Five Lines / Issue 19
Knives and axes, crosses and lilies, and the trouble with old friends.
Hello friends. This is the Five Lines curated poetry letter, in which I share poetic stuff I’ve discovered and why it matters to me. Five Lines is, like everything else here at Tethered Letters, AI-free.
1. "And I see: Pound was an axe, / Chen was an axe, I am an axe"
"Axe Handles"
Gary Snyder
One afternoon the last week in April
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own.
A broken-off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working hatchet, to the wood block.
There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
"When making an axe handle
the pattern is not far off."
And I say this to Kai
"Look: We'll shape the handle
By checking the handle
Of the axe we cut with—"
And he sees. And I hear it again:
It's in Lu Ji's Wên Fu, fourth century
A.D. "Essay on Literature"-—in the
Preface: "In making the handle
Of an axe
By cutting wood with an axe
The model is indeed near at hand."
My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen
Translated that and taught it years ago
And I see: Pound was an axe,
Chen was an axe, I am an axe
And my son a handle, soon
To be shaping again, model
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on.
I haven't read much of Gary's work, but from the little I've had the pleasure of enjoying, it seems to me that he is an observer in the best sense of the word. He looks at things with interest, and then he looks again, and again, because he's learned that looking at something once and briefly doesn't mean you see it. In fact, it probably means you didn't see it at all. It's a long tradition in Eastern and Eastern-influenced poetry, to let what you see soak into you, to let it change you instead of looking past it to what you can transform it into, for your own purposes and pleasure. And as you can tell from this poem, Gary has not a little Eastern influence in his poetry.
The simplicity of Eastern poetic forms like the haibun, tanka, sijo, haiku, etc. is often overlooked by amateur poets attempting to use them in favor of syllable count or a nature focus. I'm guilty of it myself. But there is something deeply moving about a poet calling forth something he or she sees as it is. It feels starkly honest, and I'm not sure I expected anything less from a poet who has spent swaths of time listening and logging (literally, he was a logger at one point).
One could read this poem as a series of footnotes, which is why when Gary drives the metaphor home it echoes in our ears. He places us this way, roots us in something bigger than ourselves, reminds us of our smallness, and offers us a path forward (generosity), all in one blow. The fact that the blow is effective, however, has largely to do with the practiced swing that led to it.
2. “I don't know him / now, if I ever did, but I know / the set of his jaw,”
old friends
Chris WheelerI recognize
the jut of his jaw
from when we were children,
when he requested "Take Time
to Be Holy" at the hymn-sing
in their living room.
I wondered
why anyone would enjoy singing
such a song, young as I was
and more interested in crushing
on his sister, who even then
was being abused
by their father and none of us knew
(or did we? I was nine
and the house felt dark and cold...)
But I know it now
and I knew it when I heard him
years later in passing
insist, if it were up to him, on the Old
Testament law that rapists
should be stoned.
Now we have sinned and grown old,
having passed through waters
we didn't understand, or couldn't
and I see the fight still in him
as he catches his neighbor
in sin, the clench of his fist around a rock
and I don't know him
now, if I ever did, but I know
the set of his jaw,
the glint in his eye that could cleave
the scalp from a skull.
And too, I see the fight in her
as she makes a new life
in the Jesus we sang of
back in that cold house
and I wonder what it might be like
to live with the memory
of hating someone
and to let that hatred
go.
One of the troubling things about coming back home after many years is how different everyone is. You encounter old friends and acquaintances and you don't recognize them for all the change that has occurred. Whole lives have been lived in the meantime, and so much of what we know of those we grew up with has shifted with new information. Sometimes this is a joy. Sometimes, not so much. Sometimes, the hardest things people went through crystallize them.
I'm haunted by the juxtaposition of our present selves with our past selves, how inescapable it all is, even as we change so drastically. We run and hide from our pasts, but only when we truly face them do we have any clear hope of escaping their dominance in our lives.
I think one of my greatest fears might be such a hardening taking hold in my own heart. This poem, as such, is an exercise in tenderness for me, of turning from hate even when it's deserved, of the work required to keep a soft heart beating in my chest instead of a heart of stone. I've seen people who went through their own personal hells display courage and hope and forgiveness that should shame all of us onlookers who are thirsty for blood. I want that kind of love.
3. “‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee; / I crucified thee.”
"Ah Holy Jesus"
Johann Heerman
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,
that we to judge thee have in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by thine own rejected,
O most afflicted!
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.
Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
the slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered.
For our atonement, while we nothing heeded,
God interceded.
For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation,
thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation;
thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,
for my salvation.
Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,
I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee,
think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,
not my deserving.
We are singing this lament as a family this month. Come to find out — the tune was written directly for Heermann's poetry, which somehow maintains an uncanny union with the melody even after translation from the original German.
I found this explanation of the music to be illuminating:
"The form of the tune is peculiar, with three melodic ideas of four measures each and a final phrase of two measures. The first melodic idea ends in an incomplete way, as if asking a question. The second melodic idea seems to answer the question, but, because it changes mode (from the minor of the first phrase to major), the answer is really not the expected one. The third melodic idea also ends in an incomplete way. Closure, then, is left to the last short phrase, making it poignant and decisive."
That last short phrase consists of only five syllables (as opposed to the 11 of every other line), with only the middle one stressed. This structure applies a uniquely powerful emphasis to each stanza's final line. Imagine if those final lines were 11 syllables like all the rest. The drama and emotion of the hymn would be neutered. As it stands now, each final line acts like the final pounds of a hammer on a nail. The form of the poetry emphasizes the subject it presents.
