Saturday Memory for May 3, 2025
May
3
Saturday Memory
May 3, 2025
I was on a hunting trip with my dad. It was my first. He had bought me a .22 rifle. I think I was about 10 years old. Nothing much happened for quite a while as we tramped around looking for things to shoot. Then, on the path in front of me, I spotted a rabbit. It was sitting upright and seemed frozen to the spot. My dad said to go for it. I looked through the scope and yep, the rabbit was quite still. So, I aimed, pulled the trigger and shot at the rabbit. As I looked at the scope, I could see I had shot the rabbit through the ear. It was still frozen in place. But I was stunned by what I had done. I handed the rifle to my dad and said, “I can’t do this.” When I looked again down the path, the rabbit was gone. My shooting days were over.
What an amazing world it would be if many more people could plumb the depths of their latent poetic souls and let out all that deep emotion rattling around in their dreams, or in those moments when they can’t find words for some loving or searing memory, or when they look out into the world and sense the grandeur of being alive. Russ, you speak of the profound impact upon meeting Sorley Maclean and finding a kindred spirit who understood the bottomless connection between poetry and dreams.
And it caused me to remember the first poem that struck me and remained with me until this day – Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’. But more amazing was the moment when I first fortuitously discovered Jung. Almost immediately, I began writing poetry, though I had not done so until then. Poems were tumbling out of me as if I had stepped out from behind a big black box. And that reminded me of what Petrarch said about the dearth of poems and literature in his own time: “This sleep of forgetfulness will not last for ever. When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance.” In his poetry, he rediscovered something that was timeless, and that’s how it was for me. So, thank you, Russ, for causing me to remember all this. Here is one of the first poems I wrote to capture this feeling. Tony
Madrigal
The light came suddenly.
over the binding,
past the pages,
through the sentences
into my eyes.
I was struck dumb.
Here was a way into the world.
All my life I’ve been preparing
without even knowing it.
I held my breath,
grabbed tight to the words
and careened off into the unknowable.
We bucked into the world of poetry.
Inundated by sounds of piercing beauty
I vibrated like a fork struck to the ground.
I began to resonate,
to hum lines deep within the substratum.
From the molten core
fiery words of love and
unsettled hope erupted.
I touched it all, expected to be burned,
but was cooled instead,
calmed by the sheer energy
of the magma.
Armed with poetry tucked under my arm
we bounded off
into life
and crashed through everything
I had known up to then.
Laughing and crying at the same time
I shuddered and heaved,
fell silent and succumbed
to exhaustion.
I slept for eons.
Awakening, I recognized no one,
remembered nothing.
Stunned by my reflection in the stream
I mused at that ungainly sight
and wondered who he was.
I am a poet, he said.
And I am the King of France.
Yes, he said, I recognize you.
Well, I said, speak me a poem.
It was love at first sight.
The sleeper and the dreamer,
the rocking horse winner
and the madrigal singer,
the love and the lover,
the light
and the darkness.