Another day of rag and bone shopping, of gentle and cautious gestures, of softly silencing the voice of judgment, of speaking in a quiet voice when I want to be screaming. This is my courtship of the muse, I remind myself. The process is a dance of seduction, and success requires great patience and focus.
My husband now has a phrase he uses for my art making time: Studioing. He pronounces it studi-O-ing, accent on the O. I like his name for it because it gives the illusion of doing something recreational, like leaving the house to go kayaking or to take a canoe down a river. The reality is that I feel like I’m underwater, not gliding over the surface; I am a diver who must go down to the sea bed and secure the cabling, an anchor, a piling.
Once again my friend Sally Reed has enriched my thinking with her insightful offerings. This comment was left in response to my posting from yesterday about wooing the muse, “Court and Spark.”
The poem by James Wright is a stunner. And in the words of Emily Dickinson (thank you for reminding me of this Sally) a great poem “makes my body so cold no fire can warm me,” and makes me “feel as if the top of my head were taken off.” I felt headless the first time I read this piece. Thank you Sally.
***
Yes, sometimes it is a playful and sweet seduction.
In some cases it can be a darker and more painful story. Sometimes the muse herself can be feeling fragile or frightened. So then patience and gentleness are the watchwords. I don’t think it dampens the joy, ultimately, do you? In fact, perhaps the opposite.
To the Muse
It is all right. All they do
Is go in by dividing
One rib from another. I wouldn’t
Lie to you. It hurts
Like nothing I know. All they do
Is burn their way in with a wire.
It forks in and out a little like the tongue
Of that frightened garter snake we caught
At Cloverfield, you and me, Jenny
So long ago.
I would lie to you
If I could.
But the only way I can get you to come up
Out of the suckhole, the south face
Of the Powhatan pit, is to tell you
What you know:
You come up after dark, you poise alone
With me on the shore.
I lead you back to this world.
Three lady doctors in Wheeling open
Their offices at night.
I don’t have to call them, they are always there.
But they only have to put the knife once
Under your breast.
Then they hang their contraption.
And you bear it.
It’s awkward a while. Still it lets you
Walk about on tiptoe if you don’t
Jiggle the needle.
It might stab your heart, you see.
The blade hangs in your lung and the tube
Keeps it draining.
That way they only have to stab you
Once. Oh Jenny.
I wish to God I had made this world, this scurvy
And disastrous place. I
Didn’t, I can’t bear it
Either, I don’t blame you, sleeping down there
Face down in the unbelievable silk of spring,
Muse of the black sand,
Alone.
I don’t blame you, I know
The place where you lie.
I admit everything. But look at me.
How can I live without you?
Come up to me, love,
Out of the river, or I will
Come down to you.
–James Wright
Oh – a beautiful image – how did you make it?
The comment by your friend Sally is apropos – the poem is a stunner, leaves me speechless.
Studio-ing is a great expression. I can see where you are surrounded by the underwater greens of your green wall of glass – it really leads to feelings of submersion, so necessary to go Muse a-courting. When you surface, so will your rich images, of that I have no doubt. G
G, your words of encouragement mean so much to me. I know you know what I’m going through.
I hadn’t thought about the wall of green glass as underwater–that’s so on the mark.
Thank you so much for these words.
PS. G, the photograph was taken in Mexico last year, where the black sand patterns itself into the lighter colors.