Our dishwasher is broken. It has been broken for almost a year. I prefer it that way. Dishwashing by hand is a very meditative activity. A couple of months back I was in the kitchen finishing up the dishes. I dried my hands with the dish towel hanging from a cabinet handle. I turned toward the island in the center of the kitchen, and there it was. Hanging by a gossamer thread from the overhead light fixture was an Exquisitely Small Thing; a nearly translucent spider about the size of the head of a pin. It was a thing of wonder to me, and I held out my hand for it to descend on, but it must have felt the heat off of my hand, because it scurried back up the thread to the ceiling.
This brought me to a moment of contemplation about scale; the spider to me, me to, say, a sequoia, or to keep it in the animal kingdom, a blue whale. That spider, myself, and the blue whale, all share the definition of what a living thing is, the tiniest no less than the greatest. The spider is every bit as alive as I am. I have a frontal cortex, but perhaps that is to my disadvantage. I’ve long known that I have a problem with thinking too much. That is why I go for long hikes and climb mountains; to get outside myself. For what happened next, follow me below the exquisite little orange curlicue.
That day I wrote a poem about the experience, something about the tiny size being quiet as a prayer. Cliched and terrible. I keep most of my efforts, but I didn’t keep that one. In another diary I reproduced this example of a senryu, a poor cousin to a haiku.
beside the poolside
small pieces of orange rind
leftover sunrise
This was my Proustian madeleine moment, watching the spray of an orange being peeled in a sun beam and instantly being transported back to a moment in childhood. When I attempted a classically styled haiku, however, the results were not so favorable.
fields alive
with darting whites
summer ballet
So... very... so very... zzzzzz Whah? Oh, I must have dozed off. On the other hand, I recently posted on Facebook a short poem of no particular genre:
someplace else
is a place she no longer
wants to visit
This poem got a surprising number of likes, and I was confused. I tried another.
father is a word
he spent years exploring
and still it made no sense
This struck a chord with a number of readers. And left me with the author’s classic dilemma. Shall I write what resonates with the greater number of readers, or strive toward expressing what may be inexpressible. Because this wonder at the exquisite moment, this wonder in Very Small Things, is how I see the world most days, which tends to make me a somewhat retiring individual.
I can now look in the mirror
to my relief there's someone there
not always
It later occurred to me that these recent poems resembled in a vague way the style of R. D. Laing in his book on entangled relationships entitled knots. Segue to my recent diary on PTSD, to which mimi repeated the critical question; “what do you mean by tenuous grasp of reality?” Reading a review of Laing’s The Divided Self, I came across the phrase “ontological insecurity”, i.e. that we can feel insubstantial in the face of external forces conspiring to rob one of one’s self-hood. Couldn’t have said it better myself. In a million years. So thank you mimi for spurring me on. It really was an important question, and I’m glad you persisted in asking it. And it led me to a new understanding of my poetical form.
Relationships can be filled with exquisite moments, some physical, some verbal. Intimacy works on so many levels, and sometimes a simple touch can be a Very Small Thing. So I will stay in this dance hall for awhile. I may from time to time indulge in a little more haiku, but haiku now depresses me. Nature is very, very angry at us, and she may take her beautiful things and try again on another planet.
it is true
october hawks everywhere
screeching at me
Happy Thanksgiving All!