The Lesson of Poetry
by Jennifer Tifft
Custodian in Residence of Qui-Gon's Library of Poetry
Summary: A love letter attempting to answer the question:
"Of what use is a library of poetry to a Jedi?"
Rationale: In response to the Keeper's Challenge - 800 words
utilizing the 'kept' thing(s). This is precisely 800 words -
80 lines of 10 words each of (mostly) blank verse. Hyphenated
words count as one. And, while this is not a story, per se,
it does have a through line.
Pairing: Q/O
Rating: PG to R - but really, how do you 'rate' poetry?
Archive: M/A for the poem. Sockii - what do you think about
archiving the notes & acknowledgements? If it looks like too
much potential trouble then I'll do a version without all the
other-copywritten poems, just the pointers. Let me know.
Spoilers: None
Warning: Angst, Romance, Heavy literary allusion/quote/reference
land :-). But I've tried really hard to make it all work well
at the very surface level, so please don't be frightened off!
Ambiance: Bruckner's 3rd Symphony, Brahms' 4th.
Credit for inspiration goes to:
BlackRose, for everything but JAOA & 'Ceremonies' in particular
Hth, for 'Conquest'
Kirby Crow, for 'The Bitter Glass'
Mercutio, for 'Walk Softly & Carry a Big Lightsaber'
SarahQ, for 'Essay on Passion'
and WriteStuff, for everything, but 'Nomenclature' blew me away.
Dedication: For Destina, 'cause she asked, though I suspect she
didn't quite know what she was gonna get :-) And special
chocolate-covered Jedi to whoever it was thought up this
Disclaimers: All things TPM belong to George Lucas. All the
referenced poems and works belong to their respective authors.
This poem belongs to me, but I ain't makin' any money off it.
(c) 26 August 1999
Notes: The footnotes and attributions follow. I suggest reading
the poem first, and then the notes, or the notes and then the poem.
If you try to read the notes as you go along, I think it will
break up the flow :-). I do suggest reading the notes, as I
have included the text of the poems I have referenced/quoted.
The Lesson of Poetry
How to shape in words the lessons learned in silence?
How make ink express what heart and will have known?
What lessons, Padawan, have I yet left to teach you?
What mastery or skill is mine that is not yours
In seed potential, if not sturdy growth; but this perhaps:
That our souls desire poetry, and will not thrive without.
Will and wit combine to make a match, tinder, flint
To steel of other minds, eyes, hearts. In that intersection
Comes conflagration - the fire in which the worlds were made
And all desires formed: In the Beginning was the Word. (1)
And Word made flesh before me now - no printed book
But very truth made manifest to touch, to know, enfold
In arms embrace and be known in return, entire selves -
We speak with all the fire of creation, and destroy
To make and build anew. And thus compelled we strive --
Tame the lightning, give glass speech, make sentience of sand (24)
And Live and Love; We shall not cease from exploration (2)
Study, but touch. Learn and later know. (3) Fly outward, flung
On wings of words, to spiral round & know oneself,
But not unchanged, untouched, unscarred: all edged
this brilliant blade -
And tongue & wit are weapons (4), both terrible and fair:
For words are knives to flense and flay the soul-- (5)
Revealing & concealing passion's core, desire's heart,
dark and light.
No remedy but knowledge for those bitter, self-wrought wounds (6).
This is the poetry of agony, distress, the warring mind -
Conflicted flesh that must to resolution come or sundered be.
Endurance not enough; but know, what others found may serve
A present need as well: to forge poetry from pain
And summon up from sorrow the music like a sword. (7)
But this the least of inspiration's art; for merry too
And joyous, it burns, igniting the fire in the rose (2)--
The poetry of movement - the silk and steel of flesh (8)
Muscle shifting, sliding over bone: the body's graceful,
purposed dance -
Weaponed, naked, clothed or sheathed, in battle art or love,
Velvet over iron, water washing stone, earth and fire joined
& aching to express what air cannot; with thought o'ercome
All of time and space reduced to Now and Here --
This edge balanced moment, this look, this touch, this breath!
This consummation so devoutly to be wished (9), a death indeed -
That life brings forth, and rises up renewed; passion then
Within a word contained, once known, breathed in Lover's ear,
Tasted on the tongue - the poetry of love made live.
Transformed by trust, made fierce and eager, now called Appetite -
The poetry of lust, of ecstasy, desire, where rhythm,
Scansion, rhyme are all subsumed within the desperate, driving need
To be consumed, made one and whole with the beloved -
tenderly clasp me please master i take me to Thee (10), -
Or cradled close and hard, to know the lily folded,
Slipt within thy bosom, lost in thee. (11) (Oh sacred trust!)
