Poetry, And Life When Words Fail

Ireland is a civilized place. You can tell because the Irish consume poetry like no other nation, and they even have poetry on the radio. And it’s no surprise. Blown about by the wild winds at the Giant’s Causeway, I said to Michael (my friend and host): “I can see why the Irish are so poetic. Everything about the land here just calls out to the human heart.”

It’s somehow natural to want to capture the seething waves and roiling wind, or dark hedgerows and ancient stones. More difficult to celebrate uncontrolled growth at the edge of cities, and the march of ridiculous oversized houses into the countryside. No romance or history there--we’d rather bemoan the loss of the picturesque rural modesty. Thomas Kinsella says,

Constantly the heart releases
Wild geese to the past
Look, how they circle poignant places.

The geese were wailing ferociously when I went to visit old haunts in Galway and Cavan; I was shocked to see how things had changed in just six years. Casting about for a way to frame this inexorable ugliness, I sought solace in the verse of the Diamond Sutra:

A star at dawn; a bubble in a stream; a flash of lightning in a summer cloud; a flickering lamp; a phantom, and a dream—so is this fleeting world.

Oh lovely, lonely fleeting world…. Things we like just aren’t going to stay that way! To see that there is a choice, to embrace the evident dharma of this life, to regard the world with a broad view—this brings us to a silent (if rueful) wonder. What use now is grief for the past—six years ago when the pubs were full, the city outskirts uncluttered—six years ago when things were still the way they’d been for years? “Gaté, gaté,” as Yuko used to say.

Fleeting too are a host of precious new connections and memories. Wherever I went, there was the most incredible earnest rapport with other people. To talk about one’s spiritual life is a great healing thing…which we don’t get to do nearly enough. This brief little trip was full of such connectio, both with new Zen friends, and with family: Maeve and Tommy, and Maugie (eighty years old, we think—she’s not saying). What incredible great hearts they have. I went to visit Maugie, and two-and-a-half hours later, we came up for air—exhausted but with idea of the time.

Winning the prize for Most Likely to be Circled by the Geese of the Heart: meeting Taigen. Every once in a while, I “recognize” someone. It’s humbling to be thrown into unknown territory, but I’m grateful beyond words for the chance to know myself better through him. Good, too, to have time and space to process that which is beyond understanding. How nice it would have been to be articulate and capable; instead, I can hardly remember anything I’ve said to him. There’s just this great heart, warm, universal and true. And, having been knocked for a loop, renewed humility and wonder.

It’s the kind of thing that you could write poetry about. But no words to my diary. I drew pictures instead—not my usual style at all. But language would just... fail, for great swaths of time. All I had to report would be: “I’m right here/ and I’m really lost.” Later, out of sleep, words came, sounding like some Zen death poem:

In grief, obliterated by grief
In joy, obliterated by joy
Leaving here, only gratitude remains.

Those satisfy me. I have no idea if they’d move another human being’s heart, and I can’t say why they move mine.

Do we actually know where poetry comes from? When you consider the abundance of bad (often teenage) poetry in the world, it’s evident that humans deeply want to express some truth, to put what affects them into words. But why? Why should we be made whole by words that capture our experience?

I have no idea; I’ve just been keeping a journal since I was eleven years old.

Seeking direction in the midst of destabilization, here are a few simple resolutions to myself. And gratitude, gratitude, gratitude—losing what I thought I was, and feeling deeper than words can go:

I must live the life of Shugetsu.
I agree to be transformed in the service of the world.
I will feel deeply, without design, having faith in the life that brought me to this day.