robins hanging out at the bird bath, jostling each other for a position, acting like adolescents, that were here a few weeks ago. The younger robins seem to have migrated, but the older robins are still here and not as eager to leave since the weather has been so good. Robins, blue jays, cardinals, and other birds, visiting the bird bath; and one has a feeling of affection for them and happy I could do something for the birds, provide this bird bath and keep it filled with clean water. They give me more than they take, a bird bath and some clean water. You get the idea of the back yard and the birds from these photographs, taken from our dining room window.

This is a second bird bath, it's the pedestal of an old bird bath with
a plastic plate glued onto it to hold about a two inch deep amount of water. 
Not very elegant but it works... 

Where poems come from

 

For the most part, poets don't choose what they write about; a poem is given to us, it comes from deep within the psyche. Of course, everything takes a lot of work; poets need a foundation on which to write their poems, this includes reading, education, and years of commitment to poetry and writing. As all poets know, when a poem is given to them it has to be listened to; some poets get up in the middle of the night to write down a poem before it is forgotten. The most famous example of losing the thread of a poem when the writing is interrupted is Coleridge's anecdote of the "visitor from Porlock"; because of this interruption Coleridge felt that one of his most famous poems, "Kubla Khan", was never fully completed.

What a poet writes is an expression of deeply felt psychic issues. The soul deciphers what it perceives and begins writing (or dictating) a poem. Over time the writing will change, but what doesn't change is the need to write poems. Poetry is one of the places in life where we see the surrender of conscious choice; it is a demand on us by the soul, a demand that we listen, a demand to write our poems as they are given to us, and a demand to be faithful to writing poetry over a lifetime.

We poets were once a tribe, as Margaret Laurence described the community of writers back in the 1960s; but the tribe has broken up, it has dispersed, it has been fragmented. Nevertheless, what we write about doesn't really change; perennial themes supersede what is newly fashionable or entertaining. What has importance is our creativity and depth of perception, our visceral need to write poetry, and our knowledge that after everything else has disappeared from life, it is poetry that will still be there. This is my experience.