"SOLITUDE STANDING": THE SELF-INTERVIEW
Q--It's raining today. Dallas has been in one of the longest, most severe droughts since the 1950s. But we're glad you were able to make it to this interview. How are you today? To put it into the words of Tom Waits, what's your emotional weather report?
A--Emotional weather reports? That's quite an old cliche, don't you think? But it's true--to a certain extent. Our hearts speak to us in moods. Scientists have recently discovered, for instance, that the solar plexus, a knot of nerves located just above the heart, is a center of neural activity second only to the brain. Sometimes, I suspect it's even more important. Yet we live in a "brainy" time. The scientific rationalism of Newton and Bacon has reached what may be its apex. Our legal system, for example, is based upon reason. In fact, almost every aspect of our lives is consumed by reason, despite the insistence of some, especially feminists, that are advocating at least a partial return to what could be termed "unreason." I agree with these people. So many powerful human beings on this earth have completely disconnected themselves from mood. The power of instinct, it's sometimes believed, has been pushed into abeyance. I'm often a moody person. But the rain doesn't affect me that much. In fact, I really love the rain. Last night, at five a.m., thunder awakened me, and in my bed I literally tingled. Thunder is perhaps my favorite sound. Not that I really thunder that much. I remember my mother telling me that thunder was the sound of angels bowling in Heaven. I like to tell myself that thunder is the heartbeat of the Universal Mind, and I was alone with that heartbeat last night. BOOM! it said. But I could only peep my tiny human peep. I've been thinking about that today--how all our human concerns are so small in comparison with thunder.
Q--So. We start out this interview talking about the weather.
A--I had an epiphany six months ago. A friend of mine has a twice-yearly campout on his family's land outside of Hico, a tiny town on the cusp of Texas hill country. As the sunset was beginning, a number of us drug our lawn chairs to the edge of a cliff to watch. That glowing orb, cherry red, electrocuted the surrounding high clouds as it slowly dipped below the distant horizon. Beautiful enough. But what struck me was this huge cottonwood tree across the valley from us. It rose above the cedar bush and scrub, and its silver leaves, shining and reflecting the dying light, quivered in the wind. You had to be really still to even notice it. For me, the quivering leaves were a kind of vespers song. Celebrating the end of a day. How long had this been happening? How long had that tree been displaying its reverence with no one to notice? Of course, unlike us, the cottonwood cannot move. So what's its purpose? Yet, for some unknown reason, it was as if I had been chosen to witness this beautiful and intimate expression of the cottonwood. Perhaps that sounds silly. Back at the campground, it seemed as if the big goal of my friends was to get as messed up as humanly possible. At the campfire, I asked myself: What is it these people are chasing? The answer was resounding: Connection. These people, all of them lovely human beings, are desperately attempting to re-connect to Nature. And I'd been doing it too--for too long a time. I can't let myself forget that I live in a huge urban area. There's something like six million people all jammed together in a space a hundred miles from end to end. Nature has been pushed below the surface--except for parks. It's easy, then, for us to forget our emotional weather, so to speak. Did you hear that? It just thundered.
Q--How did this experience connect with your poetry?
A--Oh, that's easy! For several years, I've been writing about the distortions we experience as human creatures who have changed our environment to the point that our animal nature is opposed to our supposedly civilized nature. I don't care if you're the President of the United States, you're still an animal. You've got an animal experience that has been repressed. A lot of what happens in a white-collar business environment has something to do with learning to repress our animal natures according to various measures of decorum. Years ago, as a legal assistant at the largest law firm in the State of Texas, I participated in the largest Federal Trade Commission-related lawsuit in American history. I worked twelve-hours-a-day, I made plenty of money--pulling in something like $4,000 a month, a huge sum to a man who's lived his life in what used to be called voluntary simplicity--but in the end, although "our" firm won in a settlement, we managed to bankrupt the plaintiff, and two days before Christmas, 10,000 employees of the plaintiff's company suddenly were laid off. I felt horrible to be party to that. So I asked my supervisor what I should do to cope with it. She told me that I had to learn to become callous to the effects of my actions. I couldn't do that. The executive lawyers, of course, were operating according to their animal instincts, but they also had a lot of rationalizations they employed to justify their behavior. See? These are the distortions we create for ourselves because we've forced our animal natures out of the picture.
