|
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"I feel like I am in the service of the poem. The poem
isn't something I make. The poem is something I serve."
Born in New York City and educated at Princeton, Jane Hirshfield has lived in Northern California for the past twenty-five years. A student of Zen and a great woman poet of spirituality, love, and the natural world, she writes with plain reverence of the heart and mind, broadening our awareness of the rich currents of our daily life.
"The Poet"
She is working now, in a room
not unlike this one,
the one where I write, or you read.
Her table is covered with paper.
The light of the lamp would be
tempered by a shade, where the bulb's
single harshness might dissolve,
but it is not, she has taken it off.
Her poems? I will never know them,
though they are the ones I most need.
Even the alphabet she writes in
I cannot decipher. Her chair --
Let us imagine whether it is leather
or canvas, vinyl or wicker. Let her
have a chair, her shadeless lamp,
the table. Let one or two she loves
be in the next room. Let the door
be closed, the sleeping ones healthy.
Let her have time, and silence,
enough paper to make mistakes and go on.
"The Envoy"
One day in that room, a small rat.
Two days later, a snake.
Who, seeing me enter,
whipped the long stripe of his
body under the bed,
then curled like a docile house-pet.
I don't know how either came or left.
Later, the flashlight found nothing.
For a year I watched
as something -- terror? happiness? grief? --
entered and then left my body.
Not knowing how it came in,
Not knowing how it went out.
It hung where words could not reach it.
It slept where light could not go.
Its scent was neither snake nor rat,
neither sensualist nor ascetic.
There are openings in our lives
of which we know nothing.
Through them
the belled herds travel at will,
long-legged and thirsty, covered with foreign dust.
Which animals have signaled unknown openings in your life?
Questions
1. Why do you think the poet in "The Poet" prefers a shadeless lamp?
2. What else, besides "enough paper to make mistakes and go on," does the person writing about the poet in "The Poet" want her to have? Why?
3. What is an "envoy"? How does the small rat or snake of "The Envoy" open the way for the "belled" herds? Why are these herds "long-legged," "thirsty," and "covered with foreign dust"?
Activities
1. With a group, design and arrange, as if for the stage, the scene described in "The Poet." Take turns directing someone playing the poet. Take turns playing the poet. During rehearsals, decide how long each version of the play will be. Introduce each performance with a reading of the poem.
2. Create a mural presenting the experiences described in "The Envoy." Do this alone or with a group. If you do this with a group, consult first on the images everyone agrees should be part of the mural. Discuss how these images will relate to each other.
|
