Jar of Octopus

Dean Young’s latest collection of poems was published in April of this year, just days after he received a life-saving heart transplant. He currently holds the William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas-Austin, and his 2005 collection Elegy on Toy Piano was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Fall Higher is the poet’s latest collection. Critics like to describe Young as a poet influenced by the New York School, a writer combining surrealism and experimentation. The poem below, “Changing Genres” is from Fall Higher. My particular attraction to the poem is its juxtaposition of love, the brief haiku form of seventeen syllables and thousand page novels in the vein of Dostoyevsky.

CHANGING GENRES

I was satisfied with haiku until I met you,
jar of octopus, cuckoo’s cry, 5-7-5,
but now I want a Russian novel,
a 50-page description of you sleeping,
another 75 of what you think staring out
a window. I don’t care about the plot
although I suppose there will have to be one,
the usual separation of the lovers, turbulent
seas, danger of decommission in spite
of constant war, time in gulps and glitches
passing, squibs of threnody, a fallen nest,
speckled eggs somehow uncrushed, the sled
outracing the wolves on the steppes, the huge
glittering ball where all that matters
is a kiss at the end of a dark hall.
At dawn the officers ride back to the garrison,
one without a glove, the entire last chapter
about a necklace that couldn’t be worn
inherited by a great-niece
along with the love letters bound in silk.

A Wide-Eyed Grip

Walking home in a drizzle, my shirt turns dark wet, sticking to chest and arms, the coolness of wet cotton a relief from the late June humid mugginess. Unconcerned and enjoying a rainy season twilight walk, I almost stroll with thoughts wandering back to a few student journals from the afternoon. Ten or twelve journals, most of them well done. One young man writes well, always including descriptions of his beetles, butterflies, fish and other specimens, and always laced with sketches of flowers and plants and ladybugs. Remembering the line about his biology teacher, I smile… ‘I caught an insect and gave it to Mr Ishii who is my teacher of creatures.’

What I learn about the students from the journals is forever engaging. No dark secrets, but a fair number reach beyond the mundane to share their thoughts, worries, fears and joys. There too, are the inserts like ‘I’m tired,’ or ‘I’m so sleepy.’ But their study load is heavy and they are pushed hard, challenged constantly. Few write about times of simple relaxation. Kamioka-kun is a big surprise and his journal a delightful record of many interests. He keeps seven catfish at home, each with a name. Writing of his garden he expressed heartbreak over the recent death of a flower, a freesia. If he writes the truth—and I believe him—he held a funeral for the freesia. Arata’s journal is a mix of words and drawings and he likes to call himself a bad boy, but it is clearly a pose. The journal is exceptional, each entry either amusing or appealing. A skateboard freak, he also writes music, performs in a rock band and paints his fingernails black.

I reach Kugayama wet-through and decide to stop in Summit Store, a convenient shelter from the rain. After a few minutes and little in my basket I leave the store dissatisfied, irritated by the several tape players set up around the store shouting out the day’s specials, and blaring TV quiz show music.

Only a few minutes from home and the rain still falling, I stop to look at the Kanda River’s swollen rush through its narrow channel. Both ducks and giant golden carp are hidden away somewhere safe from the churn and tumble of water. At one spot in the torrent an upended plastic milk crate is snagged by something under the water, only a raised side and corner of yellow plastic rising above the tide of water. Perched on that yellow corner an oily black rat, wide-eyed and resolute holds a perilous grip on the crate’s edge.

The Kanda River in a quieter moment

Take a Message, Siri

Excitement running high on Saturday. Funny how a small gadget that fits in the palm of the hand has the juice to send a happy buzz whizzing up the arm and down through the toes. Until very recently there was a most uncommon man who was inarguably the best at generating this kind of excitement all around the world. The death of Steve Jobs saddened millions of people, and no one would wish to make light of his passing, but talk about leaving with a bang…Nine days later Apple releases the incredible iPhone 4S, sending the company stock soaring even higher and fans in seven countries swarming to buy one. You gotta think he’s looking down with a pleased smile.

So what about that iPhone 4S, the one that talks to you, works anywhere in the world, takes 8 megapixel photographs, syncs your mail, photos, music, calendars, contacts and bookmarks wirelessly with desktop, laptop and iPad? For about five years I’ve used an iPhone, an old Japanese iPhone 2, which for the last eighteen months has been unable to make calls, but has continued to send and receive email, run all the apps unrelated to calling and take excellent 3 megapixel photographs. Had my ups and downs with it, mostly when I was using it as a telephone and never quite felt the jolt of excitement experienced with other Apple products. That old phone, the one that took the photograph below is a clunky old Ford Pinto with rust spots compared to the iPhone 4S.

