I'm working on a ghazal, (pronounced "ghuzzle" in English), which is:
- a poem of 5 to 12 couplets.
- each line must maintain the same amount of syllables (give or take one or two if you're being creative :), they share the same meter.
- there are no enjambments between couplets. sometimes, although there is a theme necessarily with the use of the refrain, the couplets should be complete poems in themselves able to be set apart.
"Each couplet must be a precious stone that can shine even when plucked from the necklace, though it certainly has greater lustre in its setting." (Agha Shahid Ali in "Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English")
- like a Psalm, the second line compliments or answers the first. there can be a turn, a volta, but line 1 and 2 should not run into each other. the use of questions and exclamations is common.
- only the first couplet must rhyme, and the end of the second rhyme must be the end of the second line for every other couplet. this repeated rhyme is called the refrain.
example of a first couplet from Kelly le Fave's "Ghazal":
"Each syllable unwinds its shy request in time.
Speak slowly, show me what it means to rest in time."so in the case of this ghazal, "in time" becomes the refrain, used at the end of the second line of each couplet. another couplet in this poem goes:
"Whole nights run as fingers, counting out the palm;
hands pressed beneath what passes unexpressed time."in this case, the poet has opted not to use the words as a refrain, but the rhyme as the refrain. time is repeated, and expressed and rest are rhymed.
- the last couplet is usually a "signature" couplet where the poet uses his/her name in the first, second or third person.
- certain forms of the ghazal employ different structural rules, but these are the basics i think.
I'm finding writing the ghazal to be an interesting task because it's not my favorite thing to write in a metric style or have this kind of glass to pour words into, which is the way I consider this form of writing happens -starting with structure, painting inside the lines, straining out words, extra syllables that can't be used or are unnecessary, shaving back the big idea to find the right polished words and meter. I am enjoying it because I can write as many couplets as I want, and figure out their order later, whereas in some kind of a free verse, narrative-type poem, there is a sequence that lines usually fit themselves into. In the ghazal, the sequence doesn't matter so much as each couplet's own little story, and the refrain tells the same story in different ways at the end of each line.
My experience so far with this style is that the refrain requires a lot of creativity with the words that surround it. A refrain I am using is "in the station," and the ghazal has this theme of waiting for something, which is not unintentional, but the station begins to mean many different things. The station is the train station, the station is just the place, the station is the Cross, the station is the season. My professor had us write down a number of ideas surrounding our refrain. Here are mine:
IN THE STATION
IN THE SEASON
WAITING FOR THE TRAIN
A TIME TO WAIT
A TIME FOR LOVE
A TIME FOR HATE
PATIENCE WITH FATE
PATIENCE IN THE SEASONS
I also get the feeling that although the couplets stand alone, there is a story in them that somehow is weaving its way through, and the refrain unites them all anyway, even if they weren't otherwise meant to be side by side. This poetic form began to be used in the 6th century and literally means "speaking with women." (wiki). It was used by Persian mystic poets, and there is a mystical sense about the unity of these untied couplets by the refrain.
Here's another.
Philadelphia
Night
(for Dominique & Nadia)
sweet lip gloss on
the lit street-
light cascade on the dead-end tattoo storefront
once opium parlor and dug-into brick graves
by prisoners freed from above-board ships, slaves
docked in the green harbor's waves now filled
with a fresh fetid stank, lazy dipping lull-
aby old shores with old shoes, bicycle wheels,
pink plastic dolls wrapped in winter-woven
shawls, strewn: a "hush little baby don't say a word,"
fast fall to watery death - "I never meant
to push it off, just wanted to see it fly," -
and then it is quiet in the hushed, crimeless city
nights, the comfortable dine out with friends or
in with lovers or both; remember, how we used to ask,
“when will that be us?" and now it is, at last
we line the simple night's corridors, clacking in
adult shoes, cackling sugary alchy throats; in smoke,
the tinkly bells a less bold, brilliant ring
of dust above our heads in the ink, each
night leans longer, dreams of more in city time;
breathing our own breath and thousands of others’ beside us
breath the same since the days we were young
enough to be born, since the time the wind blew in
and planted us here.
