Author Information
Walnut
I hear you in the gasp
between moments,
when there's a flicker
of resurrection—
the perfect spot to live
a secret life like yours—
when there's just a
suggestion of branches
unlatching a sizzling
new sun, then
billowing veils of light
and a forest appears,
and you come to me,
little Carolina wren I
named Walnut,
serving me a song
I believe
I first heard
at the foot of an
ego-shattering mountain
in my childhood.
And what do I have in
return for your
audible stars
on the wind,
your ribbons of
crystal,
your feathery joy
manufactured by a God
that certainly must
be kind?
I'm just the
giver of seeds and
occasional pilgrim from
the land of clocks,
obsessions
and crazy things
you wouldn't
understand, but
look, your trust defies
the gravity of my
hampster-wheel world
like moths
blooming in the
succulent air, like
your black eyes
seeing more than
I ever could,
and I can see so far
through closed eyes and
a three-note symphony
to guide me,
and now that I'm
annihilated, so
perfectly defeated,
so lavishly empty,
so new,
I don't wish for your wings
any longer.
I could glide through
hidden galaxies on
music, feathers
and light.
Patricia Joan Jones
This is so beautiful so me
This is so beautiful so me but so you I love all these themes and you've done it 8n your usual sensitive elegant and distinct style. Im envious. Beautiful verse I loved skipping along on the pebbles of thought as if it were my own mind only eloquent ;D hugzs beautifully rendered. Ss
Don't let any one shake your dream stars from your eyes, lest your soul Come away with them! -SS
"Well, it's love, but not as we know it."
"skipping along on the
"skipping along on the pebbles of thought". I adore how you put that. A thousand thank you's for your gorgeous expression. I admire your work as well. You are a gift.
Rejoicing
Your art is a guidebook to truest love.
bananas are the perfect food
for prostitutes
Thank you for your amazing,
Thank you for your amazing, quotable feedback. I treasure it.
I an feeling half dead in a
I an feeling half dead in a nursing home, after having nearly lost my life to two separate medical issues since mid-March, but the posting of this poem is, for me, an event of such awesome effect that I cannot remain quiet. I apologize in advance for any typos I may miss. My right hand is still not clear of the gout, and keyboarding is difficult.
I am not going to discuss centers of gravity, poetic strategies, metaphors and imageries for their own sake. I have written about her other poems in that way, and I hope to be well enough to write about some of her future poems in my usual style of commenting, but, for this one, I want to bear witness how this poem has ministered to a sick, pain-ridden old man, in a nursing home where there are people around me screaming in agony and terror, and my roommate may drop dead at any moment. And yet, for all that, which becomes overwhelming at this late hour of the night when the darkness makes the monsters appear, her poem has cleared all of that away from my soul's line of sight; and reminds me of something very easy to forget in a place like this---that I am not alone, and have no reason to despair. The Cosmos is all around me, and is working just fine to include me and bring me forward.
Walnut is one of the smallest (in human terms) representatives of the Cosnos; yet that does not matter, given that the Cosmos works with the smallest possible atoms, Hydrogen, and builds from them huge, seething stars; the sun, which provides our daylight from the hydrogen fusion in its core; and, on earth, the Cosmos has given us cabbages, monkeys that stink, and ourselves, who alone (I believe) have the power, through our Poetry, to explain the Cosmos itself to itself, and to each other, as each of Patirica's poems do so splendidly.
Walnut brings witness of Resurrection, sizzling new suns, vbillowing veils of light, and the appearance of a new forest. This is just the beginning of a process of joy and hope which the poem not only explicates in Patricia's ongoing vocation of explaining the Cosmos to itself and to us through her poetic vision. And the poem delivers, in the most explicit and unarguable manner, this process of joy and of hope to me, at the rock bottom of my health, my faith, and my patience. Through this poem, Walnut tells me, "Relax, you have lost nothing."
Walnut also delivers to us the two mots important aspects the poem can mention: audible stars, and a God that certainly must be kind. The Poet calls her world, which we share with her, a hamster wheel world, and that is a mighty fine metaphor. And she shows us through Walnut that the Cosmos is not part of that master wheel.
And the escape from that, the escape Walnut comes to remind us of, is not an escape from (as in our world system, that we create and maintain) but an escape back to the Cosmos. And how does the poem define that Cosmos? Hidden galaxies (like great Easter eggs? for the day we celebrate Resurrection, which Walnut reminded us of in the first stanza), music, feathers, and light.
