Your voice is a real
thing. Say what you will about
waves and amplitude,
you can’t question sound.
Consider insects, the way
they know who is where—
some heat greater than
the air, even when every
surface is sun-charged
and hot with fire-life.
We could be collecting all
we don’t know. Instead
we build nests of books,
hoping for a home.
*This haiku sonnet is the fourth of seven in a crown of sonnets that began with “Meeting at the Beach,” “Hidden,” “The Repairman,” and “Insomnia.” You can find the whole crown under construction and in the proper sequence under “Summer Crown.”
Filed under: Aesthetics, Haiku, Haiku Sonnets, Hope, Human Nature, Insects, Knowledge, Life, Literature, Memory, Nature, Poetry, Science, Science and Art, Sonnets, Thoughts, Writing
“We could be collecting all
we don’t know. Instead
we build nests of books,
hoping for a home.”
A truth, I think, of living as we do in a culture that is obsessed with facts, scientific and quantifyable certainty. But for sure the home-nest is a place where one can also collect what we don’t know about, and make up all kinds of plausible, fanciful stories to explain those things we are ignorant of. The role of Myth is what i’m thinking of, particularly how it enriches and rounds out life, which might be pretty dull, indeed, if made up only of information that we felt was true, consistently and factually verifiable. Watching men in space-suits bouncing around on the surface of the moon, back decades ago as shown on my TV screen was one of moment of huge disappointment for me. I still insist on seeing the Man in the Moon every time I look at a clear night sky and see the moon hanging above the earth. Knowing is good, but unknowing also feels right.
I like books and I like what you’ve said, especially the vision of the “home-nest” as “a place where one can also collect what we don’t know about, and make up all kinds of plausible, fanciful stories to explain those things we are ignorant of.” I didn’t mean the nest of books to be so prejorative (maybe it’s the “instead”?) but more of an alternative or, at least, an ambiguity. We sense so much more than we know, and that’s in those books too. Personally, I think books are likely the closest we have come to artificial intelligence, full of quirky, human answers and half-answers.
Of course you can question sound, especially if you are going to reduce it to waves and amplitude. We could question everything, even whether some questions can be answered at all. As Plato suggested in the Thamus /Theuth story in Phaedrus, books can be a sort of security blanket for us—we say “I have it here somewhere” instead of looking or remembering—but, as you suggest, they can also be a repository of mysteries. Like everything else, there may be more to creating those nests of books than we may recognize.
I’ve got to find a way to get that in there more vividly. Thanks for reading so closely! —D
There is no other proof of your existence but this, the sounds that you hear, always, every sound ever alive in the tremor of the tiny bones hidden in your head. Imagine that, the slightest of vibrations creating all this clamour of life which never stops, is always warm and slow, fast and hot and though you may close your eyes you may never close your ears, not even in sleep wherein sounds will form the matter of your dreams.
Sight overpowers all the other senses, not just hearing but smell, through which we might know more than we can know or say.
Your comment is beautiful. I’m not at all sure my little poem stands up to it! —D
You are really making progress. I went to the Summer Crown page, too, and read them in sequence. I like how these words fit together. I like repeating them:
Consider insects, the way
they know who is where—
some heat greater than
the air
Hope I didn’t break your structure too much to leave off the latter portion of the line. I like following your process. Beautiful.
I’m thinking about writing about the process when I finish. I don’t want to explain the poems, as anything anyone might learn from my explanation may not be there in the first place. Talking about composition, however—what kinds of things I think about and struggle with during construction—could be fun… and might be interesting to hear about.
I love the way you quote the lines you like in your comments. Though haiku are not a verbal form (Robert Haas once said listening to haiku was like being pecked to death by goldfish), I think about what they might sound like read aloud. Maybe if there was some “palate cleanser” between each one—a tiny cup of sherbet, a sleigh bell, a mild electric shock?—that might work. Thanks for your comment. —D
Great line by Haas. I like your description of palate cleanser before each haiku. The sleigh bell works for me. I probably break every rule there is when it comes to writing of any kind. I read them aloud. And silently. It’s good for me to know about the proper form. To hear about your process with the Summer Crown, your struggles and triumphs, would be fascinating. I hope you’ll write about it.
Oh no, I see now that I misspelled Robert Hass’ name!
I probably will write about the crown, at least in an oblique way, but my first attempt wasn’t very successful. It’s awkward to talk about your own work. I don’t know how directors do those bonus tracks on DVD—it never feels quite right to me to say what you were trying to do. Either you did it or you didn’t, and you’re saying so is unlikely to accomplish what you set out to do. —D