When days were sunny
For all around you
Smiling through drops of tears
When brown eyes promised
Morning arias
But Fado at sunset
Walking that quiet walk
Of no return
Upon fallen leaves
And broken wings
And with the last train
Remembering the first station
The dance between drops of rain
And keep walking
That quiet walk
In gratitude
August 12, 2023
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023
Night trains
And the goodbye dance
Promises
No one believes
Just a few steps
In silence before the whistle
Night trains
And the farewell
Lonely
Walk
July 14, 2023
© Vahé Kazandian, 2023
If I left
My cup still full
It was because
I kept my lips
Upon its rim
For a while
If I left
My words silent
I kept them as a poem
On the pages
Of time
For all
Times
If I left
I kept of my stay
The reason why
All fires
Become dormant
But their amber
Remains
July 4, 2023
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023
It is the 4th of July weekend, and there
are gatherings all around town. A friend invited me to meet his neighbors over
food and celebration.
Since I did not know most of the attendees, he
introduced me as “a man who has criss-crossed
the continents and lived in more than half a dozen countries.” And soon I
was asked “where did you live for the longest time?”
Having been asked this question before, I knew there
was no good way of avoiding further questions, no matter what my answer was. So
I tried a new approach:
“I have inhabited my own self all my life”
And to my surprise, everyone was a bit puzzled, did
not follow-up on my response, and we went on to talk about what we do in the
High Desert of Arizona.
On the way back, I wondered why I chose the answer I
gave. After all, don’t we all “inhabit our own selves”? Or do we?
To my delight, this simple moment made me think of
the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdock (1919-1999) and her writings about
the arts and love. Most à propos to my thinking about the “self” was her definition
of love (and the arts) as the act of “unselfing”.
So, I took my dog for a walk then sat down to read
some of her essays and refresh my memory.
… I learned about “stream of consciousness” through a psychology class when Alexander Bain, the Scottish philosopher, was introduced. He cornered the term in 1855 almost four decades before William James, the father of American Psychology, used Bain’s definition to describe how we organize the stream of thoughts when we are aware (conscious) of these thoughts.
Years later, I discovered that Virginia Woolf had pioneered
the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative mode to depict the plethora of thoughts and feelings
which pass through the mind of a narrator. In the process of learning more about the use
of a unifying concept in psychology and literature I was surprised to that “stream
of consciousness” was not first proposed by Bain, nor James, but by Daniel
Oliver, a physician and academic from New England, in 1835 in First Lines of Physiology: Designed for the
Use of Students of Medicine. He wrote:
If
we separate from this mingled and moving stream of consciousness, our
sensations and volitions, which are constantly giving it a new direction, and
suffer it to pursue its own spontaneous course, it will appear, upon
examination, that this, instead of being wholly fortuitous and uncertain, is
determined by certain fixed laws of thought, which are collectively termed the
association of ideas”
Finally, it was through my readings about
Virginia Woolf that I learned about Iris Murdoch, and through analysis of my
own stream of consciousness, realised how her describing beauty and art as “an
occasion for unselfing” and love as
the act of unselfing, had influenced my behavior as a health care professional
and an artist.
… So, should I have responded to the question “where
did you live for the longest time?” by “I inhabited my own self all my life,
yet my most glorious memories are those when I unselfed”?
I will try that next time the opportunity
presents.
July 1, 2023
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023
PS/ I took this street photo in Paris. It is one
that I have not published given its poor quality, but somehow I felt it now
fits well with the concept of “stream of consciousness.”
