You in the window. The car you're sitting in. The next car down. The next car afterwards. The train finally turns its back on me and shrinks from my perspective. I am holding your last touch here on this barren platform. Immersed within myself at this pause, I still notice the relentless surroundings, the words: "Thank you for riding the new Jersey Transit. Watch Your Step." But there are deeper floating to my surface, muffled like a child humming in a rain barrel: "Treat each day as if it were your very last." So this could be the final farewell and this the final fare home as I hold this warmth-a fading sketch of your soul. But, if I am to embrace a love for you, it must not only be for this memory of touch but also for what continues off on the train, wherever you take it. The you that can be is not owned by anyone, and is not serviced by terms of a contract unless that contract defines your release from any terms. So, let me draft this commitment to the moment and moments to come, for the personhood that shines on that train, wherever you take it , regardless of returning. And I accept this pale passage of your departure that runs through my very bones like the sound of a waterdrop that speaks, "There is a well down here, and it is full." Jeffery Moller
A consideration of the poem Embrace of Jeffery Moller
written by Gregg Glory
Whenever an idea finds its embodiment the poet has achieved the immortality of his materials. To see the ideal, the idea, the realness of the human abstract is the first test such a poem must pass. The poet that cannot do this, and know that he is doing so, is doomed to flail in his materials-his emotions-the raw tug of his life. The next given is that an emotional realness must also participate fully in the expression of the idea given in the poem. A real, felt experience-not necessarily some melodramatic tale or detail, but the mood or mood source of the thing must come from some real feeling and not a hidebound precept. To write by precept is to do nothing other than indulge an empty attitude, to go on a scavenger hunt for someone else's dreams. If one writes by prescription, the only result is overdose.
This is the problem of form and rhetoric. There is nothing inherently wrong with either form or rhetoric-they are beautiful vessels for the emotions and mind to slither into with a sacred, languid liquidy hush. The danger is that the form can be presented to the reader empty as readily as it can be presented full. "Oh, look, I'm a romantic-check out the style!" "We are one of the oppressed voices-really, see my subject matter and mode of treatment?" "Hey, I'm a really really real realist." Etc., etc.
The poem before me today is Jeffery Moller's "Embrace," excerpted from his inaugural collection of poems "Long Changes Patiently Touch."
This poem has may of the unifyingly beautiful qualities just outlined. In a series of three twist, or turns, in the flow-motion of this poem, Mr. Moller twists the reader into his or her own genuine acknowledgement and confrontation with the human uniting of emotion and meaning. This is the life's blood of consciousness, and it is eminently sharable through the middle-man medium of poems. Let's elbow in on the surgeon at work before us.
"You in the window"-the objective world, the "reality" of the poem is set up with this quick flick of the artist's word-blade-albeit with the caveat that we are experiencing this fresh reality through the once-removed view of a window. Perspectives will become increasingly important as we cruise through this meditation on departure. Indeed, we move from an immediate and particular "you" to the group them of a train car, the next train car down, the one after that etc., until finally the train "turns its back" on the speaker who is left with only his own perspective to console him. So it seems at first blush, at least.
The vision is gone, but the window through which the fugitive enlightenment of the vision was spotted persists. It is part of our human equipment. And part as well, as the poem will make devastatingly clear, of our human predicament. This is the endless and on-going craft-work of consciousness-the vessel-making capacity to sense the shape incipient in the materials presented before that consciousness-or presented by that consciousness to itself-and held before its own framing window until the window itself becomes subject to the artist's shaping.
I am holding your last touch here on this barren platform
The "barren platform" is the speaker's own consciousness-he has not yet begun to discover the shape of meaning that this "sorrow of parting" is to bring to him-that he is to forge out of it. The feeling of desolation is measured and empty; indeed, it is empty because it is measured-because of the persistence of the window, or perspective, that stays with the speaker. Momentarily confused at this pause in the external action-the absence of the "you" with which the poem began, the speaker is forced to look inward-perhaps with the same window he has been left with on the "barren platform." Will he make it serve his necessity? Can he? What transformations of instruments and moments will be required to move the window and make it work-what will be needed to fill up the "empty vessel" of the "barren platform?"
Firstly, we notice that the window is still working at all, and that the speaker, although "immersed" in himself, "still notices the relentless surroundings, the word." A touch of magical realism is evident in this self-reference in the poem; words are the most relentless surrounding of any poem. Here we have a light, brilliant touch that gives a quick key to the entire sequence-the way inner and outer worlds will be tied together is through the perennial instrumentality of "the words." The speakers remarks upon the banal signs of the NJ Transit system. "Watch your step," one sign warns-and indeed we are about to embark on a most closely watched inner journey indeed, one that touches us as we tread it.
But there are deeper floating to my surface, muffled like a child humming in a rain barrel: "Treat each day as if it were your very last."
