Of Her Lips When I See This Tree I Think

And so tradition has it, that is, English lyric tradition, that is immediately invoked by this first line, perfect like a first kiss: “of her lips when i see this tree i think…”.  And so, a sonnet I am expecting, for three poets and their famous sonnets come to mind: Shakespeare’s famous 18^th sonnet (“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”); Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”; and the American Edna St. Vincent Millay’s `What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,’ this last poem of which I will quote given its ostensible similarity and yet the stark contrast between both:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

I want to contrast these two very beautiful poems to highlight the extended meaning of James’ poem.  Though James’ cleverly highlights the philosophy of returning, by beginning and ending his poem with the phrase “of her lips,” he also intentionally decides to unsonnetize his poem as to emphasize the theme of returning as it relates to evolution (what I like to call the spiraling of consciousness).  Returning in this context refers to the progression of regression, the returning to learning aspect of consciousness. For Millay, “I only know that summer sang in me/A little while, that in me sings no more.”  There is an ending and a loss of hope, the illusion of death’s discontinuity.  It’s so subtle and romanticized this notion of loss and very Christian because the only solution to this ending is the salvation of otherworldly union; the meeting with one’s Maker.  Poets traditionally love loss because they bathe in the pathos of regression and merger, a perversion of spirituality recapitulated and reified in sexual union.  Loss, however, though it feeds the romantic, actually forecloses spiritual development: the melancholic never grows up, never matures.  Millay’s poem is the quintessential example of this romantic mood.  But, remember, it is closed!!!

In contrast, James’ post-romantic lyric attempts to go beyond the foreclosure of death though clearly respecting its place in evolution (let’s say, as a stage of consciousness).  The narrator soberly shares, “one can never return home”, but he doesn’t end there, for he knows the ultimate nature of reality in its infinite causality is a returning in an incessant recreating, but as an interconnectedness: “must re-create it now of her lips.”  Though simile bridges her lips with the full crimson bloom of an autumnal tree (the crimson of which also symbolizes the sanguinary depths of menarche in its cycle of life and death), the bridge is also, vis-à-vis a deeper awareness, a literal one in that everything is literally interconnected (e.g., the green of youth and the crimson of death; temporal and spatial dimensions of existence). 

Following this theme of returning, I am also compelled here by these last (appropriately) separated lines:

the first kiss
one can never return home
but must re-create it now of her lips

This is the paradox.  Every time we kiss, every time we make love, we are re-creating the First by the very fact we are returning to it through memory and imagination.  And so, as we return to the imaginal first, we seek That which transcends the actual first, That which is beyond the time and space of existence itself (consensual reality).  This is the First of the Real, the Pure Awareness of Enlightened Mind.  This returning home right smack in the middle (the Middle Way?) of the first kiss and “of her lips,” is the swollen (crimson) vaginal home fertile with life and the fecundity of love from which creation begins. 

And since everything is literally interconnected, I would like to make one more interpretive leap here, not only because I play Dots, but because the poem’s brilliance is in its dimensionality.  If we read this poem very carefully, not primarily from the perspective of “her lips” nor the philosophy of returning, but in the light of this new political era, this poem connects these symbols I have just discussed with our new leader, Barack Obama and, more specifically, what he potentially represents (if our intuitions are correct) in the evolution of consciousness.  These following lines perfectly describe my experience of Obama, even the “green” of his relative youth and inexperience:  

it is its height this tree stands tall yet
is not proud in fact is a little humble
in its leaning not quite majestic
but grand all the same it still has not
shaken all the green out of its
leaves this tree and though
its beauty points to its own death
and back around again
it does not linger nor
merely return this tree

Evolution in this context is history attempting to correct its mistakes and follow its Original path of Light and kiss like the first of  its Original face in the anaphora of I love.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

 I loved your response to James' beautiful poem; it is so packed and dense with meaning, much like a tree itself expanding and burgeoning with love. There is an amazing Elm tree on second Avenue in the park by Beth Israel.  It's yellow so brilliant with light, reminding me of you.  Thank you and thank you James for your poem. ps.  also, thank you for bringing two of my favorite sonnets back to life and the one by Millay I was unfamiliar with but also love.  i'm going to recite these all day. 

I wanted to share this thought.

I was at conference this week and a head of a leading software company said this in reference to the market.

"One thing to remember.  Fear is temporary, greed is not."

He went on to explain that the market and selling opportunities will come back because even with a lack of funds/cash flow will never have a lack of greed and this market will run on greed till the money comes back.