There Were No Signs

Steven Outram

There Were No Signs

By walking I found out
Where I was going.

By intensely hating, how to love.
By loving, whom and what to love.

By grieving, how to laugh from the belly.
Out of infirmity, I have built strength.

Out of untruth, truth.
From hypocrisy, I wove directness.

Almost now I know who I am.
Almost I have the boldness to be that man.

Another step

And I shall be where I started from.

Irving Layton

“I carried with me poems.” (Remember that one by Gail Dusenbery? I posted it way back in March 2017.) Well, this poem I have carried with me from my teen years to today. I love everything about it. The title alone is full of layers and possibilities.  I read it now, and think of the person I used to be, the people I've met, the things that have happened, and the words feel more true than ever. We can’t prepare ourselves for the things we will face in life. I was not prepared! When I first came across the line, “By walking I found out/Where I was going.” it was a comfort.  To hear Layton say that knowing comes from experiencing, from living, from doing, helped me. Knowing that it is the going through that is the making of us is a relief. I don't have to know everything or anticipate every circumstance. Life will take me where it will, and growth will come as I go along. 

The Skylark

Steven Outram

The Skylark

A song alone

comes down - and of the skylark

the last trace is gone.

Ampu

from "An Introduction to Haiku: an anthology of poems and poets from Basho to Shiki" by Harold G. Henderson

 Haiku only seems simple. I know almost nothing about the tradition, but from the little that I’ve read I’ve learned that most significant thing of all - I know almost nothing. In the sense that there are worlds of expression to explore yet. For one thing, that a poem’s art might be in what is not said, or what is there but not said – that’s more what I mean. And the Japanese poets are dedicated students of this. It’s not merely distillation of a thought, it’s getting to that level of writing where each word is a door swinging open to a new place. When it comes to poetry, how many words are enough? Is it possible that what our words have lost is a sense of silence, of falling into depths beyond words? When I read this haiku – a translation, it’s important to remember (a thousand subtleties have been lost) – I hear so many different notes. Loss, loneliness, the song (what is that song - what does it signify?), the element of nature, nature as a foil for human destinies, the qualities of the skylark – the symbolic nature of the bird. And this is without knowing any of the cultural language code being employed. I know so little. I know beauty, though, when I hear it.