Falltime--- Carl Sandberg
Gold of a ripe oat straw,
gold of a southwest moon,
Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence,
Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long,
Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to new cities?
What is there for you in the birds, the birds, the birds,
crying down on the north wind in September,
acres of birds spotting the air going south?
Is there something finished?
And some new beginning on the way?
Is there something finished? And some new beginning on the way? Sandberg’s poem, ripe with images of a bright fall day, ends with these two questions. These questions, for me, highlight the sense of fleeting symmetry which Cathy and I chose as our topic, the moment of equinox, the passing of one season to another, the balancing of day and night.
That phrase, fleeting symmetry, is one which I cobbled together for the order of service to try to describe a period between one mindset and another, or that briefest of moments when you find order and balance in an otherwise topsy turvy life. It was not an easy choice of words. I resorted to the thesaurus to try to find the perfect expression of both the brevity of the moment and the sense of equilibrium. In doing so, I found many words which, while imperfect, were still able to provide sparks of inspiration: I thought about the moment of equinox as fleeting, as impermanent, perhaps transient, ephemeral, or evanescent, or as fugitive. Life is ephemeral, it is smoke and wind. Moments of insight are fugitive, they flee as soon as we spot them. The perfect word, like those moments, does not last long.
I also spent time reading, pronouncing, evaluating and repronouncing words for balance: equilibrium, composure, stasis, harmony, symmetry, proportion. And again, I could not reach that perfect place, the sweet spot between poetry and prose. Stasis sounds like stagnation or suspended animation, equilibrium like a lecture on the workings of the inner ear, proportion and harmony are nice words in themselves, but not exactly my intention. I settled on fleeting symmetry, because I do not count myself a poet, and perhaps unlike Sandberg, sometimes I just pick something imperfect and run with it.
But the search for the mot just, the perfect turn of phrase, gave me the opportunity to consider the theme of this day, of this reflection. I thought about the moments, very brief but very powerful, when all seems right in the world, when there is harmony and proportion, when the fugitive sense of self lingers for just a second. I will admit, these moments seem rarer to me now than ever. I find myself all too often engaged in multitasking, or just plain jumbled thinking, jumping from one unfinished project to another, worried about the results of my actions or picturing awaiting disasters. I am often frantic about approaching deadlines, irked at the seeming incompetence or indiference of others, both eager and anxious about the future, or just plain exhausted. I often joke that I spend my life either overwhelmed or underwhelmed, and all I really want is to feel whelmed for a little while. The essence of this is that I am not, to state the obvious, living in the NOW. I doubt many of us are. And so those moments of insight, of balance and serenity, are fleeting, fugitive and evanescent.
But perhaps it is enough to know that they are also real. That, like the equinox itself, they are moments of perfect harmony, but are also part of a process of constant movement. We see them as special, but we must also recognize that they exist within a larger cycle, a continuous spiraling, expanding and evolving existence. We do not expect the equinox, or the solstice every day, but we know that they will come. We do not hope for 365 days of perfect summer breezes or first snows or early blooms, but we know that they will come.
Many cultures, across the globe and across history, celebrate the need for balance, recognize the fleeting nature of our lives, and look at the equinox as moments of change and transformation. It is true in the far north and far south, where the variations of day and light are strongest and survival depends on following the cycles of the seasons, but it is equally true in those regions where the difference between equinox and solstice may be little more than a few minutes, a half an hour more or less of daylight, or where seasons are divided dry and wet instead of cold and hot, where no one boxes up summer clothes or talks about seasonal depression. Even in those places where a blistering summer day of 83º gives way to a chilly winter of 78º there is still a desire for balance.
The Inca view this world as one of three. We live on the land of the puma, precariously balanced between the serpent’s dark world below and the condor’s luminescent world above. Not heaven and hell, a very different three-world concept, but three worlds with different qualities, and ours as the middle-ground, the midlands between two equal opposites. The Vikings called our earth Midgard, again a middleground between worlds, and China, since at least the 6th century BCE, has seen itself as the middle kingdom. Creation myths from Asia to the Iroquois use battling twins or siblings to explain the precarious balance of all life on earth. Balance of darkness and light, good and evil, joy and sorrow is at the heart of the human experience, but it is a balance which must live in tension. We all recognize that it is unhealthy to live only in the middle, to never find joy or feel sorrow, so we live in the struggle, up and down, the spiraling, expanding world.
But we do love those moments of equinox, of fleeting symmetry, fugitive harmony or evanescent balance. We long for moments of pause, and we remember certain key moments as brief glimpses of wholeness. Sandberg looks at Fall with this love of fleeting moments. He loves the anticipation, the nostalgia, the golden grains and red tomatoes, the birds on the north wind, asking is there something finished, is there something beginning.
I want to close my thoughts with one of my favorite poems. The poet is himself a perfectionist, known for writing and rewriting his works again and again. The collection which contains this poem was published 4 times over a 22 year span, and each time the poems were different, reworked, seeking perfection. The poet is Jorge Guillén, a twentieth century writer from Spain, so I would like to read the poem for you in Spanish first, and then I will give you my translation of Guillén’s words. I teach this poem often, and I enjoy it because it touches on that very brief, engulfing experience of feeling complete, of recognizing that you are where you need to be and that you have found fleeting symmetry. The title is “Las doce en el reloj” or Twelve o’Clock.
Dije: Todo ya pleno.
Un álamo vibró.
Las hojas plateadas
Sonaron con amor.
Los verdes eran grises,
El amor era sol.
Entonces, mediodía,
Un pájaro sumió
Su cantar en el viento
Con tal adoración
Que se sintió cantada
Que se sintió cantada
Bajo el viento la flor
Crecida entre las mieses,
Crecida entre las mieses,
Más altas. Era yo,
Centro en aquel instante
De tanto alrededor,
Quien lo veía todo
Completo para un dios.
Dije: Todo, completo.
¡Las doce en el reloj!
And now my translation:
I said: All is now complete.
A poplar trembled.
Its silvery leaves
resounded in love.
Their greens were grey.
Love was the sun.
Right then, midday.
A bird added
its song to the wind
with such adoration
that it felt itself being sung.
Beneath the wind, a flower
risen among the high grasses.
I was there,
the center of that moment,
of all around me,
The one who saw everything,
complete as if for a god.
I said: Everything is complete.
Twelve o’Clock