Everything around us, including us, is made of hydrogen---the smallest, simplest atom. The humblest atom---surely a lesson we need be tuaht repeatedly---is the foundation of our nature. But, lest we depair, the Cosmos shows us what it has built from the humble hydrogen: all the stars, all the heavier elements, lilacs, monkeys that stink, hot pizza and cold snow cones, us (and among us, Poets like Patriciajj), and a tiny Carolina wren named Walnut by the Poet (and Poets once named the stars), and Walnut delivers the truth of our residence in the Cosmos to Patricia, and she briings it to us. And because she has written this poem, in this way, my affliction is easier to bear, and yours are too.
In the film, Ben Hur, Sam Jaffe;s character celebrates Ben-Hur;s arrival in Jerusalem by saying, "It is like a returning faith." I always wondered what that meant. As I said above, my faith hit the skids this past week (which is my fault, not the Orthodox Church's). Patricia's poem comes to me, through postpoems, like a returning faith.
Starward
I'm deeply troubled by your
I'm deeply troubled by your suffering, and if I've helped you in any way at all then I'm incredibly gratified. There's no better feedback than this.
That you took the time to write such a magnificent, spot-on review in spite of your anguish is very moving, and human language is inadequate to express my gratitude.
I'm marveling at the way you recognized every nuance of my expression. I was particularly stunned by your eloquent statement: "The Cosmos is all around me, and is working just fine to include me and bring me forward."
I'm beginning to think you're psychic because one of the endings I was kicking around while editing this basically said just that. I went back and forth on that last stanza and finally chose the one that I felt had continuity with the previous stanza and also fit the soundwork.
Anyway, here was the ending you somehow predicted:
"The Universe is
right here, now, in
music, feathers
and light"
I just thought you would be interested to know that.
I loved how you, with wondrous, startling interpretations, expressed all my intentions here and went beyond appreciation by internalizing the message and finding some comfort in it. Is there a greater reward for any writer? I don't think so.
It's always a pleasure and an honor to have you analyze my poetry with poetry.
I am greatly concerned about you. More prayers will be coming your way. Peace and every blessing.
Because I believe that every
Because I believe that every new poem you post is an event---both on postpoems and in the general realm of poetry---I would, even on my deathbed, gladly comment on a poem of yours.
From 1976 through 1980, I was learning---although I did not know it---to be able to contemplate and to observe a Poet's explication of the reality that we call the Cosmos. And that did not stop in 1980; it accelerated, as, through the 80's, Eliot's star began to set and Stevens' to rise in its place; yet, they were dead, and therein was the frustration.
My membership in postpoems was a privilege I will cherish beyond my life in this world. Jason has given me my wildest dreams---to publish my poems and to become what, since 2001, I wanted to be . . . a minor internet poet. But the unseen and unexpected benefit was yet to be disclosed . . . in 2020 . . . when I first read the Gates of Orion, and the Council of Stars. And all the tumblers fell into place, and there was . . . unlocked before me . . . the experience for which I had been preparing since 1976, to see a living body of excellent Poetry of the extremest high quality, expanding itself poem by poem, and gathering as a gift of the Cosmos to itself, to be articulated and explicated by the Poetics of your metaphysical vision. I had often wondered what it would have been like to see a provincial high school teacher reveal Symbolist poetry to the world, when he published Afternoon of a Faun; or a London bank clerk bring The Waste Land to the world in 1922; or a Connecticut insurance lawyer declare that the entire Cosmos followed Ideas of Order in 1931. Now I need not wonder. You, through postpoems, have given me that experience.
And it is not just grad students who will learn about Poetry and your Poetry; other poets have much to learn from you. Walnut calls me to reconsider my own poems---especially the Ad Astra poems, which are only possible because of precedents you have established. Walnut, as an Envoy of the Cosmos. Hydrogen atoms became stars, and stars fused other elements which, together with Hydrogen, became us; such that those who are really Poets and not mere imitators may tell the Cosmos who and what it is. This is what your Poetry demonstrates and articulates; and you have done it, always, well; but, with Walnut, you have broken through your own high precedents and achievements to a new level of greatness. What you have made possible, and your understanding of Etienne and what you wrote for and about him, have made me a different poet than I was two weeks ago, or two years ago.
Starward
I'm busy right now and can't
I'm busy right now and can't give this sublime comment all the attention it deserves, but perhaps that's just as well. Too many words would spoil the simple yet infinite meaning of my words: Forever grateful. Thank you!!