Kathryn+Dockter-+Jane+Hirshfield

For What Binds Us
There are names for what binds us: (1) strong forces, weak forces. Look around, you can see them: the skin that forms in a half-empty cup, nails rusting into the places they join, (5) joints dovetailed on their own weight. The way things stay so solidly wherever they've been set down-- and gravity, scientists say, is weak. And see how the flesh grows back (10) across a wound, with a great vehemence, more strong than the simple, untested surface before. There's a name for it on horses, when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh, (15) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">as all flesh, <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">is proud of its wounds, wears them <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">as honors given out after battle, <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">small triumphs pinned to the chest-- <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">And when two people have loved each other (20) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">see how it is like a <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">scar between their bodies, <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">stronger, darker, and proud; <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">how the black cord makes of them a single fabric <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">that nothing can tear or mend. (25) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQb5g5CISn4 <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> The poem "For What Binds Us" not only displays a very strong message but is also very intriguing. The first time I read it I was a little taken back by the comparison to open wounds and healing scars to the forces that hold one another together. After going over it time and time again I realize what a good example it really was. She uses scars, cuts, and pain to show our weaknesses and our downfalls but what comes from the wound only makes us stronger. A cut will be open and will cause a person discomfort for a small while but your skin will work it’s way back to being normal. Your skin, as expected will connect again and that is the binding which is such a imperative subject in this poem. It seems to say that everything that keeps us together is through a scar. A scar being a symbol of strength and togetherness. After we are injured we scar, this is a sort of overcoming of the previous wound. Your skin heals over it and with that you have grown stronger, knowing that you made it through safe and you are once again all together. Scars are not only used as the kind you earn after a knee scraping, scars in this case also represent a simple bond between two people or perhaps the victory over something small or large. As for bonding the poem really exemplifies how bonding is so much a part of our lives, whether we notice it or not. Her examples of a a rusty nail and even gravity are very blatant uses of binding that we don’t normally take much notice to on an average day. We are surrounded by the bonding of things, not just in ourselves but also in the objects around us. The world itself with all it’s people is bonding, we are so involved with each other and so similar in numerous ways. Her ability to notice these things is just astounding to me. What really strikes me most about this poem is that it relates bonding and holding together to flesh wounds. It’s somewhat odd and unexpected, but admirable that she see’s the beauty in something so unappealing and can make it very understandable and rather enjoyable to read. I love the way it expresses the complexity of human connections in images and clean language. I admire the way it can apply along the scale from intimate love relationships to the relationships between groups of people, ethnicities, countries - and I love that perfect last line - "that nothing can tear or mend." <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> **THE PROMISE**

<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Stay, I said <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">to the cut flowers. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">They bowed <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">their heads lower. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Stay, I said to the spider, (5) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">who fled. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Stay, leaf. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">It reddened, <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">embarrassed for me and itself. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Stay, I said to my body. (10) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">It sat as a dog does, <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">obedient for a moment, <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">soon starting to tremble. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Stay, to the earth <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">of riverine valley meadows, (15) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">of fossiled escarpments, <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">of limestone and sandstone. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">It looked back <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">with a changing expression, in silence. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Stay, I said to my loves. (20) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Each answered, <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">//Always.// I chose this poem because it expresses Jane's writting style: a poem appearing simple, but is not. Interestingly, the titles provide the "answers" from the start. It is common for some writers to give the solution of riddle poems in their titles. Jane also needs room to move into her material in a certain way essential to her poetry: it is the getting there and the answer that is the source of her joy. "The Promise" in itself is a kind of riddle which teases us and draws us in. Many will ask what is the promise? What is being pledged? To whom? Why? Surprisingly, there is no straight definition or description of said promise. Instead, a command seems to take form. In each stanza, the order to “stay” is said to an array of animal-life and plant-life, and the response in each case is charged with a darkly bizarre humor, figurative and metaphysical. "Stay, I said to the cut flowers.They bowed their heads lower," is a perfect example of this odd plant-life. Even the great and enduring earth, to which the speaker references after she feels her own body’s alteration, will not obey the speaker’s command, but rather looks back “with a changing expression, in silence.” The amazing imagery of the flowers fading, spiders building short-lived houses in air, leaves reddening and falling, bodies, too, trembling and failing is incredible. It is almost very imaginable. It is not until the last stanza that Hirshfield, almost subtly, reveals her answer: It is love and love alone that is capable of making a promise to abide. This “answer” might seem simple or unearned if not for the force of the poem’s incrementally repeated requests of staying. It is the different stations of the riddle that bring to life Hirshfield’s vision in this poem: its difficulty, its truthfulness, and its worth.




