One of the culminative images of the epochal, if not epic, poem
Canto 74 is that of Wadsworth saving the Charter Oak of Massachusetts.
A tree. A tree representing great counsel. A tree which has its
manifestation in the mind of man in _constitution_. Constitution
that is an embodiment of _filial affection_ and _fraternity_ that is
the central aspect of American democracy, and hence, of the hope
for a human future wherein all men can live both individually and
communally -- not by conscript, or even volition, but by nature itself.
This charter oak is the instinctive, as well as willful, destiny of
humanity. Process is not only history but cultural evolution and it
is always tempting, in the way of Marxists and ideologues of any stripe,
having intimated a destiny -- to err and maim good sense in attempting
a short stroke on the ultimate.
A tree that might perhaps represent a successful fusion of chthonic,
hetaerism with Confucian order. A missed opportunity and now an imposs-
ibility that fusion -- for the Goddess has lost interest and is bent
on torture. Revenge. The green fuse that turned mean.
In the course of history, there is a will/desire to succeed in the
promulgation of paradaiscal light, never surrender and a "diffidence
that faltered," a Soncino and a James Otis. A time to speak (loquendi)
and a time for silence (tacendi) along the path of the _process_. There
is a sticking to one's guns and a surrender. Endurance of true values
in the spirit of _filial affection_ for _humaneness_.
To live at a juncture of time where, in one's view, humanity
turns away from its true values is indeed a painful part of
_process_. The dark ages are just ahead, and imagine that!
What are these values the poet suspects (as much as mentions)?
Are they destruction? Genocide? His own stupid, though heartfelt,
speech? No, shame at having "overshot the mark," having failed
to embody those values which in his view are inalterable in any case.
The fall of Mussolini's republic in that sense is a metaphorical dream
deferr'd (hehe)..what was the dream and the horrible error with
which caused the poet to fail to see humanity "build the city of Dioce,
whose terraces are the colour of stars," and whose streets are lined with
the poems of the palace of the mind? What is the role of the poet in
a paradaisacal society, after all? How could one, if at all, transmit
true values via poetry? And what is the difference between such
theoretical, mythological hopes and the mortal boundaries of a given
lifetime and its conjunction with time/space?
Acceptance, "rain also is of the process." Humility. Forbearance.
In the circumstance of the poem, the poet has been silenced
and humiliated but refuses to surrender the charter oak (74/447)
saved by Wadsworth. A poet must bring back what spoils he can for
the _truth_ as seen, and leave the hopes to the collective fate.
Much as Ezra's Aunt Frank (74/437) of the "Baedeker generation"
-- who took the young P. to Cologne Cathedral, Al Hambra, and
the other Baedeker sites where she pillaged and accumulated
experience (Kenner 321), the adult poet "shored .. fragments"
against time.
Let the chips fall where they might:
To study with the white wings of time passing
is not that our delight
to have friends come from far countries
is not that our pleasure
nor to care that we are untrupeted?
filial, fraternal affection is the root of humaneness
the root of the process
74/437
To be among friends, to spout opinions, to get back to the
roots. These are the true values. To force things with artistic
coup d'etat is the crime, for no work of art stopped the world
from turning, nor should it. Canto 74 is thus a poem of tragic
reminescence. Which fork in the path leads to internment in a
DTC, the "a.h. of the Army"? When exactly did the poet rise
"in Churchillian grandeur" (one of the poem's lapses) from the
circle of friends discussing the role of the poet in society to
a solipsistic attempt to take the castle by storm (are storms
too of the process? errors? crimes of the mind? anger? recalcitrance?
pig-headedness? (phlethegggjkj)? Apparently.
How does one so kind become "a man on whom the sun has gone down"?
It is a riddle for which there is no answer:
Ouan Jin spoke and thereby created the named
thereby making clutter
the bane of men moving
and so his mouth was removed
as you will find it removed in his pictures
in principio verbum
paraclete or the verbum perfectum: sinceritas
from the death cells in sigh of Mt Taishan@Pisa
74/427
Verbal imperfection. The failure of words, theories, opinions,
to change one wit about a man, to sway him from a mad course.