And thus pierced, intertwined, to feel The flutter of life
Beating against the blade/ The red steel edge/ Of silence (12).
There is poetry in silence, did you know? Listen then
With eyes and nerves and breath to catch the speech
Of stone and dreaming bronze - How quiet here, and still (13) -
Slow measures shaped by time, made real again in trust.
Can you see the hidden edges? What lies about us
Innocent as grass, lavished in measures of light upon us:
Burning in memory, singing us to sleep, awakening our eyes? (14)
The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower. (15)
And do you know that every poet bleeds in words?
Desperate to touch and to be touched, be heard, known --
Oh, is there an ear, an eye for wisdom
That will perceive the soul of what I needs must say? (16)
For memory wants words, to engage all, heart and mind,
Communion with the intellect and soul - fire and rose together. (2)
Our will creates our focus, and focus determines our reality. (17)
Distilled from pain and pleasure, known and seen, all art
Combines to further brighter light, all love to greater love.
Remembered words contain those precious things too deep or high
or Solitaire/ To bear with ease the touch/ Of hand
or Heart or mind's caress. (18) Books, Kinsmen of the Shelf (19)
Stand ward and guard o'er all the heart might say.
Our Order preaches prudence, no passionate desire
but smoothed, serene.
Yet light will shine, and I will always know
How it felt to fall from high solitude into true humanity
For no reason greater than that you asked me to. (20)
And when night comes, (When you are old and grey (21)),
Will stars not shine despite our blindness, and the memory
of touch hold true even in that Hour of Lead? (22)
For we are "Together, O Beloved, Forever, always and now."(23)
Footnotes and Attributions
All poems & works copyright their respective authors, editors,
heirs or assigns.
(1) The Bible - Gospel of John 1:1 (No particular version)
(2) Four Quartets - Little Gidding (section V), T.S. Eliot.
_T.S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909 - 1950_, page 145.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
As the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
(3) "'Explorations', by Lyras", Diane Carey, _Dreadnought_, page 189.
This is the Sixth Element,
time crossing time
Until all stands still
and we may think.
Study, but touch.
Learn and later know.
Tame the craggy agonies of toil's time.
Memory and memoring comes late,
comes shattery, scattery.
And when all is done, it is not
to die--
it is to die well.
(4) The Duty of Bardship, Jennifer Tifft, 8 October 1993.
[...] This is the last verse -
The duty of a bard it is to stand beside thy lord
Bring honor to his lady, and respect likewise outpoured.
Thy tongue and wit are weapons even as a naked sword
And to their use responsible art thou by thine own word.
(5) Deconstruction, Jennifer Tifft, 31 October 1997.
A stern assemblage of knives:
white and black
thin, short, long, broad, supple & serrated
gold and silver and steel
And all so sharp --
Edges red with silence, shock, and pain
tools to wield with skill
work with will
Words are knives to flense and flay the soul,
cut away the comfort of illusion,
the comfort of defense
And leave the light,
revealing and intense --
that even one might look
and see
and Know
(6) Summer Wine, Jennifer Tifft, 5 March 1983
I have sealed the summer in a goblet
Sere green glass brim full
A wine of tangled pain and bitter jest
The ashy dregs I sipped, and bitter still.
Winter has not smoothed the rim
Nor sweetened stinging daughts that I must drink -
I fear to drown, to wrap and fold
the waves of scarring words
About my raw, too tender, aching mind,
Now peeled and stripped of comfort and defense.
Distance is defense from summer still
A glassy, green-glazed wall against the pain-
Until I dare, and daring, drink that wine
And will to make these self-wrought wounds my own.
(7) The Bard's Return, Jennifer Tifft, 20 September 1991
[...] This is the refrain and one of many verses.
Ref: The one who comes is valiant
The one who comes is brave
The one who comes defend us all
Himself he cannot save
The gift of telling truely,
By word alone to make
A two-edged blade
A doom unstayed
How could the heart but break?
Summon up from sorrow
The music like a sword
Sound the call
Inspired all,
& Reap sevenfold reward.
(8) Somebody used this image recently in one of the stories
on the list & it stuck. Help! I want to credit the right person!
(9) Hamlet, "To be or not to be" soliloquy, Shakespeare.
(10) please master, Allen Ginsberg, May 1968. Look it up in
the digest for late Friday, August 20. DiaJane posted it.
(11) 'Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white' Alfred,
Lord Tennyson, _Selected Poems_ page 126-7.
'Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphory font:
The fire-fly wakens: wake thou with me.
Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest thou, and slip
Into my bosom, and be lost in me.'
(12) 'I will write my will in warrior's blood' Jennifer Tifft,
6 August 1997.
I will write my will in warrior's blood
Wounding the world with my words
What do they know
that have not seen?
