Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Off the Road to Abiqiu

The following poem and prose are part of a much longer piece.
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After five years without a vacation or holiday, working as a consultant - mostly working though fearful of one job ending and not finding another for months - I decided to take a Thanksgiving week and recharge my batteries. I wanted complete isolation, as far away from work as I could get, as well as my family. This wasn't fair to them, but I knew that if I didn't find some sense of peace I couldn't be a good father or husband either. My marriage was already on the rocks that it would eventually shipwreck on.

I also wanted to come to terms with spiritual realities that I said I lived by, the Christian way of life and its meaning. I'd converted to Christianity out of nihilism, and I wanted to live that life for a while that Catholicism said was the spiritual goal of life: complete and utter adoration of God.

The perfect place for this was Christ in the Desert Monastery, a place I'd visited with a former girlfriend's father, a staunch Catholic of the old school. I'd been back once before with a friend, a devotee of Sai Baba, who'd turned against the guru and who was then exploring other spiritual traditions.

Remote, without access to power lines, telephone or easy to drive roads, the monastery was the place of my dreams to escape to or at least to retreat to. Run by the Benedictine monastic order, it was set up for just such spiritual renewals. I could attend liturgy seven times a day, mass once, and sing ancient Gregorian chants originating from the earliest days of Christian devotion.

The following poem is a fruit of that stay in the desert.
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Off the road to Abiqiu,
the mud ruts run
to the monastery
where an unseen bell
rings from the aspen tree.

Black birds rise
above desert meadows
as dawn light inscribes
the geology of time
in red, orange
and grey cliff strata
across the river.

In the first part of the poem, I write of the aspen tree in the cold cold desert wind ripping down the muddy river's valley. When I arrived an early snow storm had turned the road to almost impassable mud. Cars of other people headed to the monastery got stuck and had to be pulled out by the monks in their four wheel drive.

I recall the bell that rang the seven Hours of the canonical day, calling monks and visitors to prayer in the chapel up a dark path at night. For me, that bell seemed to ring somewhere else, a different reality, hence its likeness to the beautiful aspen that turns golden that time of year. Certainly that pure clarity of the bell contrasted sharply with the jaded imagination that I carried with me into the chapel. Jaded by the workaday world, yes, but jaded also by many years of doing things I had not yet fully understood why I did them or what they meant.

Invoking geological time in the poem, I hope remember the ghosts of eras and aeons that stand outside human time. This objective time that stands impassive to the lives of individual awareness. That time with its fossils that can confirm a past easily touched, tasted, heard and tested in the books that some might use to prove once and for all that we are dust, only dust.

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This was written as part of a prompt at the dVersePoets poetry blog

(c) copyright 2012 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

30 comments:

  1. first, i am envious a bit....i spent a week in a monastery in pittsburgh...your neck of the woods...or at least state...and as close to one i guess as you will get but...the isolation was def worth it...there was a time i considered this life honestly...i like your thoughts on the bell and the aspen...that that last para as well on tapping into that time gone by...dust, yes we are...

    i really hope i did not screw this up charles...i wrote a second poem explainging and expounding on my subjest poem....lol....ugh....

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  2. Really beautiful, Charles. I would love to experience that.

    I guess I'll have to go back and do some explaining in mine (it'll have to be later, going to get kids), although I was hoping the reader would be able to tell what the background is.

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  3. i love the line..." an unseen bell rings from the aspen tree"...
    that gives me an internal picture of this place that you were at....great!

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  4. Your poem reminds me of some of those written by Leonard Cohen while he was on retreat.

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  5. I do tend to think we can only find and be close to God in the stillness. It's when we surrender all 'ego' and will and simply ...be.
    This is lovely Charles and, I can see why you would think that of the bell. The imagery you've used is beautiful.

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  6. last november i fled as well..not to a monastery but to brighton...reason was the same..needed some off-time..think those times are important and having the opportunity to spend them in a monastery is gorgeous...love the poem it inspired and love your background you give us... wondering if mine really fits the prompts...wrote a poem to explain a poem...tried something else..but somehow i always end up with poetry...ugh..

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  7. Wonderful poem - great story behind the words. I wanted to do that whole monastery "get away from it all" thing, but I couldn't find one with a wi-fi hotspot.

    The search continues...

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  8. Beautiful.
    Your analysis helped to tie in the Unseen Bell of time with the geological strata of "seen" time.

    Thanks for this prompt. I've been thinking a lot about the myriad ways poetry can be interpreted. Sometimes it's good to know exactly what the poet meant; other times it's more meaningful to see what comes out of the reader's own reflection.

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  9. Hi Chaz, I respect your journey greatly. I wrote a 'kind of, sort of' poem today which i would not have written if not for your prompt. I thank you for your prompt. It made me think about my life these past few days...and something was written that otherwise would not have been.

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  10. This is beautiful. I had been to Abiqiu and on the dirt road along the river, before the White Place, there is a mosque. It quietly tucks into the landscape.

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  11. Beautiful poem... to have had such a journey and retreat from the world and all its imposing devices would be wonderful.

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  12. Beautiful and a powerful inspiration. I am still looking for my spiritual path.

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  13. Your thoughtful introduction and post-poem reflections do add a dimension and a depth to a very simple and straightforward, almost oriental short poem of nature, on the surface. By reading where it came from, I too can feel a bit of the cold wind, remember my own insignificance in the ceaseless wheeling of time...I think when we are closest to breaking, that need to crawl off like an injured animal to someplace alone, apart from all who might ask what we can't at the moment give, is a deep and driving instinct, and a path to sanity and balance. thanks for sharing this, Charles, and for your provocative and challenging prompt today.

