Sol

[PrinceMyshkin]

Sol was one of those
who knew the length and breadth
of Jesus, who had felt
the warmth of his footprints
on the Via Dolorosa,
deeper, sadder, after he assumed the weight of the cross,
the mortal heart pumping,
the God-given minutes of his earthly journey
slipping away...

Sol (no relation to that other Saul)
understood that history
had been broken into,
that the vaults would no longer
hold love, death, empire
as they once had done,
that all men and women,
from now on,
would be held to account.

[AuntShecky]

This piece is alive with the wisdom of Sol(omon.)

[ampoule]

And it has sol.

I am curious to know what brought this on.

[a_little_wisp]

VEEERY NICE! :D

Although, when I first read the title, I was thinking, "the sun? Is it about the sun!?" and "sol - la ti do!? Is about music? I love music!"

And then I read it, and it wasn't either, but I still loved it! So very wise.

"Understood that history
had been broken into..."

I love that. I don't know why, sorry. :/

[PrinceMyshkin]

This piece is alive with the wisdom of Sol(omon.)

Many thanks, Auntie...


And it has sol.

I am curious to know what brought this on.

Do we ever fully know what brought on certain of our poems? All I remember of the origin of this one was the single syllable, “Sol,” that popped into my mind, in response to which I had the feeling of a man I might have known, who would have been homely - in the sense of unpretentious and not particularly remarkable. There must have been an as yet untapped thought of Saul of the N.T., that towering, pedagogic figure who had never actually known Christ but virtually invented Christianity.

So there was a built-in inclination to draw the one somewhat in contrast to the other. That placed me at the time of Jesus’ life and death. After the relatively easy composition of the first stanza, I fumbled with some further details of Sol’s life, his marriage, the two orchards he and his wife tended - one of apricots, the other of prickly pears - and their two sons: the one who was wild but more beloved of Sol; the other, more dutiful one who, after Sol’s death, sought for his footprints in the orchards but never found any.

But I discarded that in favour of the existing stanza...

[firefangled]

Exquisite!

Loved the second stanza best.

[Virgil]

You know I didn't think too much of this poem at first, but it has grown on me. I think Firefangle is pointing to this outstanding metaphor:

Sol (no relation to that other Saul)
understood that history
had been broken into,
that the vaults would no longer
hold love, death, empire
This took a while to settle in, but I do now think it's a fine piece Prince.

[PrinceMyshkin]

VEEERY NICE! :D

Although, when I first read the title, I was thinking, "the sun? Is it about the sun!?" and "sol - la ti do!? Is about music? I love music!"

In this day and age, I'd have expected you to think of SOLvency!


And then I read it, and it wasn't either, but I still loved it! So very wise.

"Understood that history
had been broken into..."

I love that. I don't know why, sorry. :/

Some of my favourite lines in others' poems I don't fully understand at first or even later, but they register with a tickle or more of intuition. Thanks.


Exquisite!

Loved the second stanza best.

Thanks, and at the risk of sounding like the following:


A Jewsh mother bought her son a red and a blue tie for his birthday. The next time she saw him he was wearing the red tie.

"So," she said, "you didn't like the blue one?"

Personally I like both the red and the blue one...

[firefangled]

I would respond as a Jewish mother, but I don't know your formal name for which Jerry must be a nickname.

It would go something like, "Jerry (but it would be Gerald, Jerrod, etc), you've worn the red one three times since I saw you wearing the blue one, a mother knows."

My mother used to buy me hideous shirts and when I saw her afterward, would remark in a similar fashion, "Oh is that one of the shirts I got you? No, those had horizontal stripes, didn't they?" Gentile mothers are masters at passive/aggressive.

If it is a comfort for you to know, I also thoroughly enjoyed the first stanza as well. However, "ticking away" put me off just a little, if you were to press me to give a reason for my preference. :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

I would respond as a Jewish mother, but I don't know your formal name for which Jerry must be a nickname.