 * April 13th**

** Three Times My Life Has Opened **
Three times my life has opened. Once, into darkness and rain. Once, into what the body carries at all times within it and starts to remember each time it enters the act of love. Once, to the fire that holds all. (5) These three were not different. You will recognize what I am saying or you will not. But outside my window all day a maple has stepped from her leaves like a woman in love with winter, dropping the colored silks. (10) Neither are we different in what we know. There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one red leaf the snow releases in March. (14)

"Three Times My Life Has Opened" is a poem of movement, both figuratively and literally. The openings Hirshfield describes are actually periods of transition, and they are natural and healthy even when the moments seem less than desirable. The poet's point is that personal growth comes about through change- change that is sometimes pleasurable, sometimes challenging, but always ends up beneficial in the end. She represents her life's transitions figuratively with the natural elements of darkness, rain, and fire, as well as a relationship between body and mind. All three of these are filled with images that are both distinct and unspecific. Hirshfield does not specify the particulars of the darkness and rain the speaker has encountered, nor does she define what type of "act of love" has been entered into. In each of these three sentences it is clear the speaker is not describing the same situation. However, it is clear that her experience to all three is similar. It leads me to believe these three stages are all related and all powerful through the speaker's life having "opened." Almost expressly in the middle of the poem, Hirshfield directly addresses the reader, saying, "You will recognize what I am saying or you will not." With this statement, she challenges readers to a more careful examination of both the poem and of self. Hirshfield is obviously trying to get the reader to see if his/her life has opened. If self-examination still seems difficult, the second half of the poem changes to literal movements of maple leaves falling from a tree, silks falling from a woman's body, and the opening and closing of a door- a new experience. The tree is personified as a woman undressing for her lover, winter. This active example relates back to the second experience in the earlier list. Both of these sentences reflect on love. By shedding a tree of leaves, something a tree carries at all times, because of the tree's love for the next season, Hirshfield brings a more specific understanding to the earlier line. In the final lines, a bit of mystery is presented of a door simply existing, then opening, then closing. Perhaps the door is like life, sometimes opening to various experiences and other times closed up, not showing what is going on inside. But here, a slip of light stays, implying total darkness will not come. The presence of the "scrap of unreadable paper" signifies the idea that light conquer darkness. And soon enough this piece of paper is compared to "one red leaf" from the maple tree mentioned earlier, which manages to survive winter with full color intact. Soon enough, the snow melts releasing the leaf and its presence, just like the light that remains.

=**It Was Like This: You Were Happy**=

It was like this: you were happy, then you were sad, then happy again, then not. (3)

It went on. You were innocent or you were guilty. Actions were taken, or not. (6)

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent. Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over. (9)

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness— between you, there is nothing to forgive— (12) but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others. (15)

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you or your days: they will be wrong, they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man, (18) all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad, you slept, you awakened. Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.(22)

I picked this poem because I feel like it ties in Hirshfield's viewpoints and opinions on Buddhism perfectly. This poem reflects on alternation between opposite or contrasting things by looking back when life is over. What stays with you? What does it mean? The poem strips away the dramas and interpretations that beautify our experience leaving just the raw material. So what is the raw material of our lives? Hirshfield challenges the reader to find these materials. There is the stream of lines: "//you were happy, then you were sad, then happy again, then not//." At the time, perhaps, the reasons for our unhappiness consumed our attention, but now they have faded away, it’s just what happened. "//You were innocent"// – or perhaps as a child is innocent. "//or you were guilty"// – as a criminal or perhaps as an anxious person who simply feels guilty. Things happened, "//actions were taken"// but all that is past now. The simplicity of the expression tells us that we shall remember and note what happens in life but not celebrate, regret, or interpret it. Perhaps it was like this even at the time: "//At times you spoke, at other times you were silent. Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?"// In fact, we mostly say a lot about our lives as we explain ourselves to ourselves, justify ourselves to others, or complain about what others have done to us. But what, in the end, do all those words mean? Can words ever really explain our experience? "//Now it is almost over"// and now the self that worries over experience is somehow absent, even as we reflect on what has happened. There is just existence turning back on itself, in an act of tenderness: "//Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life."// I find it powerful that this is not an examination and there is no judgment here, so there is also no question of fault or blame: "//It does this not in forgiveness—// //between you, there is nothing to forgive—"// Now there is no more wondering how one’s life will turn out. This act of recognition is how it has turned out: just like this. There is only the creator’s acknowledgement of completion in lines 13-14, "//the simple nod of a baker at the moment// //he sees the bread is finished with transformation."// I found this to be almost peaceful. But now the end is near and the meaning of the moment of clarity somewhat emerges. I think some of the last lines are very interesting.The need to explain persists in others and their stories continue. These others in life will make something of their own out of you, which is very different from the bakers recognition that your own transformation is complete. These will be "//tales of their own invention"//, not the truth. Only you can know that, but you can’t make an explanation from it. Finally, when the moment of death comes, there is just the thing itself.