On Spotlessness

I’ve decided completion is the only real satisfaction.

That may sound troublesome because a. we can’t rest on a single accomplishment; b. simply accomplishing something may not be enough; c. value should rest on the nature of the accomplishment; and d. life isn’t about what you do but who you are…or is it the other way around?

I’m not discounting any of those becauses, just saying—sometimes getting to the end of something is fine, the only outcome you should hope for. Every once in a while quality doesn’t matter.

As a runner, I always found it odd to stand in the finish area and watch the people who finished early in the race and the people who finished late. Later finishers looked like they had gone rounds and rounds with multiple heavyweight boxers working in tandem. Their faces were vividly fatigued and even more vividly relieved. Meanwhile, runners who finished early pranced about like skittish ponies, just out of a shower and still anxious to prove how much fire remained in them.

Who worked harder? Who really raced?

If you follow my blog—if anyone really follows my blog—you know that for the last week or so, I’ve been writing a crown of haiku sonnets. The haiku sonnet is four haiku followed by two lines of five syllables (or one of seven and one of five) to make up the fourteen lines. Sometimes the form feels like one of the straight-jackets in my closet, and sometimes it seems stuck between west and east, between reason and the desire just to be.

I’m never sure it’s working.

A crown is even harder to judge. It links seven sonnets, each one (after the first) taking as its first line the last line of the previous sonnet. The last sonnet uses the first line of the whole crown as its last line. Hence the crown—it’s a ring.

If you are confused, check it out tomorrow.

Anyway, I finish tomorrow. I’ve written the last sonnet—I’m just waiting to post it. And, at least right now, I’m ignoring my debate over the dubious artistry of filling in poetic forms. East and west have reached a momentary detente. I’ve put aside misgivings about formalism or sentimentality.

More succinctly, I don’t care. I don’t care how good the poems are or whether the piece as a whole is worthy. It could be a crumpled foil hat inlaid with gumball jewels. I can’t care right now.

I’m satisfied with having reached the end, and holding judgement at bay is such a relief. I’m swimming in the clean water of completion and not fretting about what’s next.

It’s like finishing a race, before you know your time. It’s spotless satisfaction.