Guest poem sent in by Cristina Gazzieri
(Poem #1587) Six Significant Landscapes I
An old man sits
In the shadow of a pine tree
In China.
He sees larkspur,
Blue and white,
At the edge of the shadow,
Move in the wind.
His beard moves in the wind.
The pine tree moves in the wind.
Thus water flows
Over weeds.
II
The night is of the colour
Of a woman's arm:
Night, the female,
Obscure,
Fragrant and supple,
Conceals herself.
A pool shines,
Like a bracelet
Shaken in a dance.
III
I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the sea
With my ear.
Nevertheless, I dislike
The way ants crawl
In and out of my shadow.
IV
When my dream was near the moon,
The white folds of its gown
Filled with yellow light.
The soles of its feet
Grew red.
Its hair filled
With certain blue crystallizations
From stars,
Not far off.
V
Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
Nor the chisels of the long streets,
Nor the mallets of the domes
And high towers,
Can carve
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.
VI
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses --
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --
Rationalists would wear sombreros.
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I have often worked with classes of students on this poem, and I like doing it because each class, when discussing and interpreting it make it a very peculiar poem; I have tried to gather the different interpretations my students and I have been giving to the poem and to unite them . The titles has, of course, influenced all class discussions. If these are "Six Significant Landscapes" we have always started from the effort to visualize them and then to attribute them meaning. What has emerged is, more or less this: +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Stanzas|Continents| Types |Themes |Messages | |-------+----------+---------------+-----------------+-------------------| |I |Asia |The philosopher|Time vs. Eternity|Man can acquire | | | | | |wisdom to | | | | | |appreciate what is | | | | | |valuable (water) | | | | | |and what is not | | | | | |(weeds) | |-------+----------+---------------+-----------------+-------------------| |II |Africa |The dancer |The fascination |Man can appreciate | | | | |and sensuality of|and enjoy the | | | | |natural life. |fascination of | | | | | |life. | | | | | | | |-------+----------+---------------+-----------------+-------------------| |III |- |The poet |Awareness of the |Man must judge | | | | |ego, in |himself and | | | |The man |comparison with |collocate himself | | | | |nature and other |in the universe and| | | | |people. |in society | |-------+----------+---------------+-----------------+-------------------| |IV |America |The divinity |Ideality, |It is also | | | | |spiritual |pleasant/important | | | | |elevation |to cultivate | | | | | |dreams. | |-------+----------+---------------+-----------------+-------------------| |V |Europe |- |Art vs. nature |Nature is the most | | | | | |appealing form of | | | | | |art. (however | | | | | |suggestive art | | | | | |could be) | |-------+----------+---------------+-----------------+-------------------| |VI |- |Rationalists |The self-imposed |Man should look | | | | |limits of |beyond the limits | | | | |rationalism. |of any kind of | | | | | |ideology | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ This is only a limitative synthesis of all that this poem has suggested, but, in general, when we come to the last stanza of the poem we have often found, or felt that to interpret the poem simply as "rationalism is a limit" was disqualifying the poem. Personally, I think that the final message is that a "complete" man should have all these "landscapes" in himself, and, especially, he should try to look afar, beyond the boundaries suggested by his own continent, language, religion, natural background, social status, cultural background ... trying to perceive or create more and more landscapes of the soul. Cristina
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