Robert Alter's translation and commentary of the Psalms is something quite special. Although I can't quite agree with the absense of the "soul" psalmist's approach to God, it's a worthwhile commentary and a new interpretation of the Hebrew. Check it out if you get the chance.
He describes Psalm 139 as "one of the most remarkably introspective psalms in the canonical collection...this poem is essentially a meditation on God's searching knowledge of man's innermost thoughts, on the limitations of human knowledge, and on God's inescapable presence throughout the created world."
Psalm 139 starts "Lord, You searched me and You know." To be before God is to be exposed. I think of my first experiences praying, learning what repentance meant (to turn around), and I felt God's love to be gentle and caring, helping me to remove masks, bearing up my weights of guilt, fear, ignorrance. I hope that there is exposure of my deepest places, the center of my soul and activity, when I am before God. He is a searching Light who sweeps out the dark corners. I hope to be before him more often than not.
Psalm 139 reminds that God is inescapable, as Alter put it. There is no place the psalmist can go that he will not encounter God in some way. He explores the polar ends of the universe: from Heaven to Hell, God is there. "If I take wing with the dawn, if I dwell at the ends of the sea, there, too, Your hand leads me."
Alter points out that "the speaker imagines taking wing with the dawn as it appears in the east, then soaring with the sun on its westard path to the limits of the imagined world." God's awesome presence is everywhere His signature can be found. But His spirit is also anywhere we go. Part of what this psalm is saying is wherever we go, He goes. Especially with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can trust that the His pneuma dwells where we dwell, walks where we walk, lays down where we lay down, loves where we love.
Maybe in the last 2 years or so, since traveling has become so normal and necessary (working with Rebe in Mexico), I have become a more restless person. I don't mean this negatively, I'm learning not ever to be fickle. What I mean is I have found the joys of exploration, to see what's happening, find out what's next, understand as much as I can about people, places, God, life. I think the more we adventure into culture and the planet and all the beautiful people who make it up, the greater the opportunity to see God's stunning face. Anyone can express God's beauty in some way, and members of the Family in Christ in any time, place, or doctrine can give you some insight into God's plans and existence, some insight into yourself and your own humanity.
The psalmist talks about being woven by God in his mother's womb. He acclaims God for His wondrous work. Another translation reads "fearfully and wonderfully made." Alter translates this verse as:
"I acclaim You, for awesomely I am set apart, wondrous are your acts, and my being deeply knows it.
I am set apart." (v.14)
There is a sense of total glorification of God in this verse; the psalmist senses the magical and unfathomable power of the Life behind creation. There is an association in this psalm between the womb and the cosmic depths. I think of God hovering over the unformed galaxies, above time, starting His magnum opus. The body, then, the child growing in her mother's "utmost depths" is a vivid microcosm of that moment of first creation. There is nothing less cosmic and inexplicable about the birth of a perfect, healthy baby than there is about the birth of the universe.
Talking about knowledge, think about the verbs connaitre and savoir in French. (Spanish and I think German are two other languages I know have two words for "to know" as well.) The verb savoir means to know a fact or an idea. Like if you said, "It is 11 p.m.," and I said, "I know." It's the knowledge of awareness, understanding what is. Connaitre is a different knowledge, like the Spanish conocer, it is to know intimately. It is the verb to use when speaking about knowing a person, or getting to know a place or a canon of works by an author or musician. It is the knowledge of being personally acquainted and, we could say, affected by something.
I'll use Spanish to illustrate the difference (it's a little more solid in my mind than French :)
- "Yo se que Dios existe." - I know (am aware) that God exists.
- "Yo conozco Dios." - I know (personally) God.
I also think of conocer/connaitre as exploring something, meeting it. It is the beginning of an exchange of truth and trust until it can be said that "I know this" or "We know one another."
