The Sabbath of Warthogs

P(r)AY attention.

We do not go to church. We believe spirit lives everywhere. And if we are willing to p(r)ay attention it will show us the way. In honor of this, periodically throughout the week, we engage in impromptu roundtable discussions about a piece of art or song or poem or leaf.

One of us brings something to the table (our alter) and we all p(r)ay attention.

This past Sunday I read a poem by Anne Porter called “Living Things”.

The poem itself describes the power of poetry. Not in some overbearing didactic way. But rather by opening with a brilliantly disarming metaphor and then giving us a behind-the-scene tour of our poem’s domain.

Of its wildly permissive landscape, its unrestricted passport into unexplored territories.

Her poem invites us in and shows us around, like a good host. But once inside, its precincts extend far beyond our expectations. It offers us art. Imagination. The feeling of possibility. And being alive.

I once asked Joe if he missed making art. Real art.

Painting and sculpting and creating. Parameter free. Not crafting birthday t-shirts for Leo and Finn. Not designing the occasional logo for a client. From scratch. Pure.

He said no. I didn’t believe him. He said, “Now, my life is my art.”

I thought this was just a good Samaritan acceptance of what our busy lives allow for (or don’t). But his eyes divulged no compromise.

He was being forthright.

He said this a few years ago. And every few months I understand more about what he means. Not some grand statement about the legacy we leave for our children.

Not the effort to infuse our life with creativity or visit MoMA regularly.

He was talking about warthogs.

About poetry.

“Living Things”

by Anne Porter

Our poems

Are like the wart-hogs

In the zoo

It’s hard to say

Why there should be such creatures

 

But once our life gets into them

As sometimes happens

Our poems

Turn into living things

And there’s no arguing

With living things

They are

The way they are

 

Our poems

May be rough

Or delicate

Little

Or great

 

But always

They have inside them

A confluence of cries

And secret languages

 

And always

They are improvident

And free

They keep

A kind of Sabbath

 

They play

On sooty fire escapes

And window ledges

 

They wander in and out

Of jails and gardens

They sparkle

In the deep mines

They sing

In breaking waves

And rock like wooden cradles.

 

Joe’s favorite line from this poem… “They sparkle/ in the deep mines”.

Why? He said because sometimes you have to go deep inside yourself to find the light. And sometimes a poem can reach into you and light up something you didn’t even know was there. Where we shine brightest is in the deepest part of ourselves.

Conversation ensued about how different it is to feel sparkly on the outside versus on the inside. And how the more sparkly we feel inside the brighter we shine outside.

We also, covered diamond mines.

Leo’s favorite line… “They sing/ In breaking waves”.

Why? Because sometimes the meanings of a poem wash over you like waves. One at a time, he said, they keep coming and you understand it differently. And like the ocean sings, a poem feels like it is singing, whispering what it’s trying to say.

We talked about how waves are never the same twice. And even though the words of a poem remain the same. We change and bring to it different experiences and so it too is never the same twice.

As an important aside, Leo added that he also really liked the comparison of a poem to a warthog because he said we usually think poems are not anything we want to mess around with.

They can be difficult and weird. But not when we get to know them.

Finn’s favorite line… “They play/ On sooty fire escapes/ And window ledges”.

Why? I like the playfulness. That poems are not afraid to have fun. They can go anywhere they want. They are like adventurers.

We spoke of all the different places poems can take us, both the physical and emotional. The different spaces inside a jail and garden evoke.

My favorite line… “They have inside them/ A confluence of cries/ And secret languages.

Why? Regardless of a poem’s content, there is inside it, powerful forces at play. Languages that are secret, not because we don’t understand them, but because they speak in an emotional vernacular.

They cry out in primal longings and instinctual strivings.

There was conversation about animal whispering and the possible longings of a warthog. Similarly to Leo though, I refused to be limited to a few lines.

I also really love the line, “But once our life gets into them”.

This for me, is actually the most important line in the poem, and without which, the rest of the poem would die. Some poems fall flat. They do not have a secret language or confluence of cries.

They may feature sooty fire escapes but there is nothing at play.

In order for a poem to come alive we must put our life into them.

This is no easy task. It is not a series of facts or observations. It is something deeper. Something that requires awareness; courage.

The same I think is true for each of us. There are people that leave us feeling flat because they have not filled themselves with the magic of their own being. They run on autopilot or fear.

This, I believe, is the art Joe is making with his life.