Siddhartha's River

What words can I give you to pocket?
words like river-stones
smooth, thumb-rubbed -
Heavy like sand.

River-rock words that swell
and sink
and speak
in rapid tongues,
too slurred to understand.

-drunk, diving hands, cold wet feet-

Trying to grasp flowing whispers,
trying to hold them to your ear like a shell.

But a river can't live in the still
palm of a hand
because the river is everywhere -
When you know that,
you'll understand.





This poem sort of manifested itself from too much caffeine, and a flood of inspiration that I kind of felt coming. The start of monsoon season, so to speak.

I was sitting in Language in Education class, hopped up on diet coke and the sort of zen feeling of the way the syllabus was laid out, and the class itself, and I just had to use up some ink.

Last night I was talking to my roommate and I tried to explain to her the philosophy of the River, from Herman Hesse's Book Siddhartha. (great book by the way) and fell asleep with it still on my mind. Then in class, we were talking about alot of things, and I was just so reminded of how wrong alot of University English classes are. We who love the language, and the art, are forced to tear it apart, rip it into tiny pieces, and flay it alive, try to put it back together in it's most logical way. That's not appreciation, or understanding, or love. In my opinion, its a type of literary sadism, and I found that with me, for every class that tore books/poems/language apart, a piece of my inspiration, my creativity, just kind of withered. Luckily, like any good, growing thing, I can replenish my inspiration and creativity. Sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes not so much. Anyways, back from the tangent - What we should really be doing in English classes is not learning how to tear things apart, but how to make them. to create not destroy (there's a great quote about this from Erich Fromm, it's beautiful), to nurture that love so that we can nurture that inspiration and creativity in ourselves.

And that, in a tangent filled nut-shell, is how this poem was written. I think it fits the criteria, it's a personal poem that speaks to who I am as an individual, and the attitude I bring to a classroom.






The Siddhartha Quote:

"Did you," so he asked him at one time, "did you too learn that secret from the river: that there is no time?" Vasudeva's face was filled with a bright smile.

"Yes, Siddhartha," he spoke. "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?"

"This it is," said Siddhartha. "And when I had learned it, I looked at my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a shadow, not by something real. Also, Siddhartha's previous births were no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present."

The Erich Fromm Quote:

"That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate."

-The Sane Society