Until it came time to register me in regular school, because of my maternal grandmother's presence in our lives, I was known by a Yiddish diminutive of Joseph, which my parents had intended as my first name: Yosl. Then - as the family history goes - my mother stood in line to register me, in a secular school, and decided that "Yosl" wouldn't do and that "Joseph" was too stuffy a name so she invented Jerry on the spot. I later overcame my embarassment at so ethnic a name and partially reclaimed it.


It would go something like, "Jerry (but it would be Gerald, Jerrod, etc), you've worn the red one three times since I saw you wearing the blue one, a mother knows."

My mother used to buy me hideous shirts and when I saw her afterward, would remark in a similar fashion, "Oh is that one of the shirts I got you? No, those had horizontal stripes, didn't they?" Gentile mothers are masters at passive/aggressive.

Which reminds me of one of the few "Gentile" jokes I know:


This non-Jewish guy calls home late one Sunday afternoon to inform his mother that he won't be able to make it for dinner after all.

"Okay," she says.

(Actually it's a Jewish joke in disguise!)


If it is a comfort for you to know, I also thoroughly enjoyed the first stanza as well. However, "ticking away" put me off just a little, if you were to press me to give a reason for my preference. :)

"Ticking away," though I didn't dwell on it, would have seemed right to me because I was writing as much as I could from the point of view of as ordinary a man as I could make him, and that phrase seemed so... unelevated, so commonplace by contrast with the enormity of what Sol had witnessed.


You know I didn't think too much of this poem at first, but it has grown on me. I think Firefangle is pointing to this outstanding metaphor:

This took a while to settle in, but I do now think it's a fine piece Prince.

Many thanks, Virgil.



If it is a comfort for you to know, I also thoroughly enjoyed the first stanza as well. However, "ticking away" put me off just a little, if you were to press me to give a reason for my preference. :)

Not much later... I'm persuaded, and am going to change it. Now that you point it out "ticking away" has too overty a 20th c. feeling, the result of a misspent youth reading LeCarre, Eric Ambler et al. Although I didn't consciously aim at this, I believe the language everywhere else is not specific to any age. Thanks for pointing that out.

[blazeofglory]

Something really touching, new and penetrating!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Something really touching, new and penetrating!

Thank you, Blaze.

[Silas Thorne]

:) I'm not sure how much of this I understand, but I love the lines 'history/ had been broken into', like a vault or a tomb, terrific!

[PrinceMyshkin]

:) I'm not sure how much of this I understand, but I love the lines 'history/ had been broken into', like a vault or a tomb, terrific!

Thanks, Silas, that's a line I'm proud of.

[SleepyWitch]

:( I don't understand the religious bits either, but I liked these lines, too:


history
had been broken into,
that the vaults would no longer
hold love, death, empire
as they once had done,

[qimissung]

I like it. Simple, powerful, it gives a feeling of history in the making, and the weight we all bear for humanity's sins.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Many thanks, Sleepy & qimmisung...

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'm presuming to bump this in the hope that some of the newer members might have something to say about it.

[PrinceMyshkin]

None too humbly, I'm restoring this to public view for those who joined after I originally posted it.

[aliengirl]

Thanks for restoring it, otherwise I may never have come across it. Though I can't understand its religious connotation, I like the second stanza very much.

[Silas Thorne]

I'm sorry to say this, but rereading this, the vocabulary used seems to have homosexual sexual overtones for me. The 'length and breadth of Jesus', 'warmth', and 'pumping' particularly. But perhaps because I don't understand it, and I was corrupted by a poem I wrote in the past to read into a male believer's personal relationship with Jesus. Sorry about that, just writing what I get from it personally.

I still love the 'history/had been broken into' lines though.

[Jerrybaldy]

Well the 2013 bump did better than the 2010 bump ! Pleased at that , but unless I lie the meaning behind this is beyond me. Happy to read anything you post though as (shoot me) I have learnt to.

[tailor STATELY]

Reviving this poem again as I hadn't recalled reading it when it was originally revived, or something.

Anyway, this line struck me as odd: "from now on, / would be held to account." In my sensibilities we became accountable in our pre-mortal existence, and then again in the Garden with Adam and Eve (since our pre-mortal existence had become veiled from us). That said I enjoyed the poem with the understanding that others have a different take than mine. :)

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor