I saw a dear friend and mentor the other night for dinner and, even after knowing him for over two years, was amazed at how much of an onion he still is to me ~~ every meeting, every conversation, feels like I am delicately unwrapping the layers of an onion ~ even the stinging I feel in my eyes, because the things I learn from him and about him (and in turn about myself) are stark, sharp, and eye-opening . . . we talked for over an hour before dinner, going through old photos of him in his hey-day with an out-to-THERE Mexican-afro, photos of his children and family, and funny mementos. And then, because we share a love of poetry (as in I love to plagiarize it and he loves to actually write it), he confided in me some of his recent work and invited me to critique it and discuss it with him. And this process was amazing because he would read the poems out loud to me, without allowing me to look at the words and read along with him ~ I had to sit still. And Listen. And let it sink in. And visualize every colorful line without the outline of the black-and-white text to guide me. I have never really done that before. After he read each poem, I clamored for him to let me hold the paper, so I could see it, and touch it, and feel it. I mean imagine . . . the sensory experience of hearing a poem, then seeing it, then touching it ~ all as it touches you. And it was the most amazing way to really know each poem and learn more about my friend and how he interacts with his art . . . which is that much more amazing considering what he does for a living. But our conversation and one of his poems, which I can't publish here, reminded me of a wonderful line from Octavio Paz's Sunstone/Piedra del Sol ~
Octavio Paz wrote Sunstone in 1957 ~ the poem is 584 lines long but it's written as a single cyclical sentence (at the end of the poem the first six lines are written again, so that the poem doesn't end but rather returns to its beginning) ~~ Paz's structural basis for the poem is the circular Aztec Calendar, which measured the synodic period of the plant Venus (584 days), and Sun Stone is the universal name for the actual Aztec Calendar, which was carved in the 15th century and buried under the main square in Mexico City. When Sunstone was first published, Octavio Paz noted that "the planet Venus appears twice each day, as the morning star (Phosphorus) and as the evening star (Hesperus). This duality (Lucifer and Vesper) has inspired every civilization whose people have taken Venus as a symbol, a sign, or an incarnation of the essential duality of the universe...." And I'm sure you know that Venus is also the Goddess of love and beauty. ~ These are all themes that Paz explores in the poem ~~ and that line from Sunstone in particular inspired one of the poems my friend wrote.
Sunstone is complex, erotic, and lyrical ~ and aren't we all? I've read and re-read the poem at different times over the past ten years and am still trying to understand it all ~ and that's the best kind of poem, the best kind of emotion, the truest relationship you could wish for . . . one you continually deconstruct and just when you think you understand it, you notice one teeny, tiny element in a corner somewhere which disrupts your entire analysis and you have to start from the beginning again, those same six lines, and allow yourself to be taken on the journey again, down a different path, or maybe down the same path but with a different perspective. I read somewhere that Sunstone is supposed to express Octavio's sense of the deep loneliness of man, which can be transcended only through attempts at communion, sexual love, compassion, and faith . . . I think that's true ~ and by that I mean, yes the poem is about that, and yes life is about that, and yes it's a tortured, cyclical existence but, when done well, it's profound, maddening, enriching, chaotic, and humbling.
Anyway, back to the point . . .that line ~ "the world is born when two people kiss" ~ it's from a section of the poem where Paz writes about the effect of that kiss . . . when all is transformed, all is sacred, and we are able to break free from the laws and notions which confine us:
...the invisible walls,
the rotten masks that divide one man
from another, one man from himself,
they crumble
for one enormous moment and we glimpse
the unity that we lost, the desolation
of being man, and all its glories,
sharing bread and sun and death,
the forgotten astonishment of being alive;
to love is to battle, if two kiss
the world changes, desires take flesh,
thoughts take flesh, wings sprout
on the backs of the slave, the world is real
and tangible, wine is wine, bread
regains its savor, water is water,
to love is to battle, to open doors,
to cease to be a ghost with a number
forever in chains, forever condemned
by a faceless master;
the world changes
if two look at each other and see . . . .
Ai, the poem asks you to put a lot of faith in love and in faith itself ~ and even your Self . . . isn't that how it should be, though?1
How often do we forget the astonishment of being alive? Have you looked in the mirror lately and been amazed and astonished with yourself? Go do it right now. Go on . . . I'll wait . . . Look at yourself and See. Look at each Other and See.
That's what we forget. Astonishment. Every Day. About ourselves, and what we do, and how we live, and, damn, that we live at all. That slave who needs to sprout wings? That slave is You, and your self-doubt and preconceived notions. That faceless master? You again.
Yeah, if love is battle, I'll take my war wounds ~~ I think I've earned a Purple Heart by now. Because love and war compel you to reveal your rawest rage, your truest testament, your purest pain . . . and so we do it. Because when we don't, that's when the War is lost ~ not a war with others, but that battle within ourselves that is desperately fighting for connection and understanding and love.
So, this astonishment ~ that's what I felt the other night with my friend, as we deconstructed poems and career advice and wistful stories about our first loves back when we were each teenagers. My friend wrote poetry even when he was in high school and he kept copies of the love poems he wrote to his girlfriends back then. One sheet was crinkled and brown and the ink was fading ~~ he wrote a few lines after his first kiss with a girl he liked . . . it was amazing and simple. ~ and the girl had written back, but she wrote in Japanese . . . and years later he had someone translate what she had written: "I like you. I have fallen for you. What would you like to have . . .?" ~~ They were 15.
So ~~ poems and conversation and amazing food and a brisk night in San Francisco . . . astonishing.
1. "Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love -- and to put its trust in life!" ~~ The hero's final words in Victory: An Island Tale, by Joseph Conrad. Or, in the fine fine words of the Black Eyed Peas ~~ "Gotta keep my faith alive til love is found."
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