Jane Hirshfield

How silently the heart pivots on its hinge

I've been reading this book of poetry for 7 months. The poems are rich and satisfying, not to be gorged or gulped, feasts of new memories made of things we all have on hand.

The first poem, "The Lives of the Heart" stabbed me, blew my head off, made me joyful and sorrowful in quick, alternating successions. It made me want to give this book to everyone I know, even the ones who don't like poetry, to put it in their hands and say, "Here, you must read show more this. Your soul is in here."

There were other poems, too, that were also the sounds of silent pivots of the heart. And a few poems where all I could say was, "I don't understand." But I did understand. I understood the cadence, I understood the never-ending now, the way the heart opens and closes and opens again. I understood them in a way that is the truth and is strange in its plaintive, honest voice heard at a distance. It traverses the complete course of the body. At the end, I think I even grasped the Lion she often writes about, life's fear, that primitive fierce force which we all possess and also face.

Here she writes about a horse, as she often does.

"Not Moving Even One Step"

The rain falling too lightly to shape
an audible horse, an audible tree,
and, soaking, the old horse waits in his pasture.

He knows the field for exactly what it is:
his limitless mare, his beloved.
Even the mallards sleep in her red body maned
in thistles, hooved in the new green shallows of spring.

Slow rain streams from fetlocks, hips, the lowered head,
while she stands in the place beside him that no one sees.

The muzzles almost touch,
How silently the heart pivots on its hinge.

I want to read everything Hirshfield has ever put on paper.

My own humble tribute of thanks to her:
The reader is eating bread and butter
The bread, poetry in elastic chews,
The butter, salt of faith on top. show less

I discovered this poet in college during a Contemporary Poetry course, and immediately fell in love with the way she talked about love, loss, and the pain of trying to move slowing through grief. I was no stranger to grief myself; my best friend from high school had just passed away and so had my beloved grandmother, both from cancer. I found special comfort in the lines of "Da Capo" as the poet blended simple acts like cooking as ways to "begin again the story of your life"

‘’On a night
when the moon
shines as brightly as this,
the unspoken thoughts
of even the most discreet heart might
be seen.’’
(Izumi Shikibu)

Ono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu are the two leading figures of Japanese poetry during the Heian era. In a period when men were obliged to write in Chinese, women were exempt from this rule, and this independence led to the flourishing of poetry that moves the modern reader, giving voice to feelings we are all destined to suffer.

Yes. Emphasis on show more ‘suffer’ because love, especially the ‘unsafe’ kind of love (‘illicit’ or unrequited), is the worst emotional torture.There is a bitter truth here that anyone who has loved 'unsafely' will instantly recognize…

*Why do we use the word ‘illicit’? I will never understand. We turn love and desire into something sordid, almost criminal. I find the hypocrisy exhausting; these poems prove that such 'forbidden' longing is the most honest state of being.*

‘’You ask my thoughts
through the long night?
I spent it listening
to the heavy rain
beating against the window.’’
(Izumi Shikibu)

The two ladies welcome the reader into a world of longing, desire, elegant eroticism, meditation. But there is also loss, despair, uncertainty, pain. The arrival of the autumnal days and the spring blossoms that eventually wither and are scattered by the blowing wind. Komachi is the autumn, Shikibu is the spring. They sing of the desire for the one who may or may not come, the one who leaves you in limbo because this is what happens when you are stupid enough to let your guard down. The world’s eternal lie…

‘’This abandoned house
shining
in the mountain village -
how many nights
has the autumn moon spent here?’’
(Ono Komachi)

All the while, the one witness, the comforter, the sole companion that reminds us we are not as alone as we may feel, is the moon. The ink dark moon that watches the longing, the silver moonlight which lightens the path of the lovers, the twilight that encompasses every ache in a heart numb with hunger. Even the principles of Buddhism and the interconnected courses of the material and the incorporeal become a step to ascend the climax of an existence that is hungry for love. At least, it makes us feel alive…If broken…

This edition includes a fascinating Appendix on the impossible task of translating poetry and an insightful Notes on the Poems section.

Poetry written ages ago. Fully relatable. Fully sensitive. Fully human.

‘’What is it
about this twilight hour?
Even the sound
of a barely perceptible breeze
pierces the heart’’
(Izumi Shikibu)

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

It took me a while to get beneath the surface of these poems, perseverance being rewarded. Of the two poets, I preferred Shikibu to Komachi; she seems to touch in a broader range of topics, though this could be due to fewer of her poems having survived, the smaller collection of her works in this volume, the editor's selection, or a combination of the three.

In addition to, and often at the same time as, writing about love, Shikibu talks of the transient and impermanent nature of existence; show more bereavement, loss and grief; enlightenment, acceptance and contentment.

The introduction, appendix and notes were very welcome to this Westerner with little (that is, zero) knowledge of the cultural context and literary antecedents upon which the poems are founded. With that help, I was able to appreciate some of the subtleties of the verses, which I'm sure we'll reward rereading.

The phrase "ink dark moon" is not used by either poet (unless I missed it), although the individual words appear many times thought the collection. The introduction mentions the ancient Greek use of standard poetic descriptions, citing Homer's "wine dark sea" as an example, and I think that's the allusion made in the title.

Beautiful and poignant verses. show less