Photograph by Paul Hsu
Check out (do or do not bother to try) Li-Young Lee's challenging, yes, indeed, difficult "eating meat" (who is reading whose work? Whitman?) poem deliciously titled "The Cleaving." (Compare and contrast with George Herbert's classic poem "Love (III).")
Consider its changes, its charging contradiction or opposition of meaning: divide and sever (meat cleaver!) versus hold fast and be faithful or loyal to ("Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...") thanks to metaphysical and theological super glue (paradox!). Definitely, brothers and sisters, do not take my word for it. Instead, we might "become becoming," and being more "fully human," become more whole by working toward brimming wellness in body and soul, in breath, spirit, word, and deed, write? on!
One of Lee's longer poems to devour, digest, read and relish for missed understanding. Perfect (perhaps, not!) in its imperfections for the Godforsaken passion of Good Friday, the Godforsaken passion in all its groundbreaking hope and skull-splitting horror amid excruciating violence, in all its profound silence and unfathomable mystery (as Christian cliches go).
Process of identification, immigration, and naturalization as glocal citizens, resident artists, coffee blenders, mutant shape-shifters of outdated terminology and problematic vocabulary, making new love languages, cultivating and developing free information highways of talking about and speaking to and realizing the complexity, diversity, and specificity of the human experience weathered by the storm in hybrid, lyric, or narrative form.
We are but stardust earthlings speculating and prospecting for gems and gold in the vastness of the universe. What is the self but the soul in relation to other souls? Who is the other, the alien, the foreigner, the stranger, is it not my brother, my sister, is it not my daughter, my son, is it not my father, my mother? You, my next-door neighbor?
by Paul Hsu 4-3-15
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