Recently, then, I've realized I need to restore my own connection to my animal nature. I've got to learn to listen all over again. As a poet, I've always fiercely defended my emotional vulnerability. But as we age, this vulnerability sometimes becomes more precarious--due to the school of hard knocks, that course regimen you just can't audit. Consequently, I've been watching clouds. I know that sounds stupid, but it's good therapy. As a kid I used to sit in this huge Elm tree in Denver, Colorado, watching billows of huge clouds pour over Mount Evans. Sometimes I wouldn't even come down for dinner. Perhaps I'm trying to reconnect to that child. And today, it's raining. How does the rain itself feel? What is its consciousness? Several supposedly renegade scientists are telling us that water does have a consciousness. I don't see why not. So how does the rain feel today? Silver. Rain today is silver. It's been relegated to second place behind all the gold in Dallas. But I also love silver. Silver is the shine in a woman's eyes. Silver is glare on glass. Silver has so many moods. I don't think I'm big enough to choose the mood of the rain today. I can only look on and enjoy it talking to me.
Q--This sounds a lot like Eastern Mysticism.
A--No. Not at all. Eastern Mysticism is like any other religion. I've got a couple of friends, both of them poets, who are Buddhists. One night, I sat in the back seat of a car, listening to them as if I was a child listening to my parents argue about the relative merits of Catholicism versus Episcopalianism. The one thing they agreed upon was that the Tibetan Buddhists have it all wrong. Christ! So what did we have there that night? A couple of Southern Baptist Buddhists? Saying that the Methodist Buddhists are dumb? Sure sounded like it to me. An old friend of mine called that behavior "dogma doo doo." But what I'm saying has more to do with ethology--the social behavior of animals. In Iraq, for example, we've got "dogma doo doo" turning into a civil war because the Southern Baptist Shiites are angry at the Cumberland Baptist Sunis and the Methodist Kurds. But this "dogma doo doo" is one of the distortions we encounter when we form civilizations. Civilization contains plenty of prerequisites in its gift-pack: We agree to certain rules in order to preserve domestic order. We've got traffic lights we agree to utilize in order to keep traffic from turning into chaos. The distortion arrives when we take this stuff on and let it consume us. And believe me: I've been consumed.
Q--How is that? Please explain yourself.
A--Oh, all these petty human concerns. We're concerned about money for one thing. We've let money consume us when money should be nothing more than a tool. And even standards of beauty--we let them consume us and drown out our ability to connect to one another. Sometimes we even let human-borne standards of beauty define us. If you're beautiful the way a model on television is beautiful then you're somehow more human than the rest of humanity. We let ideology consume us. I don't care if you're left or right, if you're following the rules of ideology, you're political beliefs are consuming you. That's what I'm trying to free myself of right now.
Q--And your poetry?
A--I've decided to return to a simpler, more embracing poetry. I've decided to cut it out with all the fancy footwork. I've been reading a biography of Soviet poet Anna Akhmatova, and her concepts of writing simple lines about simple human matters, describing simply the simple scenes of domestic life is something I think I can utilize in my poetry. I do have to divine where my animal nature comes into play there. And this can be difficult. This, as I've said, is merely an extension of what I've been thinking about for years. I'm not being anti-social however. I find nothing wrong with civilized society except insofar as it is consuming us. Technology is taking us over. It's like the movie, "I Robot." But...as you can see...we're utilizing technology right here. Yet think of how many people let this mere tool consume them. It's horrible.
Well, I think the rain is letting up a little. I've spoken my piece. One thing more, though. When you begin to re-connect with your animal nature, it's funny, but people begin to see you differently. You're out of synch with all their unconscious beliefs. Sometimes, such people find themselves even threatened by what they almost but not quite perceive about you. I think it's necessary to be charitable towards them. You know: humor them. But it is difficult sometimes. I don't think I'll ever be where I want to be with this, and I'm definitely not special by any means. But I am solitary.