It’s no secret that for the past six months telephone trouble has been an almost daily headache with the unsmart, flip-top Sanyo clunker I’ve been carrying. The hardware, the chip, the magic, whatever was or wasn’t inside its dull case made it a semi-dependable device at best. Basic telephone calls have been an ongoing challenge with this giveaway phone from Sprint. With all that, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that on Thursday I began thinking about an iPhone 4S. Long lines, people camping out in front of Apple Stores, reservations required, delivery promises; I figured that the day before its release was much like going to the party way late. Still, I drove over to Best Buy at noon on Thursday, made a reservation and paid a $50 deposit. The store rep said that I would be notified by email later in the day stating whether I could have the phone on Friday, or at most no later than the end of the month. It all depended on how many Sprint iPhones they would get late Thursday, and how many people were ahead of me. I figured the end of the month would be the earliest.

At 2:00 on Friday I got a call saying my Sprint iPhone 4S was ready for pick up.

Got the phone, along with a free invisibleSHIELD™ and a free set of earphones for hands-free talking, and by 3:00 was walking out of Best Buy telling the iPhone to call B. Oh, yeah, it follows spoken orders! Something called Siri. The worst part about the day was getting home with the new iPhone and short of time, having to put it in my pocket and join some friends for dinner. With every bite the thought uppermost in my mind was getting back home to snuggle up with the new phone and learn its magical secrets.

The photo above was taken with the old iPhone and the one below with the new iPhone 4S. Almost embarrassed to admit it, but the new phone has me doing something I’ve never done before—been sending text messages to friends, typing out stuff like ‘4S-2G2BT’—iPhone 4S, too good to be true.

Grown-Up Conversation

A busy Friday and one keeping me away from home until late in the day. This is Octoberfest, a biker’s weekend in my part of the world, and the roads in a hundred mile radius are echoing with the roar of Harley Davidson motorcycles, and police passing out traffic violations as though they were raffle tickets for the big prize. Don’t be mislead to think it's a time of Hell’s Angels gone wild, because for the most part the huge crowd of visiting bikers are always polite, friendly and cooperative. Heard from someone that half of them are doctors and lawyers from out of state enjoying a long weekend of indulging their hobby.

Trouble free or not, a day of driving in and out of hundreds of motorcycles can be tiring, and the thought of coming home and closing my windows and doors to the celebrations was number one on my mind. For much of the day my thoughts kept returning off and on to a poem I read on The Writer’s Almanac earlier in the week, one by poet Charles Douthat. Difficult name, but correctly pronounced as Dow-set.

He is the author of a recent collection of poems titled Blue for Oceans, which is his debut collection. A native Californian, he graduated from Stanford University, and for the last thirty years has lived in Connecticut where he practices law. Poetry for Mr Douthat began as a diversion during a long mid-life illness. His work has been published in several magazines and journals and on several occasions featured on The Writer's Almanac. Blue for Oceans received the 2011 L.L.Winship/PEN New England Poetry Award for the best book of poetry by a New England author.

In one interview the poet said, “A poem is not a poem until it surprises me.” I had a good idea of his meaning when I read the poem below and discovered the surprise of the final line. Perhaps the writer’s surprise and my own surprise fail to converge, but I certainly understand what he means in suggesting that a poem should always contain a surprise. “Mrs. Miller” is taken from Blue for Oceans, and a link to booksellers offering the book is not included here because it is a hard one to lay hands on. Amazon offers a paperback copy for $200.00, but that seems a little steep.

MRS. MILLER

And to the south lived dear old Mrs. Miller,
the first next door neighbor I really knew.
A doctor’s widow. White-streaked, yellow hair.
With a nervous New York way of talking
though she’d lived out West for twenty years.

A grown daughter—Dorothy—lived with her,
worked somewhere, drove a red sports car.
Fruit trees grew behind their gabled house
and a crunching path of white crushed stone
ended at a Japanese-style fishpond.

I was tall enough then to climb the bamboo fence
and pull oranges from the tree that overhung
their pond. What fruit I couldn’t reach, fell.
In January, you’d see lazy, blurred goldfish
tailing beneath navels floating on the pond.

Saturdays, I’d wash Mrs. Miller’s Buick
with a bucket, soap and sponge. The fifteen cents
she paid was good money in ’61. Later, on the lanai,
she’d pour my coke, wave away her cigarette smoke,
and engage me in grown-up conversation.

“Since nothing ever goes according to plan,” she’d say,
“You’d think we’d figure out the plan.”
I was at most eleven. She was a drunk, I suppose.
Confused, but open-hearted. Lonely, of course.
The first person like me I’d known.

