Dear all,
We walk through a dark and frightening forest, reaching an opening where
the light shines on the clearing. It enables us to distinguish one thing
from the other. In this clearing we can rest and be at peace. To know what
the objects are, and that they can be distinguished from each other is what
we call knowledge. What should we refer to as the insight into the clearing
itself?
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld
https://torgeirfjeld.com/
On Thu, 28 Mar 2019 at 15:48, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Well, you’re right. Dante seems synonymous with his *Inferno*. He did
write the *Purgatorio *and *Paradiso, *but who reads and talks about, or
criticizes those? Not many. The same is true of Milton. Probably a lot
of people don’t even know he wrote *Paradise Regained. * Poets know a
lot about human faults, frailties and evils but not so much about God’s
province. Milton knew this and seemed to have doubts about the worth of
*Paradise
Regained*, or it seems to me so because he attached his *Samson Agonistes*
to its first publication.
Lawrence
*From:* lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *John McCreery
*Sent:* Wednesday, March 27, 2019 11:30 PM
*To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Cc:* Torgeir Fjeld <t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: On the road
Sources can be interesting. But sometimes destinations are more so.
Lawrence points us up, to a sky filled with stars. Dante points us down, to
hell.
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 28, 2019, at 15:25, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Torgeir,
I definitely wasn’t thinking about Dante when I wrote that, but I’ve read
so much over the years, and presumably it is all back there some place and
accessible under hypnosis – or without my direct knowledge when writing a
poem -- but who knows? Not me. J
Lawrence
*From:* Torgeir Fjeld [mailto:t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx ;<t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx>]
*Sent:* Wednesday, March 27, 2019 11:05 PM
*To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* Re: [lit-ideas] On the road
Interesting and thoughtful. It makes us reflect on the sources of our
poetic tradition, such as
"MIDWAY upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear."
From
https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-1/
Best
On Thu, 28 Mar 2019, 02:40 Lawrence Helm, <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I’ve been on this road a
Seldom understood long time
And have never managed
To catch its name: The signs
Wink by so quickly. I must
Do my best to watch for
Directions: “Gas and Lodging”
From time to time or
“Rest Stop” which I
Pull in to and seeing no one
To complain, let my dogs
Out off-leash to run.
I look about but see no
Explanation of where this is.
My sense of direction, always
Poor seems to have gotten worse:
The sky in this unpeopled place with
Its immeasurable number of stars,
Each one with a name
I never learned, aches
As I cross over a crest
Away from the rest-stop’s lights.
The night is full of explanation,
But I am limited by the
Energy I still possess –
The dogs come near and wait
To see where I will go – on out
To infinity – or back to the car.
