There's a certain Slant of light‏
From:
Jimmy George (jg-ltuil@lntecc.com)

Sent: Mon 5/25/09 1:17 PM
To:
Thomas Samuel (tomsabb@yahoo.com)

Dear Thoma,

I understood this poem in totality. But "Contours of which extend in both temporal directions" is not clear.

Recently I heard from a person that there are 3 impurities (3 malams) with which normal people live: -

The illusion of the Individual as a seperate entity who sees "Others" everywhere
The illusion about "distance"
The effort we put in to overcome 'Distance"
I now understand you have overcome the 'Distance" because "the Contours extend no more to anywhere"

Your poem belongs to the class where the latent or subliminal content is small. There is nothing that might surprise the reader, or indeed the writer himself.

There is a small number of poems which, in different ways, reach beyond everyday consciousness and in Dryden's words, " move the sleeping images of things toward the light, thereby
creating meanings, not hitherto available, that can inform, strengthen and help to direct our own developing mental life."

Example:

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons -
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes -

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us -
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the meanings are -

None may teach it - Any -
' Tis the Seal Despair -
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air -

When it comes, the Landscape listens -
Shadows - hold their breath -
When it goes, ' tis like the Distance
On the look of Death -

The winter light "oppresses", "hurts", "afflicts", because it is transient, because the landscape it lights up is black, but above all because it is non human, an inescapable reminder of how alien is the World that we try to domesticate and humanize, whereas it goes its own ways, ineluctably, like death. This poet's reticences, where lesser poets would diffuse and defuse by explicitness, enable her to bring into consciousness some very important " internal differences" " where the Meanings are". I am afraid, your poem is explicit and the surprise element defused.

Remember, " By intuition, Mightiest Things Assert themselves - and not by terms -

The poet's deepest insights, wrung from personal experience of joy and terror, "cannot be made comprehensible to others by instruction".

Let's meditate.

Jimmy



----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Samuel
To: Jimmy George
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: 1 Corinthians 13
There was a flame in me
Contours of which extend in both temporal directions..
However hard I may try
To express it in words,
There was always something amiss in words
And in words alone, there is always something a miss.

I miss it no longer again
Once I have immersed myself in that flame,
Contours of which extend no more to anywhere
The fire has engulfed me
And a new alchemy has begun.

Words are props that you may do away with as you alike