Life is Good

Life is good, and then it's bad,

  and then it's good again.

But if this life were all we had,

  I ask, would it have been

worth all the effort, all the trouble,

  only to have it turn to rubble?

But if this life is not the end,

  but just the shadow of

the tragicomical Event

  upon the stage above,

I ask, would it not be worthwhile

  if that event were Love?

One of my Japan poems, composed shortly before the Great Kobe Earthquake in January of 1995.

This Is Not a Frame - and Is

I have been meaning, for some time now, to publish this essay of mine, based on Foucault's This Is Not a Pipe, and Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe:

Enclosed in the framing essay is an earlier essay about Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics [Google Book link]. The poem that begins the enclosed essay was written while I was working as a missionary/English-teacher in Shukugawa, Japan, and the essay as a whole deals with epistomological and linguistic issues that I had begun wrestling with in my final year of high-school and which ultimately led me to convert to Orthodox Christianity.

Anyhow, without further ado, here is a link to a scanned PDF of the essay in question, "This Is Not a Frame - and Is". Enjoy!

Reflection

I am a modern monk, whose diet's meat,
not pulse, or low-cholestrol diet leaves.
I do not flagellate myself, but weep
for my own sins and pains and others' hurt,
results of both our first and further falls.
I am not walled within my lonely cell,
though oft I enter it instead of curse
the world's chaos, defying chaptered verse,
wherein I read, despite sin, all is well.
For as I read and write within these walls
and ponder our descent from flesh to dirt,
some pattern, sometimes forced, but always deep-
er than the eye at first perceives,
emerges, and the planned and Planner meet.

Edward Hewlett.

This is one of the last (and, in my opinion, best) of the poems I wrote before I became Orthodox and simultaneously became way too busy to write any more [good] poetry.

"A young man..."

Made this one up when I was working as a data-entry operator for Elections BC. It was my habit to liven up the otherwise rather mundane job by passing around interesting sayings and bits of poetry - mostly by other people. This was one of my few original contributions:

A young man who worked at a terminal
made up, from a thought that was germinal,
a deep saying for the day,
which was, by the way,
"True beauty is not epiderminal."

To Professor Lee M. Johnson: ON POEMS

I always knew I did not like the poems
of our day, but never knew just why
those golden poems, read from olden tomes,
inspired, while “free verse” seemed but a lie.
I knew I loved those poems Grandad read
out loud to me before I went to bed,
but hated E.E. Cummings and his ilk,
whose modern poems trash taste, metre, and rhyme.
My loves and hates remain the same today,
but now, from Johnson, I have learned the why:
decorum, suiting forms to what they say,
true poems suits to echo forms on high.
A poem is not a poem which doth cease
pursuing its creator's ordered peace.

Note: This is the second in my series of anti-free-verse poems, and, I think, the best. It is also particularly significant to me since it references two of the key influences on my writing and my appreciation of poetry: my grandfather, and Professor Lee M. Johnson. I have to admit that I'm probably a little hard on e.e. cummings here, but for me he functions as a symbol of where modern poetry went wrong, and I am here treating him as a symbol rather than a person. He was, in fact, quite capable of writing sonnets and other complex traditional forms of poetry himself (see, for example, his “the Cambridge ladies...” sonnet), and it is this symbolic unfairness to him that I address in my third anti-free-verse poem.

Note also that the proper reading of this particular poem depends upon both the proper and the modern improper pronunciation of the word “poem”.

Go and Tell Him His Fault

I once offended deep a worthy brother.
He did not tell me where my trespass lay,
But left me lonely in my guilt to simmer.
I do not know just what I did today.

Perhaps it was with years of careless sinning
My conscience did not feel it as it should.
Disgusted or too hurt to stoop to winning,
He would not pierce its hardness if he could.

Perhaps he thought, “If time does not reveal it,
My words can never make him feel the blame.
By silence I shall make his conscience feel it”—
And so he never wrote or never came.

So thought Nathan, and the months departing
Passed into years o’er David’s guilty head.
The prophet mute, with indignation smarting,
Those words of accusation never said:

“Thou art the man”—so David’s soul just drifted
Farther and farther as the years went by;
The burden of his sin nor felt, nor lifted,
Nor sounded from his lips that anguished cry,

That psalm of psalms, the contrite heart expressing.
The silence of the prophet never stirred
One conscience-qualm. No guilt his soul confessing,
The Lord’s blest words of pardon were not heard.

