Provincetown 46

O Child, Do Not Fear the Dark and Sleep's Dark Possession

The title of this piece is taken from a poem by Delmore Schwartz.

The poem begins:

O Child, when you go down to sleep and sleep's secession,

You become more and other than you are, you become

the procession

Of bird and beast and tree: you are a chorus,

A pony among horses, a sapling in a dark forest,

Lifting your limbs and boughs to the sky, leafing.

And then you are one with the beaver, one

With the little animals warm in the sun

Resting and hidden when it is white winter:

And in sleep's river you sleep

Like the river's self and the marine

Beings who mouth as they glide, nosing

And sliding lithely and smoothly

Gleaming serenely and sleekly.

I had just been reading a collection of stories about the Buddha, and in several of the stories, the Buddha takes the form of an animal. In one of my favorites, he takes the form of an Ibex, and one of the lessons of the tale is not to kill for sport.

Schwartz writes about the river in another poem: "The River Was the Emblem of All Beauty: All":

The river was the abundant belly of beauty itself

The river was the dream space where I walked,

The river was itself and yet it was--flowing and freshening--

A self anew, another self, or self renewed

At every tick of eternity, and by each glint of light

Mounting or sparkling, descending to shade and black.

There is so much in this poem. The fecundity of a river, the renewal properties of the river. The river becomes all of life: joy (mounting or sparkling) and despair (shade and black). Yin and Yang.

This collage has a lot of personal meaning for me. It connects me to my thoughts about my river journey in 2005 and to my thoughts on life, death, and eternity. It also connects me to my childhood: my favorite toy was a mountain goat named "Oddie." I have written about Oddie here before. Oddie was lost but he has remained in my imagination and continues to be my muse.