A--Emotional weather reports? That's quite an old cliche, don't you think? But it's true--to a certain extent. Our hearts speak to us in moods. Scientists have recently discovered, for instance, that the solar plexus, a knot of nerves located just above the heart, is a center of neural activity second only to the brain. Sometimes, I suspect it's even more important. Yet we live in a "brainy" time. The scientific rationalism of Newton and Bacon has reached what may be its apex. Our legal system, for example, is based upon reason. In fact, almost every aspect of our lives is consumed by reason, despite the insistence of some, especially feminists, that are advocating at least a partial return to what could be termed "unreason." I agree with these people. So many powerful human beings on this earth have completely disconnected themselves from mood. The power of instinct, it's sometimes believed, has been pushed into abeyance. I'm often a moody person. But the rain doesn't affect me that much. In fact, I really love the rain. Last night, at five a.m., thunder awakened me, and in my bed I literally tingled. Thunder is perhaps my favorite sound. Not that I really thunder that much. I remember my mother telling me that thunder was the sound of angels bowling in Heaven. I like to tell myself that thunder is the heartbeat of the Universal Mind, and I was alone with that heartbeat last night. BOOM! it said. But I could only peep my tiny human peep. I've been thinking about that today--how all our human concerns are so small in comparison with thunder.
Q--So. We start out this interview talking about the weather.
A--I had an epiphany six months ago. A friend of mine has a twice-yearly campout on his family's land outside of Hico, a tiny town on the cusp of Texas hill country. As the sunset was beginning, a number of us drug our lawn chairs to the edge of a cliff to watch. That glowing orb, cherry red, electrocuted the surrounding high clouds as it slowly dipped below the distant horizon. Beautiful enough. But what struck me was this huge cottonwood tree across the valley from us. It rose above the cedar bush and scrub, and its silver leaves, shining and reflecting the dying light, quivered in the wind. You had to be really still to even notice it. For me, the quivering leaves were a kind of vespers song. Celebrating the end of a day. How long had this been happening? How long had that tree been displaying its reverence with no one to notice? Of course, unlike us, the cottonwood cannot move. So what's its purpose? Yet, for some unknown reason, it was as if I had been chosen to witness this beautiful and intimate expression of the cottonwood. Perhaps that sounds silly. Back at the campground, it seemed as if the big goal of my friends was to get as messed up as humanly possible. At the campfire, I asked myself: What is it these people are chasing? The answer was resounding: Connection. These people, all of them lovely human beings, are desperately attempting to re-connect to Nature. And I'd been doing it too--for too long a time. I can't let myself forget that I live in a huge urban area. There's something like six million people all jammed together in a space a hundred miles from end to end. Nature has been pushed below the surface--except for parks. It's easy, then, for us to forget our emotional weather, so to speak. Did you hear that? It just thundered.
Q--How did this experience connect with your poetry?
A--Oh, that's easy! For several years, I've been writing about the distortions we experience as human creatures who have changed our environment to the point that our animal nature is opposed to our supposedly civilized nature. I don't care if you're the President of the United States, you're still an animal. You've got an animal experience that has been repressed. A lot of what happens in a white-collar business environment has something to do with learning to repress our animal natures according to various measures of decorum. Years ago, as a legal assistant at the largest law firm in the State of Texas, I participated in the largest Federal Trade Commission-related lawsuit in American history. I worked twelve-hours-a-day, I made plenty of money--pulling in something like $4,000 a month, a huge sum to a man who's lived his life in what used to be called voluntary simplicity--but in the end, although "our" firm won in a settlement, we managed to bankrupt the plaintiff, and two days before Christmas, 10,000 employees of the plaintiff's company suddenly were laid off. I felt horrible to be party to that. So I asked my supervisor what I should do to cope with it. She told me that I had to learn to become callous to the effects of my actions. I couldn't do that. The executive lawyers, of course, were operating according to their animal instincts, but they also had a lot of rationalizations they employed to justify their behavior. See? These are the distortions we create for ourselves because we've forced our animal natures out of the picture.