Not so! The prophet told his touching story.
He then with faithful words applied the same,
And David bowed: he gave the Lord the glory,
Acknowledged all his sin, his guilt and shame.

And so it is, if you would draw a brother
Back from the drifting tide towards the shore,
Go tell him of his fault—not tell another:
A precious soul you may indeed restore.

When storms of life and clouds of time have lifted,
And morn reveals the wreckage of the wave,
If ocean yielded back one soul that drifted,
You’ll not regret you sought that one to save.

E.O.H.

Note: Poetry runs in the Hewlett family. This is my favourite poem of my grandfather's.

small talk

i agree
there is no room
for small talk

as a cover or mask or distraction or enterainment or fun or an end in itself
life is too small

too short
too deep

for small talk to cover the chasm that swallows

us
up

but
as a sacrifice
an offering
a first attempt
a reaching out
it may
by the grace of God
become the thread that pulls the string that pulls the rope that pulls the cord
across the gap

a cross

to bridge the gap

that divides

one

from

another

from
One

...not an end, but perhaps a small beginning...

(Thank you, Aaron.)

Web Design: Valuable Tutorial Sites

My (non-paying but, to me, fun) job as webmaster of various sites (like this one, archdiocese.ca, and artofseraphim.ehewlett.net) is forcing me to learn, among other things, about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). I've been very impressed with some of the free resources out there, most notably, w3schools.com, which I've mentioned before, and, most recently, alsacreations.com, whose tutorial on the Use and position of CSS elements finally cleared up for me some of the bits of basic information that I was missing in understanding exactly how CSS works.

I've always been impressed by the "open source" idea, even before the concept of "open source" came around. Knowledge, it seems to me, is not something that should be hoarded, but, rather, is a gift to be shared. My thanks, and my (metaphorical) hat off, to all who do that.

Of course, that being said, there is one important caveat that should be noted in this context. Tennyson said it best, perhaps, in his prologue to In Memoriam:

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster.

But certainly not first - my other favourite articulation of this idea being from the Teacher in Ecclesiastes:

Much study wearies the body, and of the making of books there is no end.

OK, I'm tired now. Goodnight!

Update: OK. One thing more (there always is, it seems). Just after signing off and articulating my intention to go to bed (yeah, right!) found another nice resource, HTMLdog.com. Perhaps I should add some of these to my (rarely updated) Links page, eh?

Child of Africa

The child was born.
Thrust out into the cold, unfriendly world.
He sought warmth and shelter,
And found it in his mother's body.
He sought food and drink,
And was given it by his mother.
He sought comfort and assurance,
And found it in his mother's voice.

The child grew.
His mother died of disease.
He sought warmth and shelter,
And found it in his family's house.
He sought food and drink,
And was given it by his father.
He sought comfort and assurance,
And found little.

The child lived.
War devastated the land and destroyed his home.
He sought warmth and shelter,
And found none.
He sought food and drink,
And found little.
He sought comfort and assurance,
And found even less than before.

The child grew weaker.
Drought came upon the land, and his family starved.
He sought warmth and shelter,
And found none.
He sought food and drink,
And found none.
He sought comfort and assurance,
And found none.

The child died.
What have we done to deserve our lives of luxury?
We seek warmth and shelter,
And find it in abundance.
We seek food and drink,
And find more than enough.
He sought comfort and assurance,
And find plenty.

We live in luxury.
Can we not help to provide the starving millions
With warmth and shelter?
With food and drink?
With comfort and shelter?
We have done nothing to attain our lives of luxury.
Must they do the impossible to obtain life itself?

(my first published poem - written almost twenty years ago now)

Poems

My Poems:

• Reflection
• small talk
• Intersection
• pageant
• Illumination
• Indecision
• Child of Africa
• "A young man..."
  

Parody:

• 99 Crepes du Jour

My Grandfather's Poems:

• Go and Tell Him His Fault

Intersection

A butterfly with banded wings,
bright red on black, descends to land
like Psyche, resting as she sings,
beneath a loaded semi-truck.