The painting included here is one of Douthat’s own. In addition to writing poetry and practicing law, he also paints. The cover of Blue for Oceans shows a detail of John Constable’s 1827 painting Seascape Study with Rain Cloud, a work similar in style to Douthat’s.

The Stork Bit Mother

A lot of books around here, and with a good allowance of free time, the hours frequently lead to unexpected places. From a nudge in the direction of birds I wound up Thursday in a book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. Going from large birds to storks to myth, the dots eventually connected with the well-known author of fairy tales, and a story about storks.

“Yes,” their mother agreed…“I know the pond where all the little human babies lie until the storks come to take them to their parents. The pretty little babies lie in that pond, dreaming more sweetly than they ever dream afterwards. All parents want a little baby, and every child wants a little sister or brother. Now, we’ll go to that pond and bring a little baby sister or brother for each of the children who didn’t sing that wicked song or make fun of us. But those that did won’t get any.” —from Andersen’s 1838 tale “The Stork”

Can’t say that the notion of storks delivering babies was ever talked about in my family, and though it was a common enough idea among most in the early years of my own childhood, it’s doubtful that it ever got past the status of pure fairy tale. And though it was Hans Christian Andersen who wrote the story that did most to spread the tale of storks delivering babies, there is much about the large birds that fits very nicely into the legend, and biology as well as behavior fit very well with myth to support the old story.

The large birds build their nests in trees for the most part, but many years ago chimneys were a favorite alternative site for the stork’s nest, and in places like Germany, Poland and Scandinavia they were even encouraged, or lured to build a nest in a family’s chimney. This led to the thought that the stork can easily deliver a baby down the chimney chute, providing a convenient explanation for where babies came from. It also helped that they are migratory birds and therefore able to deliver babies from a faraway land. To explain mother’s bed rest following the baby’s arrival, children were told that before departing the house, the stork bit mother’s leg.

The stork’s great size, serial monogamy and faithfulness to one nesting site have also contributed to the bird’s place in myth and culture. People in earlier times believed the stork is faithful to one mate throughout its thirty-five year life span, but modern science has shown that to be only partially true. They do take more than one mate and they do not always return to the same nest. But they are good parents and care for their young even after the fledglings are able to fly. In biblical Hebrew, the word for stork is the equivalent of “kind mother,” and thus the bird became a symbol of parental care. Believing that the young storks took care of their elderly parents, and taking it as an example, the Romans even passed legislation called ‘Stork’s Law’ obligating children to care for their aged parents.

Book Bag

Books are piling up again and the problem of where to put them doesn’t get any easier. Maybe getting rid of some plates and bowls and stacking books in their place would work. One solution would be to change my habits and buy the desired books in either Kindle or iPad format, but that’s not going to happen. Too much pleasure in the feel and smell of a new book in the hand. Suppose I’ll just have to find ways to create new stacks that don’t impede movement around the house. The best idea yet is from my friend R who wants a company called Piney Woods put up a prefab ‘book’ cottage across the driveway and solve both our problems.

Over the past two weeks three or four bundles of books have arrived at the door, each bundle providing a few gratifying hours of reading. Three of the books I read front to back right away, and others I placed around the house to be picked up at random times to browse a page or chapter. Likely one or another book will eventually get a review of sorts later on, but for now the intention is only to introduce a few titles and relevant points. Seven books on the list and here they are…

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller (2011)

Last month I read the earlier work, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and was bowled over by the author’s style and her fascinating stories of growing up in Africa. Fuller’s latest book tells a story that is much about her mother—a riveting character—and how she came to live in Africa. Again, the author captures the reader with a wealth of stories impossible anywhere else. This one I have read only a few chapters of, and at this point can’t say much about. The strength of this book is Fuller’s ability to make characters so real you feel them sitting next to you.

Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller (2004)

Perhaps some translation is necessary here: ‘Scribbling’ is African slang for ‘killing.’ The book’s extended title includes …Travels with an African Soldier and that is an accurate description of what this book is about. Fuller returns to Zambia to spend some time with her parents, and during that time meets an African man living on a banana farm nearby. K is a former soldier who fought in several of Africa’s wars of independence, but is finally living the life of a farmer in Zambia. This one too is still in the reading stage, leaving me unable to say more. The unfamiliar stories of life in Africa amaze from the first paragraph of page one. Crocodiles, mud, rain, snakes, drought, insects, stultifying heat…welcome to the African bush.

The Affair by Lee Child (2011)

Such a hardcore fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, I have read each of the fifteen books the week of their release. Number sixteen is The Affair and this one too came to me only days after its release, pre-ordered months in advance. There is an element of mystery to all the Reacher stories, but more important is Child’s character of a moral man with the muscles and the smarts to right most wrongs. A Jack Reacher novel fits immediately into the ‘page-turner’ genre and is all about finesse, brawn and doing the right thing. Always and forever an exciting read.

Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke (2011)

Burke is the master of south Louisiana settings, but is more often these days turning his attention to south Texas. About Burke and any one of his thirty books, for the sake of brevity I will say only this: If you enjoy reading and you’ve never read a book by James Lee Burke, go to the bookstore today.

Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks (2011)

An on and off fan of Russell Banks, I found the title of this new book captivating, and buying it was far, far from a mistake. Two characters tell a story set on the west coast of Florida and each is fascinating. Sex offenses as they relate to underage victims is an extremely volatile subject but Banks carries this one off leaving the reader unquestionably in sympathy with the protagonist. How does he do that?

Gilgamesh, a new English translation by Stephen Mitchell (2004)

This is a story set in man’s earliest civilization, the 2750 BC Sumerian city of Urak, situated in present day Iraq at the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The translation is what makes this version outstanding. The poetry is elegant and the tale wholly relevant to creation literature. In a story that precedes biblical literature, Gilgamesh is filled with Christian corollaries. It is the oldest story in the world, and in that sense alone is engaging.

The Gentlemen’s Hour by Don Winslow (2011)

Included here only because it arrived in the post late Wednesday afternoon and is one I've been eagerly awaiting. Winslow is an up and down kind of writer who can dazzle with one book and disappoint the next. Anyone familiar with his earlier book, The Dawn Patrol will jump for this new one which has the same characters and setting. Never read Winslow? Try California Fire and Life or The Power of the Dog.

The Secret Storm

This past weekend saw the coastal areas of eastern central Florida thrashed whipped, beaten and soaked by a tropical storm that somehow didn’t show up on the crystal ball of weather forecasters. Not only did they not see the storm coming, they ignored its presence once it arrived and began kicking the stuffing out of everything and everyone across a huge swath of eastern Florida. How is it that over a three-day period wind at fifty to fifty-five miles an hour knocking over fences and trees, streets flooded by rain and a power outage lasting for hours, how is it that all that goes unnoticed by television and Internet?

Rising water, bending trees and endless sheets of horizontal rain are bad enough, but the nightmare of this particular storm was a demon wind that never let up for a minute over seventy-two hours, setting loose a howl of sound that grew maddening over long hours. I have read stories about places where the arctic wind blows constantly in a similar moaning wail, and where people get a little nutty after a while. Shades of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 1975 The Gulag Archipelago. That was me this past weekend. Try as I might, telling myself it was just a a little wind, to be more patient and occupy myself with something—all a futile attempt that didn’t help to assuage the ongoing nervous irritation.

My sanity held and Monday morning brought blessed relief. Would like to say that the sudden quiet was astounding, but true quiet is a quality not present when home is so near the ocean, when waves never cease to roll and crash onto shore. It was the absence of wind that hinted at something like quiet. I stood for a while in early morning light tinged with the promise of an unclouded rising sun, stood surveying the post-storm scene and making a quick count of the clean up ahead. Downed palm fronds, tumbled chairs scattered and upended in flower beds, broken walkway lights, flattened sections of fence, someone’s twisted table crash-landed in a heap among the bulbine flowers…and then attention turned to the salty, sandy mess on my patio, windows and doors.

News to no one, a three-day wind blast of salt and sand is lethal to shallow rooted patio plants and three of them were stone dead. Two other plants were moved inside on Friday, and the heavy geranium managed to hold on outdoors, but just barely. Glass sliders were murky with sand and dried mud carried by wind and rain. The front door had gone from milky green to greenish brown, earthworms had for some reason taken shelter beneath the doormats, both front and back, perhaps escaping the inundated ground.

The patio and its three glass doors required two hours to put back into shape. Sweeping, flooding with water, scrubbing and wiping took care of the biggest mess, but then the dead plants had to be uprooted and glass polished. Thanks to my German friend’s gift of a magic cleaning rag brought from Frankfurt, the front door was easily cleaned, along with the screen door. Everything finally looked good enough to leave and work elsewhere.

Along the seawall in front of the deck I collected a garbage can full of plastic debris, shoes, glass bottles, rope, Styrofoam, rubber balls and a Maidenform bra with barnacles. The thick layer of seaweed I left for either the beach sanitation buggies or someone else with a hankering to shovel up a half-ton of soggy, pungent wrack.

There is a building a half mile up the road that has a long row of globe lights along the length of the property. I drove past there on Tuesday and saw that all but three of the lights had been smashed by the wind. The little ice cream store farther along no longer has a sign, it too smashed. Property damage for sure, but count it fortunate that no one was hit by a falling tree or windblown glass.

Still asking myself, where were the weather forecasters on Thursday last?