A Habit of Living

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Alain C. Dexter, Canadian poet, early feminist thought, Elaine Stirling, medieval Spanish form poetry, poetry of New Spain, Sor Juana de la Cruz

~~a glosa~~

To perceive you so exalted
does not impede my boldness;
that there resides no certain deity
upon the arrogant sole of thought.

—“My Divine Lysis”, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

I’ve made a habit of living
in beautiful places
of the mind, eschewing
bored walks in favour
of weathered planks along
a beach. I have been faulted,
as have you, for over-stretching
what is plausible and then go slack,
however much I wanted
to perceive you so exalted.

For a time, it seemed,
we held each other’s fondest
hopes like plover’s eggs,
my palm in yours, so trusting.
Life outgrows itself. I grew,
but you took coldness
as your guide, descending
to a squalor that, by living low
proves wrongly that I love you less
does not impede my boldness

in these words I write
expecting you might stumble
in this season to a glorified
and kinder reason.
Sweet decay of all that’s ill-
conceived by gravity
will one day rise again
in freshening your pessimistic arc
some god will tip and know with levity
that there resides no certain deity

for certainty, as every dancing
angel knows is diamond tipped,
a needle, while your camel’s eye
toward bleak and arid one day
must allow for rain and joy and hopes
for humankind. That’s all we’ve got
for now, my love. Fare well. I long
for you to hear the bells I ring,
conceding what you’ve wrought
upon the arrogant sole of thought.

~~~

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695) was an outspoken mystic and scholar who lived in New Spain, present-day Mexico. The form of this poem, a glosa, honours a quatrain excerpted from her work. Glosas were popular in medieval Spain, and I’ve been in love with them for about eight years now. I wrote an entire book of glosas, which you can find here if you’re interested.

A note on her title: Lysis is defined as disintegration and decline. Assigning divinity to what might be perceived as negative speaks volumes, I believe, for de la Cruz’s worldview. Here is the selected quatrain in its original:

Que mirarte tan alta,
no impide a mi denuedo;
que no hay deidad segura
al altivo volar del pensamiento.

Merry Christmas, all!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2018
Translation of Sor Juana de la Cruz, “La Divina Lysis” by Elaine Stirling
Image of Leuty Lighthouse: photographer unknown

The Drawing Near

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, medieval Spanish form poetry, Mesoamerican poetry

~~a glosa~~

You mingle with eagles,
you are as harmonious as tigers;
with this the flowers are sipped,
and we are a little happier here.

—“Canto Florida” (Xochicuicatl)

You there, yes, you! The one with sadness
in your eyes. I couldn’t help but notice
from my plot here in the Recoleta
that your pockets bulge with trinkets
from the merchants of oblivion. You scrape
the ground and wake us ancient regals
with your wailing, going on about the end
of times as if to garbage scrabbling
you were reduced like urban sea gulls.
You mingle with eagles!

Rise and fall, yadda-yadda, we’ve lived it
all and prophesied with bones and fecund
vines. Your sciences are different, but
you, like us, allow the god of gravity
to smother, then you grumble, whine,
all prissy—you could crackle! Fires
burn white-hot, consume with joy
the oxygen that races in. A life full-lived
uplifts the lied-upon above the liars.
You are as harmonious as tigers

and as dangerous as you allow
yourself to be amidst the grave
and colourless. Millennia, we’ve met
at crossroads, you en route to birth
and us to flower song. With gladness
from your tongue, you lightly tripped,
“Fear not, rejoice!” and so we did,
the newly dead. We dance with you
today, sing bright and sugar lipped;
with this the flowers are sipped,

dear princesses and princes, you’re
the rainbow oscillation, a continuum
to us who momentarily reside this side
of new creation. Whenever you are laughing
and orgasming, you catch glimpses of
the 8-shaped path but then forget. If you could hear
your physicists the moment they transpose
from mass to energy, you’d never mourn
again. See all that lives as the drawing near,
and we are a little happier here.

Happy Day of the Dead, 2018!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2018
Author’s note: The translation of “Canto Florida” comes from In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature—Pre-Colombian to the Present, Miguel Leon-Portilla and Earl Shorris.

For Writers Only

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Alain C. Dexter, authenticity, chasing markets, discipline, Elaine Stirling, Emily Dickinson, glosa, medieval Spanish form poetry, writer's craft

Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
‘T is not conferred by any,
But possible to earn

A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise.

—Emily Dickinson (#1081)

~~~

“The art is not the person,”
says a writer I adore
as much for his career
as what he pens in crevices
between celebrity. It’s hard to take
oneself un-serious at every turn
and still enchant, and not keep
fan-slaves penned out back, whipped
to not admit your writing’s fit to burn.
Superiority to fate is difficult to learn.

Today is garbage day, so I’ve thrown
out a metaphor gone saggy at the knees:
the one about reflections—I’m a mirror,
you’re a mirror, everywhere a mirror,
mirror—fairest, squarest, cock-a-doodle—
worst excuse there is for taciturn
refusal to let go of people,
places, memories that grind you down.
The healthy, gorgeous self discerns;
‘tis not conferred by any, but possible to earn.

I knew this guy shortlisted
for a Pulitzer who spent his days,
not writing but elbowing those, like me,
who didn’t care much for his work.
He didn’t win; contracts dried up
and so did he—before my eyes,
from plum to prune he shriveled. Chasing
markets, dangling your pretty bits are yard sales
of the pseudo-soul that, masquerading, dies
a pittance at a time, until to her surprise

she learns she never had to try
so hard, except—oh, damn!—the writer’s dead.
Your option, if you’re serious and not
just putzing for applause is to die alive
to expectation of the muddled kind. Pay full
attention to determination to feel better. Size
up that in words—begin, if need be, with,
Once upon a time… “True enough” will
fast become your truth. From shining eyes
the soul with strict economy subsists till Paradise.

~~~

I’ve borrowed a two stanza verse from Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) to write a glosa, a poetry form that first appeared in the courts of medieval Spain. Strictly speaking, glosas originate from quatrains, but Emily’s work is far too electric to fall nicely into brick-shaped lines. So, I rearranged her eight to four, allowing that she often wrote on envelopes and curved around into margins, and probably wouldn’t mind.

If the glosa form intrigues you, you can find a whole book of them written by my heteronym Alain C. Dexter, here.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013