THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love & happiness newsletter

April 2, 2020

 

Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work’d over and rectified?….

This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,

There is no better than it and now.

 

—Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”

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Dear Friends of The Open Road

 

Here’s a link to a song from Mexico that should perk you up, “Mexico Lindo y Querido”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvDdtEVAo-U.

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Out breath

and in breath—

know that they are

proof that the world

is inexhaustible.

 

—Ryokan   (1758-1831)

(translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi)

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sweet spring is your

time is my time is our

time for springtime is lovetime

and viva sweet love

 

(all the merry little birds are

flying in the floating in the

very spirits singing in

are winging in the blossoming)

 

lovers go and lovers come

awandering awondering

but any two are perfectly

alone there’s nobody else alive

 

(such a sky and such a sun

i never knew and neither did you

and everybody never breathed

quite so many kinds of yes)

 

not a tree can count his leaves

each herself by opening

but shining who by thousands mean

only one amazing thing

 

(secretly adoring shyly

tiny winging darting floating

merry in the blossoming

always joyful selves are singing)

 

sweet spring is your

time is my time is our

time for springtime is lovetime

and viva sweet love

 

e. e. cummings

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In 1952 and 1953, E. E. Cummings gave six nonlectures at Harvard University. They are collected in a wonderful book called i: six nonlectures. At the end of each nonlecture he recited some of his favorite poems by other poets. After the second, the theme was “Spring,” including this song from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”:

 

It was a lover and his lass,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

That o’er the green cornfield did pass,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time, 

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; 

Sweet lovers love the spring.

 

Between the acres of the rye,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

Those pretty country folks would lie,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time, 

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; 

Sweet lovers love the spring.

 

This carol they began that hour,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

How that a life was but a flower

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time, 

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; 

Sweet lovers love the spring.

 

And therefore take the present time,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

For love is crownèd with the prime

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time, 

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; 

Sweet lovers love the spring.

 

(word note: in the last verse, the word “prime” means “Spring”)

 

Dennis Wiancko sent me a link to a short film featuring Time Person of the Year for 2019, Greta Thunberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q0xUXo2zEY.

 

There are ideas about how to nurtures culture and community without gathering together at The Open Road website (openroadpdx.org). Have a look!

 

That’s it from me (Johnny) for this issue.

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Here are two poems from Kim Stafford:

 

From the Train 

 

Below the tracks, beyond

the chain-link fence topped

with rusted barbwire, out

on the floodplain where

like my battered spirit

every forsaken surface

of shattered wall or car

carcass is festooned with

graffiti in a riot swirl

of color code, and brambles

swarm over heaps of debris —

purple flowers are falling

from the smoldering jacaranda

surging beauty from earth,

billowing blossoms,

utterly failing to take

a realistic view.

 

 

Dennis Takes Us to the Old Trees 

 

Sometimes it takes a miracle of misfortunes

to make a beautiful life — earthquake, hurricane,

war. Sometimes the story, told right, can turn 

hardship inside out, and show tough beauty

yet. When the fire came roaring up the ridge,

Dennis said, as we stepped the path down 

into the ravine that saved the old ones, 

it crested and swept west, taking the tops

of these few ancient firs, and left them 

in austere majesty, their proof of pluck

a candelabra of tangled limbs high

in silhouette, looming where we lean back 

to gaze up and wonder how we might

be marked by hurt but still stand like that,

last of our kind, telling the children: 

If you must live through fire, be with

your own grove of sturdy companions

gazing up, after, at the far stars. 

 

—Kim Stafford

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Ken Margolis reminded me of this great Neruda poem.

 

I ask for silence

 

Now, let’s count to twelve

and all be quiet.

 

For one time on this earth

let’s not speak in any language;

let’s stop for one second,

and not move our arms so much.

 

It would be a fragrant moment,

without haste, without locomotives;

we would all be together

in an awkward instant.

 

Fishermen in the cold sea

would not harm whales

and the man gathering salt

would look at his raw hands.

 

Those who prepare green wars,

wars of gas, wars of fire,

victories without survivors,

would put on clean clothes

and walk along in the shade

with their brothers,

doing nothing.

 

What I want shouldn’t be confused

with total inactivity.

Life is what’s happening!

I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t so unanimous

about keeping our lives moving,

and for once could do nothing,

maybe a vast silence

would interrupt this sadness,

this never understanding ourselves

and threatening ourselves with death.

Maybe the earth is teaching us—

when everything seems dead

and later everything is alive.

 

Now I will count to twelve

and you be quiet, and I will go.

 

—Pablo Neruda