Recently, then, I've realized I need to restore my own connection to my animal nature. I've got to learn to listen all over again. As a poet, I've always fiercely defended my emotional vulnerability. But as we age, this vulnerability sometimes becomes more precarious--due to the school of hard knocks, that course regimen you just can't audit. Consequently, I've been watching clouds. I know that sounds stupid, but it's good therapy. As a kid I used to sit in this huge Elm tree in Denver, Colorado, watching billows of huge clouds pour over Mount Evans. Sometimes I wouldn't even come down for dinner. Perhaps I'm trying to reconnect to that child. And today, it's raining. How does the rain itself feel? What is its consciousness? Several supposedly renegade scientists are telling us that water does have a consciousness. I don't see why not. So how does the rain feel today? Silver. Rain today is silver. It's been relegated to second place behind all the gold in Dallas. But I also love silver. Silver is the shine in a woman's eyes. Silver is glare on glass. Silver has so many moods. I don't think I'm big enough to choose the mood of the rain today. I can only look on and enjoy it talking to me.
Q--This sounds a lot like Eastern Mysticism.
A--No. Not at all. Eastern Mysticism is like any other religion. I've got a couple of friends, both of them poets, who are Buddhists. One night, I sat in the back seat of a car, listening to them as if I was a child listening to my parents argue about the relative merits of Catholicism versus Episcopalianism. The one thing they agreed upon was that the Tibetan Buddhists have it all wrong. Christ! So what did we have there that night? A couple of Southern Baptist Buddhists? Saying that the Methodist Buddhists are dumb? Sure sounded like it to me. An old friend of mine called that behavior "dogma doo doo." But what I'm saying has more to do with ethology--the social behavior of animals. In Iraq, for example, we've got "dogma doo doo" turning into a civil war because the Southern Baptist Shiites are angry at the Cumberland Baptist Sunis and the Methodist Kurds. But this "dogma doo doo" is one of the distortions we encounter when we form civilizations. Civilization contains plenty of prerequisites in its gift-pack: We agree to certain rules in order to preserve domestic order. We've got traffic lights we agree to utilize in order to keep traffic from turning into chaos. The distortion arrives when we take this stuff on and let it consume us. And believe me: I've been consumed.
Q--How is that? Please explain yourself.
A--Oh, all these petty human concerns. We're concerned about money for one thing. We've let money consume us when money should be nothing more than a tool. And even standards of beauty--we let them consume us and drown out our ability to connect to one another. Sometimes we even let human-borne standards of beauty define us. If you're beautiful the way a model on television is beautiful then you're somehow more human than the rest of humanity. We let ideology consume us. I don't care if you're left or right, if you're following the rules of ideology, you're political beliefs are consuming you. That's what I'm trying to free myself of right now.
Q--And your poetry?
A--I've decided to return to a simpler, more embracing poetry. I've decided to cut it out with all the fancy footwork. I've been reading a biography of Soviet poet Anna Akhmatova, and her concepts of writing simple lines about simple human matters, describing simply the simple scenes of domestic life is something I think I can utilize in my poetry. I do have to divine where my animal nature comes into play there. And this can be difficult. This, as I've said, is merely an extension of what I've been thinking about for years. I'm not being anti-social however. I find nothing wrong with civilized society except insofar as it is consuming us. Technology is taking us over. It's like the movie, "I Robot." But...as you can see...we're utilizing technology right here. Yet think of how many people let this mere tool consume them. It's horrible.
Well, I think the rain is letting up a little. I've spoken my piece. One thing more, though. When you begin to re-connect with your animal nature, it's funny, but people begin to see you differently. You're out of synch with all their unconscious beliefs. Sometimes, such people find themselves even threatened by what they almost but not quite perceive about you. I think it's necessary to be charitable towards them. You know: humor them. But it is difficult sometimes. I don't think I'll ever be where I want to be with this, and I'm definitely not special by any means. But I am solitary.
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