As the first meeting at the window of inner and outer selves is about to occur, and we are treated to some carpe diem wisdom. We are invited to "treat each day as if it were your very last." Wonderful advice, as always, but who do we have to thank for their rising from the "rain barrel" at this particular moment. Is the "child humming" some furtive ghost of Virgil to recommend this course of action to us? What is the source itself of these words? Who is this child? The rather evocative image of a youth in barrel-a sort of stowaway Jim Hawkins overhearing our piratical selves make menacing and murderous plans to do away with our own happiness-gives a richness to the sentiment that would otherwise not exist; a tenderness and textured softness adheres to the humdrum admonishment. No more is said about this image until later in the poem, when more and more-indeed all-of the resonance of the piece will eventually rise to the sensitive reader from this single, seemingly offhand, phrase. We have reached, without really knowing it-or knowing how or why-the first of the three turning points of this poem, and it comes upon us almost silently, with no more self-importance or insistence than "a child humming in a rain barrel."
Instead, the poem seems to rush rapidly to a close, a "final farewell," with only a warm memory held close to the speaker-a deflationary denouement that could almost be Hallmark brand simplicity except for the slightly weird phrase "sketch of your soul." Then and abrupt and almost astonishing interruptive "But" is introduced, and the speaker begins to move away from sentimental memorializing of the event of departure and into an active contemplation of the scene and meaning before him, with is the creative crux of the emotional state within him.
But, if I am to embrace a love for you, it must not only be for this memory of touch but also for what continues off on the train, wherever you take it.
Here is the first of the series of inner train cars we will get to see as the window turned inward begins to perpective-ize our, the reader's, experience by showing us more and more of the speaker's different aspects. The speaker not only needs to hold on to his particular and selfish "memory of touch," but he needs to embrace a more abstract "love for you" as well, an abstraction that will entail some very concrete ramifications.
The first of these ramifications is the acknowledgement that his perspective, although limited, must somehow cope with vistas that the loved one may yet encounter. Things that will happen to that loved one in future time and circumstance are real, as real as the removed other herself who "continues off/ on that train." This is a giant leap of faith and faithfulness that the word-window demands that the speaker come to terms with. Your love for another must encompass all that that other person is and does-and future time is not exempt from this reckoning. All in all, that startling "But" must be considered the second turning of the poem's meaning. By moving the center of attention and meaning to within the speaker, the sense of meaning finds it way to moving beyond the speaker's personal and selfish frame of reference. Once we truly "own" a perspective or epiphany, we become owned by the demands of being true to that perspective as well. By the speaker's personal world demanding recognition from the speaker, all other personal worlds instantly demand to be acknowledged as well. The speaker must learn to love the personal, other world of the one who is loved, and to love that world sincerely-for its own self's sake and in truth-not only in the ways that the other's world "touches" his own and leaves some trace in memory. The love must be comprehensive in scope and extensive in time. If it is to be love at all, it must be love of all.
The implications of these demands are followed up on immediately in the poem. We are told that the other is "not owned by anyone,"-and that there are no "terms of contract," in this loving, meaning that what the speaker needs or gets out of contact with the other is not a necessary part of that person, but rather an incidental offshoot of that other self independent and integral self-existence-these are gifts. Accepting this information is much more difficult than it might at first appear to be-it is very difficult to let another person be themselves entirely and freely when our own personal and interior pleasures and rewards are so intimately enriched by their nearness. Even trying to accept the reality of these terms is something of a rather brave act. Indeed, a commitment is desperately sought in the poem-on the sole condition that the terms of the commitment are truthful; truthful according to the word-window that has allowed the speaker to see beyond the fading train and so deeply into his own needs-and yet, despite this desperation, it seems that nothing permanent and binding can be devised. In other words, the commitment must be spontaneously renewed by both parties-and the commitment consists of a dedication to your own inner sense of what is worthwhile in the other.
So, let me draft this commitment to the moment
The foolish void of ephemerality and the real possibility of permanent loss are two of the most powerful fears anyone who makes a commitment must deal with when that commitment is to a living, changing person. Any commitment to Life or our own lives has this quicksilver quality as well-and it is just this ephemerality that is underlined by the speaker in order to make his commitment vitally self-conscious and real. Any commitment to, or hope for eternality in love and human affairs-no matter how desperately desired-can only really and realistically consist of a commitment to "the moment/and moments to come."
