JOHN BLOOMBERG-RISSMAN Reviews
“Survivor” from Ruins by Margaret Randall
(University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 2011)
SURVIVOR
for my daughter Ana
Tree of Life, lone survivor of ancient forest
or gnomon – found or planted –
cosmic point marking past, present and future
in temporal dimension,
lower middle and upper worlds
on a map we hold uneasily.
Anchoring Pueblo Bonito’s west plaza,
the stump of a great pine
insists that it is axis, one more in a range of clues
that tell us more than we ought to know.
Is the great house also a sundial
claiming the passage of time?
Will this tree invite us to touch its roots,
hear the muted story
of its sun-bleached rings?
*
In the book, this poem’s facing page has a photo, not of the tree, but of one of those massive moai from Easter Island, which appears to be set alone in a great empty plain. This suggests that the tree, like the moai, is a mysterious object about which one can only speculate. It is no surprise, then, that Randall’s meditation on it has a mystic-cosmic mythological twinge.
The first thing to note is that a dead tree is called the Tree of Life. Wikipedia again:
A tree of life is variously a motif in various world theologies, mythologies, and philosophies; a mystical concept alluding to the interconnectedness of all life on our planet; and a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense.
The tree of knowledge, connecting to heaven and the underworld, and the tree of life, connecting all forms of creation, are both forms of the world tree or cosmic tree, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, and are portrayed in various religions and philosophies as the same tree.
We will note that Randall’s tree has all these characteristics.
The poem continues: “lone survivor of ancient forest / or gnomon – found or planted”. It is immediately clear that she knows nothing of this particular tree, and that the poem is a way of opening herself to its mystery. She begins to project millennia of thinking (is that the right word?), feeling (is that the right word?), cultural memes (is that the right expression?):
cosmic point marking past, present and future
in temporal dimension,
lower middle and upper worlds
We recognize all this from the Wikipedia entry. It is a commonplace, but no less powerful for that, as these lines are followed by “on a map we hold uneasily.” This is suggestive, and never really explained. Why does this make us uneasy. I suggest that there are two reasons, speaking in terms of the poem’s cosmology: 1) it tells us where we are in time, and thus ties us into a continuum, in which we hold no unique place, and thus suggests our mortality; and 2) it suggests a universe that is simply too much for our egos to comprehend.
From the cosmic, we return to the local and specific:
Anchoring Pueblo Bonito’s west plaza,
the stump of a great pine
insists that it is axis, one more in a range of clues
that tell us more than we ought to know.
Is the great house also a sundial
claiming the passage of time?
What do we know of Pueblo Bonito? It is discussed in the book’s previous poem. It is a place she has visited repeatedly. I think the important thing to know here is that there is an
… 18.2 year interval
when earth and sky align
and a sliver of light
descends a wall
there. Which is why she sees the tree as some sort of axis (it’s not just metaphorical, as it might appear from the first stanza, Pueblo Bonito is astronomically aligned, à la Stonehenge and other sites).
The lines “ … one more in a range of clues / that tell us more than we ought to know” reiterate the uneasiness we’ve already encountered. Is it somehow dangerous to encounter the Tree of Life? Remember Genesis, just after Adam and eve have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge:
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” (Genesis 3:22)
Perhaps there is a suggestion here that the poet / narrator is still haunted by the injunction. Perhaps she’s noting the difference our culture, and one that was never forbidden to reach out the hand: they were comfortable with their place in the cosmos, where we are not.
The poem ends with a question:
Will this tree invite us to touch its roots,
hear the muted story
of its sun-bleached rings?
I’m reminded of the Tree of Souls in the movie Avatar. Wikipedia again (it’s either that or imdb):
The Tree of Souls (Ayvitrayä Ramunong in Na'vi [Cameron: Vitraya Ramunong]) is a tree where the Na’vi are able to communicate with the biological network that exists throughout Pandora. Cameron described the Tree of Souls as “a big input-output station” ... In the film, the tree is seen to be capable of transferring a specific consciousness from one body to another.
I believe that the author / narrator is hoping for a “muted” version of said experience, since she is, as noted above, apparently forbidden the whole thing.
On the other hand, by this time in the poem, perhaps “the tree is a tree is a tree” for the first time, rather than a mystic symbol, and that she is simply hoping for some connection, again muted, to its non-metaphorical history.
*****
[Editor’s Note: This is one of 50 reviews written, mas o menos, in 50 days. While each engagement can be read on a stand-alone basis, there’s a layer of watching the critic’s subjectivity arise in a fulsome manner if the reviews are read one after another. So if you have insomnia and/or are curious about this layer, I suggest you read the 50 reviews right after each other and, to facilitate this type of reading, I will put at the bottom of each review a “NEXT” button that will take you to the next review. To wit: NEXT. And an Afterword on John's reading process is also available HERE!]
John Bloomberg-Rissman is somewhere towards middle of In the House of the Hangman, the third section of his maybe life project called Zeitgeist Spam (picture Hannah Hoch painting over the Sistine Chapel) The first two volumes have been published: No Sounds of My Own Making, and Flux, Clot & Froth. In addition to his Zeitgeist Spam project, he has edited or co-edited two anthologies, 1000 Views of 'Girl Singing' and The Chained Hay(na)ku Project, and is at work on a third, which he is editing with Jerome Rothenberg. He is also deep into two important collaborations, one with Richard Lopez, one with Anne Gorrick. By important he means "important to him". Anyone else want to collaborate? He blogs at Zeitgeist Spam.
No comments:
Post a Comment