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  14. Very nice. I love all the back stories I'm getting to read today and your journey is no exception ... as someone else mentioned, it reminds me too a bit of Leonard Cohen's long sojourn to Mt. Baldy. I think I may be destined to be a forever seeker ... I've been fortunate enough to be on several retreats and admire immensely the quietude and peace found there; I envy those whose profound faith seems to answer all their questions or at least comfort them enough to grapple with the questions ... it is an amazing thing. Lovely poem.

    http://aleapingelephant.blogspot.com/2012/03/closest-to-edge.html

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    1. Thank you, SE, for commenting. This entry is part of a longer poem. Though the first two stanazas start with apparent tranquility, the rest is less sanguine. Your remarks about seeking answers always will remain true for me too. Life is not as easy as a week-long retreat.

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  15. This speaks to the deepest part of me, Charles. One of the reasons I left religious life was that I was in an order that hurled me into so many secular/regulatory demands and it was so hard to balance with the contemplative life. I was happiest during my yearly 8-day retreats and the year I spent in France in a monastic setting. Over the years, I still struggle with reconciling the active/contemplative aspects of living. Poetry oftens serves as my monastery now. Thank you for a splendid prompt.

    I linked the wrong poem today, so have added another link with the one that I added process notes to. Sorry.

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  16. Thank you for the insight your explanation gave into your beautiful poem. You have certainly fulfilled your own prompt!

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  17. When I was in high school I traveled once with my father from Chicago to a Benedictine monestary in Three Rivers, Michigan, staying there for a long weekend of silence, Bible-reading and prayer (I was then a Christian). The sense of hiatus and immersion into the rigors of monestary life, getting up at 4 a.m for matins in an incense-scented chapel, some of the brothers singing, others strict in their vow of silence: Could I do this? I wondered, half in and out of the devoted life. (I mean, I was 16, had just started drinking Scotch with my father and still hadn't gotten laid.) Never returned, though my early-day writing is taken greatly from monastic life. Dante's quest for love in La Vita Nuova led to Beatrice by way of a bunch of sonnets and then a dive down through Hell, reaching her animating presence on the far side of Paradise. Every poem marks the passage in one way and in another makes the entire transit from its beginning to end. It's all a love song, isn't it? Of the soul to its Beloved, be that figure God, Literature or the internal paramour Hedgewitch sometimes sings to. Your parentheticals before and after the poem show the road into and out from the poem and certainly give vital subtext; I would have wanted more of that water in the poem itself. A sharp image, but not a lot of reflection. Will you post the larger poem sometime for us? - Brendan

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  18. Wow! Sounds like an awesome experience. I'd be interested to know its effects on you, and how its impacted the following years of your life; I would think it had to. Based on the poem, I'd guess you were in the right frame of mind as you approached the experience. Very thought-provoking piece, Charles!
    http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/hes-aggravatin-2/

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  19. The realization only comes to a select few. You are one of the chosen few, Charles! The satisfaction and the fulfillment must have shaped a better view of life from then on. A beautiful verse!

    Hank

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  20. A vivid and lasting experience, obviously. Well conveyed. Thank you for sharing it via such a delightful poem.

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  21. The introduction and background you provide here just intensifies the emotional and honest words you have penned. I just find it amazing, beautiful, that we all share these internal and external struggles- that we seek solace- something to help us deal with the lifes questions and tribulations. I loved this piece of your poem- such power in such short forms and stanzas. This is real life right here...captured in an image, a description- your heart and soul.

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  22. Sorry I am late to the prompt and commenting so there will be some here that's been said. I agree with Brendan that I wanted more of the poem (what's there feels finely wrought and I left it hoping for another verse or two). You successfully infuse the poetry with the thoughts and experiences leading up to it hence it blossoms with layers of meaning. You leave 'imaginative space' for the reader, both in your notes and the poem which I deeply appreciate.

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    1. Thank you for your reply. This is part of a much longer poem, which I haven't integrated yet with prose narrative.

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  23. Thank you again for the prompt. I am amused to read several of the comments where the writers aren't sure whether they did it correctly, as I know they read my blog where I say frequently: There is no wrong way.
    I have enjoyed everyone's 'way'. So much to like in your poem. Love the simple, yet vivid, description of the strata

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  24. Hi Charles-- since yesterday I've been swimming in your essay and my response. Your poem is beautiful. I was born in New Mexico and have forever been pulled in one way by its desolation and another way by the richness of history, culture and time-- a gorgeous homage to your pilgrimage. xxxj mine's up per usual at http://parolavivace.blogspot.com . xj

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  25. Hi Charles--a lovely poem. I have to say I find the exercise interesting, but I really don't like knowing all of the backdrop of a poem! I find that it directs the poem so much for me that it is much harder for me just to appreciate the poem as poem! That said--your experience is beautifully told-=and the poem is lovely.

    K.

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  26. Charles--I know what my problem was before--your url on my blog was a link to a wordpress Metnoeticpoetics, not this blogspot one, and the wordpress one is hard to open. Its last post is david smith on roof. I'm not sure how it relates to your blogger blog. K.

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  27. We all should take that pilgrimage of spirit...this was beautifully written in poem and explanation.

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