The commitment drafted here is remorselessly self-denying as well. It has seen the other depart, and it has looked deeply within its our sources and resources with the same word-window. This self knows the emotional content of the commitment being drafted here-it knows what the reality being confronted really is; it is a commitment, not to any self-rewarding, half-blind solipsism, but rather a commitment to the "personhood that shines on that train." In other words, it is a commitment to the entirety of that other's inner-word-windowed soul on the train-to all of that other's self-discovered perspectives and feelings-thoughts, prejudices, excitements, analyses, bad moods, gift and gonzo moments. Furthermore, this is not a commitment in the abstract only, empty of any "real world" acknowledgement. Oh no. The word-window that has seen so much within the speaker is now turned back around to show us the other once again-and this is done with a brief touch by mentioning that the personhood of the other is still riding the back-turned, perspective-ized "train"-the same train first seen as an objective object in the first stanza. Although departed, the passenger on that disappeared train has grown in status, along with the internal growth of the speaker. This movement of enlarging meaning has similarities with Coleridge's "The Lime Tree Bower, My Prison," where the speaker in that poem is left behind his companions but continues to imagine their travels as they walk on without him-just as if he were there; it is by this imaginative commitment to their moment that allows the speaker to live in a world all the richer and more beautiful for being "bereft of promised good."
Now we come to the third, the hairpin turn, of the poem. It's an easy turn to miss, despite its typographical emphasis. This is the turn where the lonely audacity of the speaker's daft draft of a commitment to the ephemeral (yet real) life of the other comes in for a double underlining. Its ephemerality, its immediacy and importance is all given and dramatic weight with the simple half-twist spike of a comma:
,
This comma contains a goodly number of echoes for the piece as a whole, regardless of our returning to it-and wherever we may carry those echoes and ourselves. The comma is literally a syntactical turning, it is a turn the way the train has turned its back, and it is also an inward turn, the way that the speaker has turned his attention meditatively within to solve his "barrenness." The comma is a bare portion of grammar, a feathery frame for our living language and speech, and thus serves as an instrument of perspective and as the barest part of the word-window we have seen so variously employed in the poem. We see here not just the substance of the commitment, nor do we merely hear of the ideas that define that commitment. Here we see the actual pen and paper that the commitment is drafted with as well, the very commas of its construction. This commas echoes the intrusive "But" that inaugurated this entire, excessively analytical and interiorly-oriented portion of the poem. The comma "," is given its own stanza, where its stands eloquent and precarious-as momentary as language can possibly be written and still function. The commitment to the moment begins with the first moment-and that is exactly what we are witnessing in the poem here.
The train having lurched around some corner of the horizon on the hairpin turn of this comma, we may now ask what the comma, or frame, brings to us on the heels of the departing train. If it does not bring anything-then it should be excluded from the poem: it would be a false witness to the moment, a failure of the newly drafted commitment. In this case, the comma users in the heavy phrase, "regardless of returning." This is an example of the deep weepy totality required to pursue moment-to-moment living-to catch life's butterflies as they forever waywardly escape. The commitment drafted in this poem, as the person who drafted the commitment noticed, not the self alone, but the other as well, the personhood of that other, one's own interiority, self-understanding and personhood, and all of the objective reality that comes along with a commitment to those realities. But this commitment, in all honesty, can consist of nothing but the inner pledge of one so committed. Such fealty is all. And that is the whole point of making such a commitment in the first place.
And I accept this pale passage of your departure that runs through my very bones like the sound of a waterdrop that speaks, "There is a well down here, and it is full."
Having come to all of these realization, the speaker is ready to "accept this pale passage of your departure." It has taken a good number of lines-perspectives, train lines, and lines of poetry-to get to this self-conscious acceptance. Note how the acceptance "runs through my very bones;" it is a deep and real and fresh acceptance. Perhaps this ferocity of realness is a touch menacing as well, as if the very train ran inside the speaker's human body; but then, that is what the word-window of the poem has allowed the departure of the other to do.
Now comes the last half of the first major turn of the poem-a slow turn that has encompassed the other two turns entirely-like a country reel, or the way the moon around the earth is encompassed by the Earth around the sun, and the Earth around the sun is encompassed by the sun around the galactic center. Here the sole simile of the poem comes back into play-and it has echoed up to its importance from memory, for memory is also part of the moment. Memory is figured in the "rain barrel" that holds all of the rich associations of the poem together. Memory, of course, is the only thing that can hold all these various moments together at all-for memory is a form of containing frame and mode of release simultaneously. Another mechanism that can contain without distorting-that can hold a thing, a moment, closely, without demanding that the moment stay is a poem. That moment, once memorialized, may travel on to the next moment "regardless of returning," regardless of whether or not that memory is ever recalled into active consciousness. That is the commitment we all make to every moment that we decide to continue living. This commitment to life is the ultimate source from which our other commitments may flow-and this commitment is personified as memory and the memory mechanism as symbolized in the well. There is no unloving part of this life that we experience and share. There is no uncommitted moment or particle of our existence that does not participate in this process. "It is full." The poem has simply called this ultimate commitment into consciousness for our purview, for our re-experiencing and memorialization. Or perhaps the poem itself was called into consciousness by the pang of departure, the exit of the beloved from the immediate sphere of the speaker's limited perceptions. Experience teaches us to actually experience our experiences. Poetry shows us how our frail and full humanity may do so, once we depart from our pale expectations and commit to the fullness of what we, in each moment, actually are, or may be. We ourselves are the "personhood that shines on the train," wherever we take it.