Spiritual Sunday
In the flight of migrating Canadian geese, Robert Penn Warren sees a metaphor for our own lives, although the geese appear to have a clearer sense of their story than the poet. “At least, they know/ When the hour comes for the great wing-beat,” he writes. In their nature they know “the path of pathlessness, with all the joy/ Of destiny fulfilling its own name.” Even when one of them unexpectedly dies, downed by a lead pellet, the rest “recover control” and “take the last glide for a far glint of water.”
The poet, who knows not “why I am here,” nevertheless feels lifted up by the birds. In the “tingling process of transformation” he imagines he is one of them, entering into the “sounding vacuum of passage.” His heart “impacted with a fierce impulse/To unwordable utterance,” he directs his flight “toward sunset, at a great height.”
We know how long we have been traveling and how far–“time and distance”–but not why. Or at least, our logical selves do not know. Yet perhaps, like the geese, some deep part of ourselves is guiding us, some fierce impulse.
Heart of Autumn
Wind finds the northwest gap, fall comes.
Today, under gray cloud-scud and over gray
Wind-flicker of forest, in perfect formation, wild geese
Head for a land of warm water, the boom, the lead pellet.
Some crumple in air, fall. Some stagger, recover control,
Then take the last glide for a far glint of water. None
Knows what has happened. Now, today, watching
How tirelessly V upon V arrows the season’s logic.
Do I know my own story? At least, they know
When the hour comes for the great wind-beat. Sky-strider,
Star-strider–they rise, and the imperial utterance,
Which cries out for distance, quivers in the wheeling sky.
That much they know, and in their nature know
The path of pathlessness, with all the joy
Of destiny fulfilling its own name.
I have known time and distance, but not why I am here.
Path of logic, path of folly, all
The same–and I stand, my face lifted now skyward,
Hearing the high beat, my arms outstretched in the tingling
Process of transformation, and soon tough legs,
With folded feet, trail in the sounding vacuum of passage,
And my heart is impacted with a fierce impulse
To unwordable utterance–
Toward sunset, at a great height.