"Dear God," I pray, as lights turn green,
then stop, by rolling fear unmanned,
then breathe out joy: from wheel eighteen
she rises. Was it God or luck?

(written 10 years ago today)

Illumination

1st Glance
(Will o' the Wisp)

Shades of black I wear to school.
Dullness is the only rule.
Once I wore bright hues of red,
But now my heart obeys my head.
Passionless I teach the text,
Leave the building vaguely vexed,
Bored to tears, but in control—
Stop me please, I'm on a roll
With 30 kids who hate my guts,
But know to ask no "ifs" or "buts".
I hate the system, but cannot
See how to change it, so get out.

2nd Look
(Fade to Black)

Once I wore bright hues of red,
But now my heart obeys my head.
Shades of black I wear to school.
Dullness is the only rule.
Passionless I teach the text,
Leave the building vaguely vexed,
Bored to tears, but in control—
Stop me please, I'm on a roll
With 30 kids who hate my guts,
But know to ask no "ifs" or "buts",
Learning names and dates and grammar,
How to speak and not to stammer,
How to add up "a" plus "b",
How to fake it till you're free:
Free from all this useless learning,
Free to "get out" and start earning
Money, though a few survive,
Escape the system half-alive,
Return to turn it on its head,
And fade to black from wearing red.

3rd Strike
(Coalblack)

Once I wore bright hues of red,
But now my heart obeys my head.
Shades of black I wear to school.
Dullness is the only rule.
Passionless I teach the text,
Leave the building vaguely vexed,
Bored to tears, but in control—
Stop me please, I'm on a roll
Of words and rhymes now in control
And framing mem'ry like a roll
Of film without the star's control,
But rolling, rolled, into a roll
Of fear, self-pity, uncontrolled
Reactions, anger, till the whole
Explodes, collapses, self-implodes
Into a lightless blackened hole.

4th Attempt
(Sunrise)

Enough already! I am in, not out,
And in or out, I'll teach. The problem's not
That I can't turn the system on its head,
But how to overcome my fear and doubt
And how I can escape the blackened hole
That's swallowed me and all the dreams I bought.
My struggles show that I am not yet dead,
But what will give me life, to truly teach?

Not what, but who will heal my broken soul.
Who but the Teacher whom the system killed?
Who lives and teaches truth that we may reach
Outside ourselves to live and teach and build
An open system, and a living rule
Where God and life and love are all our school.

(completed 10 years ago today)

pageant

simple little rhyming play

every Christmas: plastic hay,
doll for Jesus, mangled

lines

'go-back-on-you're-doing-fines'
—these are all the little things
, paper crowns and crooked wings,
Struggles to enact the whole
Gift-greatness of the newborn soul.

(written 10 years ago today)

Indecision

"Please make up your mind,"
my hostess said to me.
"Would you like some coffee,
or would you like some tea?"

I asked her for a moment
to take some time to think.
Then, half-an-hour later,
I asked for milk to drink.

(written 10 years ago)

99 Crepes du Jour

You and I in cooking class
burn some pancakes, get an F,
throw them all across the lawn
till one by one, they were gone.
New York Times photographer,
flash the headlines: “Something’s out there!”
soaring through the schoolyard sky
99 crepes du jour fly by.

99 crepes du jour
soaring through the schoolyard sky:
“Panic pads! It’s aliens!
They’ve come to school from somewhere else!”
The media springs to life,
all looking through one camera eye
half-focussed on the schoolyard sky
as 99 crepes du jour flew by.

99 editions print
99 new experts meet
to worry, worry, super-scurry,
get the “facts” out in a hurry:
“This is how we all must act.
This is it, the first contact!”
9000 callers on the line
as 99 crepes du jour fly by.

99 knights of the air
with super-high-tech camcorders.
Everyone’s a scoop reporter.
Everyone’s a Walter Cronkite.
They alone can clarify,
Identify, and classify.
Scramble in the junior high
as 99 crepes du jour fly by,
as 99 crepes du jour fly by!

99 “friends” I have had:
every one a newspaper.
It’s all over and I’m staring quite hard
at this dust that was a schoolyard.
I could find a souvenir
just to prove the school was here,
and here is a crepe du jour
I think of you and eat it up.

(a parody, of course, of Nena's "99 Red Balloons")