Summer Farm

Henry Mosler

Summer Farm 


Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass
And hang zigzag on hedges. Green as glass
The water in the horse-trough shines.
Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.
A hen stares at nothing with one eye,
Then picks it up. Out of an empty sky
A swallow falls and, flickering through
The barn, dives up again into the dizzy blue.
I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,
Afraid of where a thought might take me – as
This grasshopper with plated face
Unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.
Self under self, a pile of selves I stand
Threaded on time, and with metaphysic hand
Lift the farm like a lid and see
Farm within farm, and in the centre, me.

Norman McCaig 


“Threaded on time…” A pile of selves. Ha! Interesting. Also the idea of lifting a lid and looking down into the scene. Maybe we should be afraid of where our thoughts might take us! Or maybe we just need more practice at it.

Who Shall Deliver Me?

Kai Samuel Davis

\

Who Shall Deliver Me?

God strengthen me to bear myself;

That heaviest weight of all to bear,

Inalienable weight of care.

All others are outside myself;

I lock my door and bar them out

The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.

I lock my door upon myself,

And bar them out; but who shall wall

Self from myself, most loathed of all?

If I could once lay down myself,

And start self-purged upon the race

That all must run ! Death runs apace.

If I could set aside myself,

And start with lightened heart upon

The road by all men overgone!

God harden me against myself,

This coward with pathetic voice

Who craves for ease and rest and joys:

Myself, arch-traitor to myself ;

My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,

My clog whatever road I go.

Yet One there is can curb myself,

Can roll the strangling load from me

Break off the yoke and set me free.

Christina Rossetti 

In spite of the regard I’m supposed to feel for myself, I am acutely aware of the weight of this “selfness”. It's cumbersome.  “ God strengthen me to bear myself”, if those aren’t honest words, I don’t know what are. 

 

Like the speaker of the poem, I can hold others off, barricade them out, wall off from the rest of the world; but inside that fortress is still the ever-present enemy. "If I could set aside myself, And start with lightened heart..." Yes, if only I could do that. How to break out of this inward-looking circle, this snake-biting-its-tail, this whirlpool of self-centredness that pulls me down and down. How?

 

 I'm not saying that it's bad to be me, I'm saying that it's miserable being stuck with me, being tied to being me, being tethered to this me-pole. Hardly any space to move, and no scope for expansion. 

 

What I'd like is to be able to let myself go. Cut the rope, open the door and let myself out. Like the speaker in the poem, there is only One I know who can help, who splits the snakeskin and allows me to breathe deep. 

 

But even so, Self tightens around me gradually, closes in, sits on my chest, and I'm back crying for a deliverer. It's a continuing process. 

 

However, each time I have grown, I have strengthened somewhat, I have stretched beyond the former boundaries. I am no longer the same. One day I hope for a full transformation. 

 

 

But for now, I'll have to take it one inch at a time.