As if the old in all of us
On a rainy August morning
Walked away from the window
Which looked over to a brick wall
Held together
By the courtesy
Of frigid
Time
And left unturned the single bed where every spring
Still recalls the dreams and lonesome turns
Framed by walls where black and white moments remain
On warped paper, hanging on nails
To look over
Of the old in us
Listening
To the
Springs
A Meerschaum pipe and a bottle of Grappa
Next to the bed
Glow in the morning rays
That bounces upon the brick wall
For a short while, to start each day
For the old of us to leaf
Through a poetry
book
And recite
Aloud
Ja
ma armastan Sind, sest
Or
Ho
bisogno di poesia,
Questa magia che brucia la
Pesantezza delle parole
And
End in a murmur
With lines once whispered alone
Under a bridge
C’est la grâce
tremblante
à la force
appuyée,
C’est ta main
dans ma main
doucement
oubliée
June 25, 2023
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023
May was Lily of the Valley month. It is a flowering
plant I like as it is very hardy and can be found in various environments,
including the harsh ecosystem of deserts.
I also like the lily because of many references in
the literature about its unassuming yet inviting flowers compared to the more
flamboyant rose, which has captured the imagination of every poet who used a
flower as a metonym for a feeling, such a passion, love, sorrow or dependency. My favorite descriptions of the lily of the
valley flowers come from Germanic legend and mythology. Indeed in Christian
legend, Eve's tears are said to have turned into lilies of the valley as she and
Adam were expelled from the Garden of Eden. And in Old Norse mythology, these flowers
have symbolised the purity and humility of the virgin goddess Ostara, who
transformed a bird whose wings were
frozen into a hare, so a bird that cannot fly can still live by hopping.
Among many uses of the rose and lily comparison in
poetry, I have often returned to the rather simple words of Victorian poet
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894).
The lily has a smooth stalk,
Will never hurt your hand;
But the rose upon her brier
is lady of the land.
Yet, the “lady
of the land” is dangerous through her thorns. Perhaps Rossetti reminds us
that sweetness and passion, when concomitant, have to be handled with care.
But almost a century before Rossetti, another famous
English poet, William Blake, used the rose and the lily to tackle dimensions of
love such as passion, loyalty, strength and purity.
In 1794 Blake included the poem “The Lily” in his
collection of Songs of Experience. Here is one stanza reminding us of
Rossetti’s poem:
The
modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The
humble sheep a threat'ning horn:
While
the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor
a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.
So, using flowers to personify human (animal?) feelings and behaviour is a lovely strategy to convey both visual and philosophical guidance.
Growing up, one of the metaphors my father used was
“The best flowers grow next to the outhouse door”
to prepare me for optimism regarding the challenges
of life.
… So May is Lily of the Valley month, reminding us
of humility, resilience and beauty.
June 15, 2023
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023
If I show you the steps would you watch me dance?
I did not like to watch steps, but just let the dance guide me. And often, the serpentine path I found ahead of me, I did not follow. Perhaps I knew where it ended. Where all paths eventually get out of breath, a place with no foot prints.
If I whistle would you hear the summer rain?
Watching the window glass run tears reminds me, still, of August rains. And also of the exhale from asphalt roads, dirt paths, and angry seas. To listen again how quiet those tears once were; and how a lonely walk in narrow streets ended under balconies to shelter from hearing the whistle.
If I give you the steps, would you dance?
Steps make a dance predictable. A dance should be a reflection of the moment, not a prescription. Kazantzakis best described it for all the inner Zorbas in us when Basil asked Zorba “Teach me to dance” – he was actually asking "Teach me how to find myself." “Teach me to live.”
The dance on that Greek island beach had nothing to do with dancing. It was a Sufi moment of exploration.
If I watch you dance, would you remember to stay still?
If I dance, I will hear the music. But when I stay still, I only hear myself. It is like sitting atop a wall to hear the ocean. Eventually, one forgets the waves.
And if I change the steps, would you gently get up and dance alone when you hear the summer rain, again?
All dances are lonely; all dancing is to end up alone. They repeat themselves softly to become one with rain, wind and memories.
All dancing shapes our steps to become a personal search. And then, we remember a summer rain and we forget the steps. We just improvise.
June 6, 2023
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023
