i do not know who sid gershgoren is
somehow a little booklet
(if that's not too redundant)
appeared on my desk
it is 3" x 2"
a graphic figure of an elephant
marks the front cover
the publisher
is
red dragonfly press
the poem was published in 2000
i am the only person in the whole world
typing this poem out
and giving it any sort of recognition today
i should hope sid gershgoren
appreciates the effort
i am attracted to the poem for its
complete lack of capital letters
and punctuation
one among many
rocks tight fists for miles
lie at the bottom of the stream
passed over by clouds and wandering
herons
smoothed heads hermetic as monks
they lie there in the rounded voices
cold and self-contained
all surface turned completely inward
rounded
rounded forever by the endless water
empty of selfhood
all pity washed from them
they lie together in silent herds
held by the water's perfect atmosphere
who once had fallen through its slower
gravity
swift fish glide soundlessly over them
they have no thought of falling
as these have fallen
and suddenly a hand reaches down
two or three feet
to the bottom
breaking the membrane of the sky
the thinnest membrane
breaking the sky into ambiguous
divisions
sending it
on long rippling voyages
until the sky composes itself again
inside the water
this is the opened hand completely
opened
that is not itself cold
that reaches
into an unknown of its own inventing
and grasps something
cold and perfect
naked out of a place under this water
reaches
into a beyond that is not itself
complete
we the others are also uncompleted
reaching
into a world that is not complete
all reach into a beyond
that cannot be understood
inside itself
not complete not understood by itself
but only by all the others together
reaching
it draws this stone slowly upward
one among many
one among multitudes
these fists that lie there
huge and
magnified in the current
or perhaps draws it
downward
the open hand out of the sky's reflec-
tion
still inside the skin of the water's
tenuous
boundaries
and out of the water
beyond some barrier not completely
defined
and holds it dripping
with something heavy heavier than
itself
something fundamentally condensed
it is the cold and the clearness
it wanted to hold in its grasp
through the water's magnification
not only the stone but the opened
hand
which is its first and deepest integration
an essence a taste an odor
a tangible impermanence
that inhabited its merging
something
with another world inside it
or a world by its side merging
like a sudden binocular vision in dogs
single vision from a multiple source
as from this stream only this one
the single stone
is drawn out
from a distinct herd
of condensed particularity
which is the water's condensation of its
suspended thoughts
made clear and settled
yet only to return once more to water
one among many uncountable
one from history a condensation of
time
grouped like a glass of shimmering
hardened
thoughts
that particulars
darkened into an accumulated mystery
out of time that stretches its tenuous
membrane
from the mineral waters at birth
condensed
condensing toward its final
accomodation
with everything
they remain there
magnified by water
covered pieces of a continent
and only slowly worn down
by the wave's diamond
by the water's slow caress
so large and by this hand
suddenly pulled from its kind
its herd of condensation
and thus above this water
suddenly diminished
one is given in thought
to the famous philosophical phrase of heraclitus
'you cannot step into the same stream twice'
which i have heard
was amended in his later writing to
'you cannot step into the same stream once'
the gist here as i read it
is the subtle feeling of
disappointment
at removing a stone from the streambed
where it held its beauty in common
with all the other stones
but alone now in a state
of drying and dripping above the water
in the hand of the one who extracted it
the stone is somehow even less
than when it simply rested in
the midst of its brother stones
in the choirstall of the ever flowing stream (jh)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
i've had to read this long poem
several times
still not sure i really understand it
certainly the ending gives the impression
which you articulate so well
that the individual
removed from the context of his/her/its
community
is some how less
and the beginning of the poem
does place the image of
monastic community
in the reader's mind
(i wonder what the author's
connection to monasticism is, if any?)
i was, of course, struck by the
geological aspects of the poem--
the rounding of the stones by water,
"covered pieces of a continent
and only slowly worn down
by the wave's diamond"
(diamond being the hardest mineral,
and thus used in rock saws
to cut other rocks)
and i became engrossed in
his description of the underwater world
where stones sink under a "slower gravity"
and fish defy gravity altogether
in my mind he is peering into
the clear blue waters
of havasu creek
i'm wondering what to make
of the middle section of the poem--
the hand reaching into "an unknown
of its own inventing"
and reaching "into a beyond that is
not itself complete"?
does "we the others" refer to the
other stones, the ones not grasped
by the hand that intrudes
from another world?
"all reach into a beyond that
cannot be understood inside itself"
is the "beyond" the world outside the stream?
is it the world outside of
our tangible existence?
do we reach out beyond the world
in which we exist
yet find that even the "beyond"
into which we reach is also incomplete?
"not complete not understood by itself
but only by all the others together
reaching"
is the poet here saying that
not only are the stones incomplete
in and of themselves,
when separated from their "silent herd"
but also that the "beyond"
toward which they are all reaching
is only understood
or comes closest to being understood
in the act of the community
reaching into the beyond together?
"it is the cold, the clearness
it wanted to hold in its grasp"
there is something here
about the ungraspable nature
of the things that attract us
we can grab a stone out of the stream
but it is the stream itself
that attracts us
and we cannot hold onto
the water itself
or its cold clearness
(though i suppose we could
swim in it)
and what is he saying
about the merging of two worlds?
on my first reading
i was thinking of the one stone
that was lifted above the rest
as Jesus, the man in whom
the human and divine worlds
were joined
but i'm not sure that fits
with the rest of the poem
"a distinct herd
of condensed particularity
which is the water's condensation of its
suspended thoughts
made clear and settled
yet only to return once more to water"
the poet uses the word "condensation"
a lot in this poem
i wonder what he is getting at?
the stones are the particulates
that have settled out of the stream,
but what do they represent?
do the stones represent
the collective thoughts of humankind?
the ideas that have become
clear and distinct
and have settled to the bottom
of the stream of human life
to remain in perpetuity
even as the stream flows on?
do those stones represent
the things that we have figured out,
the parts that we understand
of this life and this world
that can never be understood completely?
and when one of those thoughts
is taken out of context
it becomes meaningless?
maybe i'm getting off track here
i liked your interpretation
I was led here by a comment in my blog by Sally at An Earthling Wonders (who posted the previous comment here), asking about Sid Gershgoren.
(In my blog I'd reviewed a poetry anthology that includes a few poems by Gershgoren. Sally Googled him and found my blogpost.)
In the comment box in my blog I posted some information about Gershgoren (what little bit I know), here (and scroll down the page to the bottom of the comments), in case you care to take a look.
Red Dragonfly Press has also published other work by Sid Gershgoren. (They've also, as it happens, published two of my books of poems, and a third forthcoming.)
As far as interpreting the poem you've reprinted here, although I've been writing poems for a long time I don't generally find myself able to articulate what poems mean or are about, other than in very general terms. This is particularly the case with a poem such as this one, which (as I read and hear it) takes place mostly in an interior landscape (even if ostensibly it's about lifting a stone out of the water).
I tend to agree with the notion (which I've read and heard expressed various times and places over the years) that one of the essential defining qualities of poetry is that it can't be paraphrased.
Enjoyed coming by and reading.
lyle daggett
i visited your blogpage not long ago with the same curiosity as sally
i am a fan of thomas mcgrath
i set one of his pomes to music
i paraphrase only as a way of resisting going very deep into understanding this particular pome
i take it quite literally
any reflection on the part of the poem or poet for that matter as to a greater meaning or metaphorical significance is beyond me
it's about someone reaching into a stream and extracting a stone
and that's all
but i like the pome a lot
thanks
j
Post a Comment