More Is Too Much
We are in the season of excess: more! more! more! Excess is what it is… too much.
Remember Halloween? In a word: excessive. Thanksgiving? Ditto. NOW here comes Santa Claus, polar bears, train sets, tinsel, elves, blue-and-silver Christmas trees, wrapping paper, gift boxes, ribbons, houses decked-out and over-decked with plastic holly and lights! Lights!
Remember November’s sky? Did you see it? Did you look up and say, “Oh! Ah!” Did you notice the mackerel clouds, surreal sunrise, and thinnest moon ever? Did you make a poem? One of the jobs assigned to poets is reveling in, and revealing daily wonders; nature, being at the top of the list.
This brings me to my theme: less is more, or less is enough. Consider Matsuo Basho, (1644-1694) Japanese Haiku master. He made great art from ordinariness, like clouds, and moons. He placed his trust in his walking-stick.
From Knapsack Notebook, “Nothing’s worth noting that is not seen with fresh eyes.” Considering the nature of war, he wrote:
summer grasses:
all that remains of great soldier’s
imperial dreams.
In Haiku, Basho practiced simplicity.
Simplicity is a gift we can incorporate in our words. Two lines of your words can make a connection, like “invisible strings” between you and a reader. When I read a line in a book that “speaks my name,” I hold the book to my chest and say, “Thank you.” Heck! Robert Bly kisses his books!
Minnesota poet, Jim Moore has a collection of poems on stillness, one of his favorite excesses. His work is called, “lyrically spare.” (Imagine! To be lyrical with economy.) From his 2005 collection, Lightning At Dinner, Jim used a daily prompt (write seven short verses.) In “Seven Invisible Strings,” verse seven reads:
Almost sixty:
from now on
even begonias are amazing.
In nine words, Jim Moore captures, with simplicity, the beauty of aging. There’s hope here, and gratitude. Zen-like? Absolutely.
Words on Stillness from Jim Moore
Writing poems in stillness is like
fire in an empty theater.
Do not mistake stillness for God
stillness was present before God.
As if quiet were the most natural
thing in the world.
In sitting still you are working.
Stillness comes after words.
Love the thing inside us that feels
no need to move.
Like the moon,
stillness has it phases,
even when you can’t see it
you know it is there.
Even if stillness could speak,
believe me,
it wouldn’t bother.
When I take time to stop on my walks, and am “given” the gift of a platter-sized sycamore leaf, I say I’ve had a “Mary Oliver moment.” I return from my outings with feathers, (once, an entire woodpecker’s wing), magnolia’s red-studded cones, rocks, and lichen-covered bark.
Mary Oliver returns from her adventures with her notebook scribbled full of lines, like fishing lines, connecting her attentiveness to the poems she reels in.
The title of one of Mary’s poems is a poem in itself. From A Thousand Mornings, “In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare Music.” This is poem enough for me. This volume also includes a two-line poem:
Was it Necessary to Do It?
I tell you that ant is very alive.
Look at how he fusses at being
stepped on.
Peruse your poetry library. Search out three or four-line poems. Imitate the lyrical spareness of haiku. Begin a writing session with the purpose of making seven short verses, two lines each. Keep it simple.
When you’ve finished the seventh poem, read what you’ve written. How do invisible strings connect the verses? Be filled with gratitude, a simple thing.
Resources
A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, 2012. Lightning At Dinner, Jim Moore, 2005. The Poetry of Zen, translated by Sam Hamill and J. P. Seaton, Shambhala Press, 2005.
