“I saw myself
a ring of bone
in the clear stream
of all of it.”
- Lew Welch, "I Saw Myself"

The poet, in the struggle for clarity, sees himself. At some point they must do this, or must struggle to do so, at the least. So truthful is the vision it goes to the very bones of the poet. Alternately, the bone seen is one, hollowed out and placed as in a stream, with life rushing through. One with the stream, not obstructing the stream, for the waters rush through the poet.

The identification is nothing if we don't do something with it, however, and that, as the poem goes on to say, is to “ring is what / a bell does”, to make the voice heard. That and to achieve a moment of zen.  The poems are but a reporting out, and an epiphany. Sometimes a personal epiphany, sometimes an epiphany about the world and time.  Many of us try at this. Some succeed. Some succeed but can't cope with the stream. In a sense, they are suffocated by the rush of the stream.

It is unfortunate that Lew Welch's ending was so tragic.

In my youth I came to embrace poetry – which was to embrace life and the rush of the stream and the ringing of a bell. I attempted to learn from the likes of Lew Welch and others who wrote in the 50's, 60's and 70's. They were muses of a different sort. They had a commitment to the poem. Perhaps that is another meaning from the poem. The whole thing can also be a commitment, for the ring is always symbolic of that, as well.
Here is a small tribute to Lew, and the others, a small poem to them, their work, and their impact on my youthful days and desire to write. At the time, my life was not so far from theirs in time, at least.  Is it now so different, however, in substance? What is the life of a poet today?

“Can you tell me where my country lies
Said the unifaun to his true love's eyes.”
- Dancing with the Moonlit Knight, Genesis

The search for home, for country, for principles, for soul...the lyrics from Genesis effectively call up emotions and paths we take in politics, in religion, and in art and literature. The use of a new mythic being in the lyric above, a unifaun, is an effective element to do this, a bridge back to our mythical days combining the mythic past of a unicorn, our innocence expressed as a faun, and our ideals and realities of those in uniform. We have everyday meetings, sometimes with people searching. To ask the question of “true love's eyes” is riveting and demands a cosmic truth narrowed down to what is in front of us.

In our everyday lives, the hard reality and drama often seems to merge with larger forces from beyond our neighborhoods or the ideas with which we are most comfortable. Sometimes, we get lost. At other times, it is our countries or our societies that get lost. Perhaps the things we belong to get lost, go adrift, and they lose us. Much of art has been made of our search for this. The search to regain and reclaim. Much of politics has been about this. An Arab spring and an Occupy movement attest to the fervent beliefs of many that are searching.

One man in particular is searching right now for his freedom, but for years he has been searching for his home – and what home means. He is a knight, dancing in the moonlight of the world's stage. Not front and center, unfortunately. The sun shines on a world stage only if there is celebrity scandal, and we can be entertained by the stage. No, this stage is one where only the moon shines a light, but still, that light is strong once your eyes adjust. For this man who is searching, who has dared to ask where his country lies, spring has turned to trouble. He is searching not just for a place, not just for an idea, but for the reality of both. Only where place and idea meet and blossom can he help to bring his country to where he thinks it should be.

He occupies, right now, a prison in Egypt. I became aware of him through @Alikat747. Here is a poem for his predicament, which is our predicament, as well. I don't know Alaa, and I am too privileged to really know what he is going through. Still, if we don't raise our voices, the other side of midnight may come – a darker night for Alaa and others in his country, a night we cannot truly imagine here.

You can find out more about Alaa here, and sign a petition here.

  “The dance, then, here in the gray and gold light of the FIRST VALLEY, is the dance of the mind as a mute – muted man and muted place.” - Charles Olson

We sit in our homes, far from our origins in, well, it doesn't matter your beliefs. Our origins in a garden guarded by flaming trees with reason to be lost if we left, in a savannah where we learn to walk upright with reason still on the far dawn, in the dark woods of a cold Europe seeking the inmost cave where reason would take us – they are all far from our homes layered with carpet or tongue and groove wood, padded chairs, electronics blaring into our mind and taking control of our evolution without our knowing how.

Sometimes, however, we sit with a window open, curtain flapping in the breeze, and if we stop the electronics, stop our minds, stop our places, we just might hear it. A far off echo of some din in the past, a memory stirring out of the collective, an archetype rising from its deep sleep in the farthest corner of the woods or deepest trench in the ocean. At that moment, if we enter the time and memory and invading place, we enter a dance. This dance is one where we are in a primal dance around a fire with our own meaning, our own place, our own actions. Sometimes, we fall mute in The Presence.

Some never have these moments, and it is a pity. Others have them but do not share them. That is their right, the personal is, after all, personal. Others find a way to overcome the muteness on their return, and use feeble words or abstract images thrown at a piece of paper in fevered attempts to capture what was 'just there'. Perhaps they heard a hound bay and were suddenly on a hunt, perhaps they heard a gypsy guitar and were sitting next to a red wagon in the dance of firelight, perhaps they were back at a school dance, even, or they heard the voice of the other. The words are never good enough, the images on a canvass never quite right, but they are re-worked, and then, the electronics of the present world are back. What is there is what will be there despite any further attempts. The moment is gone except for some deep feeling carried in our bones. Memories of some generative place, a first valley where someone once walked in the mists and rising sun.

An attempt at overcoming the muted man and place is in Curtains in the Wind, the poem. It is but a short dance, re-played now at your convenience. A faint echo of the moment that came in past the curtains leaning in on the scented wind.