{"id":1409,"date":"2015-08-03T00:00:10","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T04:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1409"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:49:22","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:49:22","slug":"august-3-i-too-saw-only-the-obstacles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2015\/08\/03\/august-3-i-too-saw-only-the-obstacles\/","title":{"rendered":"August 3 “I too saw only the obstacles”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday August 3 \u00a0– Another beginning for a year of grace and work<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first post of 2015-16; lots of options. \u00a0Some friends have found summer times to notice poems that had been asking for attention. \u00a0 Readers will encounter quite a few of them over the next months.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s post\u00a0took shape last evening while talking with a soul friend who is spending this week at home, in stillness, tasting her life in its present moment. \u00a0Something in our conversation reminded me of still another from Denise Levertov, a late work in Sands of the Well<\/u>\u00a0(1996). \u00a0Wikipedia tells me that “Oneiromancy\u00a0(from the Greek \u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03db\u00a0oneiros, dream, and \u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u00a0manteia, prophecy) is . . .\u00a0\u00a0a system of . . .\u00a0\u00a0interpretation\u00a0that uses dreams to\u00a0predict\u00a0the future.\u201d \u00a0To me, the\u00a0definition is a little undercooked. \u00a0Contemplating a dream that asks for my attention is less about the future than about what vibrates beneath the surface of my life now.<\/p>\n

Levertov approaches this dream with the assumption that the characters reveal dimensions of herself, the dreamer — \u00a0the blind man and she who led him, uninvited, through a vast museum filled with beauty turned into hazards.<\/p>\n

It helps to read the poem out loud, \u00a0more than once, with pauses. \u00a0 Blessings on the first week in August.<\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post: \u00a0<\/strong>“Uncertain Oneiromancy”
\n<\/strong>Denise Levertov<\/p>\n

I spent the entire night leading a blind man
\nthrough an immense museum
\nso that (by internal bridges, or tunnels?
\nsomehow!) he could avoid the streets,
\nthe most dangerous avenues, all the swift
\nchaotic traffic . . .\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I persuaded him
\nto allow my guidance, through to the other
\ndistant doors, though once inside, labyrinthine corridors,
\nsteps, jutting chests and chairs and stone arches
\nbewildered him as I named them at each swerve,
\nand were hard for me to manoeuver him
\naround and between.\u00a0 As he could perceive nothing,
\nI too saw only the obstacles, the objects
\nwith sharp corners; not one painting, not one carved
\ncredenza or limestone martyr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We did at last
\nemerge, however, into that part of the city
\nhe had been headed for when I took over;
\nhe raised his hat in farewell, and went on, uphill,
\ntapping his stick.\u00a0 I stood looking after him,
\nwatching as the street enfolded him, wondering
\nif he would make it, and after I woke, wondering still
\nwhat in me he was, and who
\nthe I was that took the long short-cut with him
\nthrough room after room of beauty his blindness
\nhid from me as if it had never been.<\/p>\n

Denise Levertov\u00a0\u00a0 Sands of the Well \u00a0(1996)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday August 3 \u00a0– Another beginning for a year of grace and work The first post of 2015-16; lots of options. \u00a0Some friends have found summer times to notice poems that had been asking for attention. \u00a0 Readers will encounter … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1409"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1413,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1409\/revisions\/1413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}