What do they know
that have not felt?
The flutter of life,
beating against the blade
The red steel edge
of silence
I will write my will in warrior's blood
Staining the stars with my screams
Give me
the burning iron rain
Give me
the bitter shriek of spears
Give me
the sharp-sweet scent of the charnel field
I will write my will in warrior's blood
Harrowing the heavens with my hands
That all may know
That I may know
The flutter of life
beating against the blade
And the red steel edge
of silence
(13) The Star-Fort, Jennifer Tifft, 9 June 1997
How quiet now, and still,
Despite the laughing children,
The busy hum of industry
across the chuckling, granite-girded shore
Brick and stone soaking up the peaceful sun,
The reverent, cheerful touch
of children's hands
Not old in absolute, but old to us --
Battle done; defending now a spirit,
more than soil.
How quiet here, and still,
But to the listening ear the silence speaks
of solemn, ancient things
And, dreaming in the grass,
The Star-Fort sleeps
as children play.
(14) The Angels, John Updike
They are above us all the time
The good gentlemen, Mozart & Bach,
Scarlatti and Handel and Brahms,
Lavishing measures of light down upon us
Telling us, over and over, there is a realm
Above this plane of silent compromise.
They are around us everywhere, the old seers,
Matisse and Vermeer, Cezanne and Piero,
Greeting us echoing in subway tunnels,
Springing like winter flowers from postcards
Scotch-taped to white kitchen walls,
Waiting larger than life in shadowy galleries
To whisper that edges of color
Lie all about us innocent as grass.
They are behind, beneath us
The abysmal books, Shakespeare and Tolstoy,
The Bible and Proust and Cervantes,
Burning in memory like leaky furnace doors,
Minepits of honesty from which we escaped
With dialated suspicions. Love us, dead thrones,
Sing us to sleep, awaken our eyes,
Comfort with terror our mortal afternoons.
(15) 'The force that through the green fuse drives the
flower' Dylan Thomas, _The New Oxford Book of English
Verse_, page 940.
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain springs the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain's head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
(16) 'Is there an ear, an eye for wisdom', Jennifer Tifft
11 June, 1997
Is there an ear, an eye for wisdom
that may percieve
across the depths
across the dark
across the spiraling cycles of the stars?
Etched in the flesh of this world
will my words still speak
though I be dust and silence?
Will these stones still sing
praising
naming
explaining
when we again are gone
across the depths
across the dark?
Is there an ear, an eye for wisdom
that will percieve
across the spiraling cycles
the soul of what I needs must say?
(17) TPM, George Lucas.
(18) Year's End, Jennifer Tifft, 5 January 1984
Silver bright, blue-gold bladed beauty
Sharp and edged with pain
of things too deep or high or Solitaire
To bear with ease the touch
Of hand or Heart or mind's caress.
An unsure difference, mind and hands untaught
With wish and want and need an ache
Of pleasure to the pitch of pain
Then brought to heights and depths undreamed
And not alone, though not yet part.
(19) 'Unto my books' Emily Dickinson, _Final Harvest,
Emily Dickinson's Poems_ page 153, Number 249(604).
Number 248(599) is also relevant. Reference by proximity.
Unto my Books - so good to turn -
Far ends of tired Days -
It half endears the Abstinence -
And Pain - is missed - in Praise -
As Flavors - cheer Retarded Guests
With Banquettings to be -
So Spices - stimulate the time
Till my small Library -
It may be Wilderness - without -
Far feet of failing Men -
But Holiday - excludes the night -
And it is Bells - within -
I thank these Kinsmen of the Shelf -
Their Countenances Kid
Enamor - in Prospective -
And satisfy - obtained -
248(599) Page 152
There is a pain - so utter -
It swallows substance up -
Then covers the Abyss with Trance -
So Memory can step
Around - across - upon it -
As one within a Swoon -
Goes safely - where an open eye -
Would drop Him - Bone by Bone.
(20) The last line of 'Conquest' by Hth. Read it. :-)
(21) When You Are Old, William Butler Yeats, _William
Butler Yeats, The Last Romantic_, page 21.
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes once had, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmer, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
(22)'After great pain' Emily Dickinson, _Final Harvest,
Emily Dickinson's Poems_ page 73.
After great pain, a formal feeling comes -
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round -
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contenment, like a stone -
This is the Hour of Lead -
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -
First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go -
(23) 'JAOA - Ceremonies', BlackRose.
(24) This is derived from a .sig quote I can no longer
find, and thus cannot properly attribute. Any help
gratefully accepted. The original quote is (approx):
"We have tamed the lightning, and used it to make sand
think."
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