"in the stillness outlasting all wars," a man, like Odysseus
in a faceoff with Poseidon, MUST know he is not a god but merely
a blade of grass in the universe of omnivorous creation, not a god
at all but merely an "Actaeon" -- whose precious beauties are
food for the ravenous hounds of the forests.
The limits of knowledge are reached easily by a man: "..with one
day's reading a man may have the key in his hands." But knowledge
and understanding are not the same as truth -- and the former resides
in words alone, the latter in experience and experience has a great cost:
a man's life. It is the nature of words to be recursive in an
endless loop. The "light" of consciousness is but a flashlight on
darkness. The lute of Gassir does not play or make a sound until
blood falls on it (Frobenius via Kenner, 508).
The image of human sacrifice, both literal and figurative. A man
must be saved from himself, and from darkness, by compassion and
filial piety that arises from that compassion, much as a tree must
be saved by and _for_ great counsel. Knowing that the "wind" and
"process" of the universe are one and the same, so stable they can
be named "Zephyrus/Apeliota" will not save one from terror as they
rip the coasts of the soul, and set the sails off to the next strange
and unwanted consequence.
4 giants at the 4 corners
three young men at the door
and they digged a ditch round about me
lest the damp gnaw thru my bones
to redeem Zion with justice
sd/ Isaiah. Not out on interest said David rex
the prime s.o.b.
74/429
The poet recapitulates his dim dream, holding fast to the
primary error that has him face to face with the guards of
his personal hell. The poem does not free him, the fantasy
is multi-faceted and ingrained. He is deluded to think that
the king even knows he is a prisoner. For these crimes, a "day"
is "as a thousand years." The hamadryas appear.
Memory. Memory of other poets, details of a lifetime so chock
full of interesting anecdotes, any single one of which wd. make
one rich and immortal in libraries.
Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven
these the companions:
Fordie that wrote of giants
and William who dreamed of nobility
and Jim the comedian singing:
"Blarrney castle me darlin'
you're nothing now but a StOWne"
74/433
Light. The light of memory. Dove sta memoria. The light of memory
that casts out the darkness that turns minor epithets, characterizations
really -- "wop" "s.o.b." -- that of one brother to another, into
major hatreds and "stupid suburban prejudices" into a holocaust.
The four giants at the four corners of the DTC -- mitigated, transformd
into "four gates mid-wall Hooo Fasa
and a terrace the colour of stars
pale as the dawn cloud, la luna
thin as Demeter's hair
Hooo Fasa, and in a dance the renewal
with two larks in contrappunto
at sunset
ch'intenerisce
74/430-31
The Nekuia, "femina, femina," the Earth that would not be
dragged into paradise "by the hair" but instead delivers one
unto the freezing cold of penultimate realization. You are NOT
the one, she says, and does not reveal her reasons.
The sun dragging her stars
a man on whom the sun has gone down
and the wind came as hamadryas under the sun-beat
74/431
The poet is defeated even in memory, conversations with the former
Dryad from whom there was a parting -- perhaps over the very reason
he has been abandoned and delivered into disaster. It is not Circe
who is in a mire, a swamp. It is not the pater Helios who gives
solace -- it is friends, lovers, alone. There is no other.
The poet persists in advancing his pet theories throughout the
poem. It is only the silence of the latter years that keeps them
somewhat in abeyance -- the Goddess does not reveal the source of
her displeasure with him, though he knows full well, he knows not
how to abandon them. He cannot, indeed never will, make it cohere
cause he's bloody wrong in his means though right in his ends. A damn
torturous thing that would hush lesser men, and unfortunately for
Pound, make them repent. The true values, the epithets of a brother,
the irritating instances -- are of the same nature and hence inextricable.
I surrender neither the empire nor the temples
plural
nor the constitution nor yet the city of Dioce
each one in his god's name
as by Terracina rose from the sea Zephyr behind her
as had Anchises
till the shrine be again white with marble
till the stone eyes look again seaward
The wind is part of the process
The rain is part of the process
74/434-35
more later......
J.