The question and answer format of the first two stanzas (rhetorical as those questions may be) heightens the wrongness of a faultless Savior dying for His own killers. The lines here keen and wail; they strip back any self-made salvation we might have hoped for. There is no looking away from this. There is only a deep grief over our sin, and a deep adoration of our God.
4. "I carefully learned the exact / place to cut the joints so the bones separate easily."
"The Knife Wearer"
Lois Red Elk
This morning we found ourselves skinning a deer,
cutting meat, hanging some to dry and packaging
some for the freezer. It was the dogs late last night
that set off a howling, the unexpected smell of fresh
blood floating down the block, then a familiar car
horn honking in the driveway. My nephew and his
friends were hunting and brought us a deer. Mother
always said, “Cut up the meat right away, don’t let
it sit.” I look at a front quarter, a hole filled with
coagulated blood. Grandma says not to eat the part
next to the wound, “Cut it out; offer it to the earth for
healing, a sacrifice to remember the hungering spirits.”
Auntie says to save the muscle along the back strap,
“It makes good thread.” I carefully learned the exact
place to cut the joints so the bones separate easily.
Mother said that is important—“It means you are a
thoughtful person.” Auntie is at the door waiting for
a roast. “An elder takes the first piece,” she reminded.
Mom tells me to save the hooves for her. She wants
to make a bone game for the new grandchild, wants
him to be patient and skillful. I boil the hoofs with
sage, find the little toe-bones for her. My hands begin
to ache from the work, I soak them in warm water
and start again. I admire the placement of tendons
on the deer shoulders, no joints, just the crisscrossing
of muscle. Grandma says, “That’s why your dad called
them jumpers, they bounce off the strength of their
flexing muscles.” Late at night Mom helps me stake
out the hide. My back hurts; my feet feel like I’ve
been walking on rocks all day. I want to complain,
but Mom catches the look in my eyes. She says to me,
“When you get dressed for the dance this weekend,
you will proudly wear your beautiful beaded dress,
your beaded leggings and moccasins, and last, but not
least, you will put on your beaded belt, and attached
you will wear your sharp knife and quilled knife sheath
because of what you have done this day.”
In the same vein as Gary's poem, Lois offers us a window into learning how to butcher a deer. Instead of footnotes of other poets, however, we receive an oral history of the process, accumulated wisdom in the form of "so-and-so says..."
Here, what Lois receives (and what we receive through her poetry) is not merely transmission of information, it's an entire cultural ethos — from how one family's butchering of a deer benefits the whole community, to the virtues bestowed upon those involved, to the usefulness and value of each piece, to the respect given to the slain animal as a once-living thing. The process is time-consuming, painful, complex. It is a rite of passage, a doorway. It changes the poet, and because she communicates the particulars of the event thoroughly and simply, we find ourselves opening up to the change as well.
We lose so much when we rely on only ourselves and serve only ourselves. Our American emphasis on individuality at the expense of the community may be one of the most devastating parts of our culture. We can learn much from poets like Lois and Gary, who steep themselves in wider pools of poetic and cultural wisdom. This sort of poetry doesn't require layers of meaning to be profound. It does, however, require layers of life.
5. "And in close darkness the aroma grows so sweet, / so strong, that it could slice me open."
"Cut Lilies"
Noah Warren
More than a hundred dollars of them.
It was pure folly. I had to find more glass things to stuff
them in.
Now a white and purple cloud is breathing in each corner
of the room I love. Now a mass of flowers spills down my
dining table—
each fresh-faced, extending delicate leaves
into the crush. Didn't I watch
children shuffle strictly in line, cradle
candles that dribbled hot white on their fingers,
chanting Latin—just to fashion Sevilla's Easter? Wasn't I sad?
Didn't I use to
go mucking through streambeds with the skunk cabbage
raising
bursting violet spears?—Look, the afternoon dies
as night begins in the heart of the lilies and smokes up
their fluted throats until it fills the room
and my lights have to be not switched on.
And in close darkness the aroma grows so sweet,
so strong, that it could slice me open. It does.
I know I'm not the only one whose life is a conditional clause
hanging from something to do with spring and one tall room
and the tremble of my phone.
I'm not the only one that love makes feel like a dozen
flapping bedsheets being ripped to prayer flags by the wind.
When I stand in full sun I feel I have been falling headfirst for
decades.
God, I am so transparent.
So light.
I feel like this poem is the collision of a lot of disparate ideas from this compilation of poetry — axes, blood, pasts and presents, propitiation. Noah offers us a picture of something so lavish and potent that its very presence cuts you open. There's a lot of things like that, things like beauty, awe, nostalgia, love, resurrection. They don't need to physically wield a sharp object to do the deed. They just need to brush up against you, or fill the air with their scent.
Noah does something here which I always love whenever I encounter it in a poem. He leaps from image to image, past to present, touching them lightly before moving on, circling back, as if the pieces he is trying to put together are shards of glass and you have to be careful with them. And as he nudges them closer to each other, an idea of the whole becomes clearer — of the fragile nature of childhood and relationships and beauty, of the deep beauty and power of it all despite its fragility.
It was fascinating to read some comments on a recent poem of mine that
But I do think sometimes we want a poem to mean something so much that we miss our enjoyment of it. I see threads in Noah's poem everywhere, a tapestry that speaks to me of Someone Higher spinning it together. I can't tie it all together, and maybe, neither can Noah. But the feeling we're left with at the end glows with meaning, and I don't think we need to understand it all to be sliced open by it.
That’s all for today, friends. Thoughts? Any lines you’ve loved lately? Send them my way. — Chris
Thank you for the time and soul you put into this. I am better for the reading and feel less like a dry riverbed.
I look forward to these letters and try to find a few quiet moments to read them when I can.