ONLY THE ONE SKY

When I received and read a copy of Pinyon Publishing’s recent release of a volume of poetry, Only The One Sky by Dabney Stuart, I kept thinking about another book of poems entitled Call and Response, an exchange in poetic form written by Louisiana poets Darrell Bourque and Jack Bedell. Both books represent a kind of counterpoint and harmony that flows between two poets to create a spiritual synthesis, embracing past and present in a medley of poems. In the case of Only the One Sky, Stuart has a conversation that focuses on joy and loss with an ancient poet from the Tang Dynasty of eighth century China.

Stuart names his connection “the old poet,” and transcends the boundaries of time, reaching back to antiquity for his subject, Wang Wei, who once wrote to his friend P’ei Ti about walking “hand in hand, composing poems as we went…down twisting paths to the banks of clear streams.” Although the poets have diverging personalities and sensibilities, they share communications that complement each other and in their listening and speaking, the reader is treated to meditations on nature, breath, family, Stuart’s musings about “the filtering years, ineffable ways/that have gentled us to this life: magic,/ grief and error, the lifting of veils./ Gratitude. Elation./ A butterfly, an unfolding shadow.”

In the old poet’s poem “Something Like That,” Stuart likens his feelings about longing to a passage from a Conrad novel, lamenting “I have no idea what I long for. /The old poet shifted on his dinghy seat./Only that I long for it./I don’t long for it because it’s impossible/ to attain, but because it’s impossible/for me not to long for it, whatever it is…”  I was reminded of the Sehnsucht of Simone Weil’s passage in Waiting for God: “When we possess a beautiful thing, we still desire something. We do not in the least know what it is. We want to get behind the beauty, but it…like a mirror sends back our own desire for goodness. It is a…mystery that is painfully tantalizing.” In Stuart’s passage there is a sense of the poet remembering fleeting joys, yet he is aware that we seem to be separated from that which is desired, as Corbin Carnell points out in Bright Shadow of Reality, “a ceaseless longing which always points beyond…” Stuart masterfully uses the “old poet” to personify this quest for the secret that remains hidden to us.

Stuart captures the images of wandering and nature in an exquisite poem, “Not the Same,” as the old poet ruminates about his life by the river. “It is always, the same and not the same./The cluster of willows at the near bend/turns yellow in autumn. Its bare branches/flow in the small breezes. He dreams of them./ Sometimes he wakes, uncertain in the darkness,/lies quietly on his cot, listening/for the silence to break, an owl leaving,/the river bearing itself, the willows shushing.”

Using a more contemporary voice, Stuart roots us in his home place with “Porch Screen,” providing the reader and his old poet friend a glimpse of domesticity: “Once your hair fell across your face, tilted aside./My finger to your chin, a brushing kiss…/Someone to talk with, to share the rabbit stew,/the porch screen flaring with late afternoon sun.” The poet crosses the divide in time between the old poet and the younger one with dialogue featuring affection that connects both poets in the shared blessing of an evening meal.

In Only The One Sky Stuart speaks to poets, living and dead, who have transported readers into a spiritual dimension, creating his own inscriptions about a journey filled with the sight of  radiance everywhere, the sacrament of poets’ connections, and the “atmosphere of infinite suggestion.”* 

Dabney Stuart has been a resident at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy, has held a Virginia Artists Fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2006 he won the Library of Virginia Poetry Prize. His work is in the audio and video archives at the Library of Congress.

Only The One Sky is available from Pinyon Publishing, 23847 V66 Trail, Montrose, Colorado 81403 and from amazon.com.

*A.C. Bradley. Oxford Lectures on Poetry.

COLD SNAP #2

It's one thing to write about a cold place you're slated to visit and another to arrive and experience the icy breath of winter on The Mountain at Sewanee. Although we missed the three-degree temps Sewaneeans experienced the week preceding our return to The Mountain, we've been deprived of sunlight for at least three days. However, the worst aspect of the weather is heavy fog, fog that surpasses any mist hanging over the Louisiana swamps.

We went out to St. Mary's Convent at 7 a.m. yesterday to attend Eucharist, and the Subaru crawled down the road leading to the Convent in dense mists that I can only describe as "unsafe." However, after breakfast with the Sisters, I found a copy of May Sarton's Journal of A Solitude (order below), and settled in a rocker before the wood-stove in the Common Room. I actually began to feel safe and cozy. I had unconsciously selected a book that contained many chapters describing a winter in New Hampshire, where Sarton lived and wrote in her late years. At least we didn't have to cope with the fifteen inches of snow she described in a journal entry, "February 8," I thought, as I warmed my feet before the fire.

Although Sarton wanted her novels and poetry to be recognized and acclaimed as best sellers, her journals and memoirs gained the greater readership. I've almost finished this book of observations on the inner and outer worlds of the writer. Chapters about books, people, and Sarton's spiritual journey fascinate me, and I was ready to go out in the fog again after reading during the morning at the Convent and the afternoon at home when the woods were shrouded in heavy fog.

One journal entry that resonated with me: "Simone Weil says, 'Absolute attention is prayer.' The more I have thought about this over the years, the truer it is for me. I have used the sentence often in talking about poetry to students, to suggest that if one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. Something is 'given' and perhaps that something is always a reality outside the self."

After reading this, I surmised that even when a writer sits and stares at fog, something happens because a few moments after reading this, I added another poem to the book of poetry I'm writing entitled The Lonely Grandmother. A few hours later, I needed that inspiration when we again set out in the fog, bound for the Hamman's place, "Tick Farm," aka "The Bat Cave" as both ticks, and, lately, bats have been discovered in residence on their property. This time, we set out at night, and missed numerous turns off the highway, as well as the narrow lane leading into the Hamman quarters.

The drive through the fog was harrowing, but inside the Hammans' cottage, Kathy's gourmet cooking made up for the pall of the weather. The Rev. Francis Walter and his wife Faye arrived a half hour later and announced that they had lost their way several times before finally turning into the drive at Tick Farm. The Hammans have lived in London, Iran, India, and other exotic places, and good food and conversation helped us forget that we had to travel back through pea soup. Usually, when the six of us get together, we dive headlong into conversation about politics, religion, books not-so-conservative, and other unsafe topics and emerge invigorated by talk that other people often find taboo table talk.

When I arrived home, I found that I had dropped my cell phone somewhere along the way and panic overtook me—panic worse than that I had experienced going through the fog, I'm ashamed to admit. Fortunately, the Hammans found the phone in the yard, the only thing to be victimized by the fog, and they're bringing it to me today. Meanwhile, I welcome the silence and Journal of A Solitude (order below), glancing out the window now and then to check on the ubiquitous fog. It's still overhanging us, and we are, as Sewaneeans say, "socked in." However, we should be back in Teche country by Saturday afternoon!

Photographs by Victoria Sullivan