If we think about the way God knows, I'd say it is saber and conocer at once. He is aware of all things, nothing is hidden from Him. But as the Author of all that is, He is also personally acquainted with everything. He knows where this pencil came from; the lead that's in it, He knows from what rock on what continent at what end of the planet it was extracted from. He knows the moment when the seed of the tree that supplied this paper was germinated in the earth and started to grow. He saw its first leaf fall. What ISN'T intimate for God??? God's love is incomprehensible because of the perfect knowledge He has of everything and the limited knowledge we have of very little. So, His love is incomprehensible, but somehow makes real sense. An artist loves her work. A father loves his children. God's knowledge is His love, and His love comes from His personal correspondence with everything that exists.
"As for me, how weighty are your thoughts, O Gd,
how numberous their sum.
Should I count them, they would be more than the sand,
I awake, and am still with You."
The infinite knowledge of God is spellbounding. We all exist because He has willed it. We live, essentially, because He has thought it. I read something by Frederich Beuchner where he was stating an address. Beginning on the street, then he named the state, then America, then the globe, then the universe, and finally, the Mind of God. We don't get away from Him for we are in Him.
The psalmist says, "I awake, and am still with You." Am I always acknowledging Christ, even as I write this? As I eat breakfast? Fall in love? Alter says "What the poet may be imagining is that after the long futile effort of attempting to count God's infinite thoughts, he drifts off in exhaustion, then awakes to discover that God's eternal presence, with all those divine thoughts, is still with him."
If you seek, you will find. I have found that seeking God will never yield empty returns. The infinity of God means that we will never stop learning about or from Him. There is no dead end, the road goes on eternally. It's interesting this psalm is about the depths of God and His forever thoughts, but also about the depths of Man as Creation, the image of the fathomless, wild God is seen in the complex, wonderful potent entity of Human Being. There is a relational aspect to this psalm; God searches us the more we search for Him. But also there is necessarily some exposure on our part as God exposes Himself to us.
The psalm ends with a request: "Search me God and know my heart, probe me and know my mind. And see if there is any vexing way in me, and lead on on the eternal way." Jesus thought the inner motives of a person were key in the formation and execution of the outward life, of action. That's why, for Him, lustful thoughts are already adultery, hatred is already murder (Matt 5:21-30). The knowledge of God goes deep inside us, to places only He has access to; sometimes, we ourselves do not even know what "way" is in us until God's Spirit reveals it. This request for the "eternal way," and all prayers we make for guidance, require trust and an attitude of humility, openness, and submission to God and His will. I think it is an important risk we all must take to be exposed to God's light, and let His love temper and refine us.
To seek God and be searched by Him, we have to be willing to accept His knowledge is forever greater than our own (Isaiah 55:8-9), and to not try and run away from Him, but to recognize His infinite state. He is around every corner, at the bottom of every sea; even within ourselves, He is there. If He is truly what we are anxious to find, we have to become willing to see Him and be prepared for all that could mean. We cannot, and if we love Him, would not, escape Him.
I hear something playing.
Violence?
Violins?
You sat on my bed A smile, missed
Plan B in your hand Is there another way?
[How do we get back to the day?]
“I lost the directions; “I don’t know; you
where are they?” threw them away.”
Violence? Losing you in silence
Violins? Don’t want to lose you this time
Violets? Let’s try that, no wait,
What is pretty? What is nice? that won’t work, go
What is girl? What is boy? back. Try a different
plan.
[How do we get back the night?]
“When will it come; “I’m impatient too;
why should I wait?” you’re asking the wrong person.”
When do you arrive, You’re turning away, you’re
Poiesis? You leaving; always the
always come in back of you. Where
the window while are your eyes? Let me see them,
I’m still asleep. lay down again, (stay)
please.
[How do we get back to infinities?]
I can’t find you in the dark.
I lost the keys and
where did the directions go?
they’re always getting
thrown away.
Violins?
Violence?
I hear something playing.
