At the poet’s table

I will betray a secret to you, Dear Reader. Perhaps as the result of this betrayal I will frighten away the ghostly protagonists and never again experience the wonder of what I witnessed at the New Moon this May.

A few weeks ago, my book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling" was delivered to my doorstep by the UPS man, that constant bringer of joy, that Santa Claus in a brown suit. We are friends. We frequented the same Karaoke bars when we were in our late 30's.

I proudly showed him the book and then I decided to make the three-hour trip to Long Island, home of my youth, to deliver the book to my friends and family, as if my work were the literary version of a spawning Atlantic Salmon.

* * *

Close to my old high school, surrounded on all sides by suburban sprawl, sits a farmhouse that I'd never visited before. In the farmyard, a modern glass building houses a museum. A converted barn is now a space for art exhibits and other special events. It is the birthplace of one of America's most famous poets — Walt Whitman, a writer of our Civil War period, and an eloquent witness to the horrors of that war, in which he served as a nurse on over a hundred battlefields. His own sense of joy and his evident love of life betrays none of the loneliness or suffering that his biography tells us he must have endured. Having secured a post as a clerk in the War Department, he was dismissed on moral grounds due to the publication of his most famous poem, Leaves of Grass.

In any case, some strange literary homing instinct drew me to Whitman's birthplace. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows. The museum and outbuildings were readying themselves for an exhibition of high school graphic artists. I parked my car, slipped past the museum, and headed toward the old farmhouse.

The sun was setting. As I approached the house, the ambient light and traffic noise faded. As darkness fell, and stars insisted themselves onto the moonless canvas of the suburban sky, I discerned a table at the narrow dooryard of the modest residence. It was spread with an old linen tablecloth, and neatly arranged deserts and ceramic coffee pots crowded out the plates and silverware. Then, I noticed a familiar aroma, made stronger by the evening breeze: Lilacs.

For those of you who don't know, one of the most famous poems written by Whitman begins,

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,  And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,  I mourn'd—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

I had come to this house, with my book, on the night of the new moon precisely when the very lilacs and the very dooryard Whitman had described nearly 150 years ago were in bloom! These were the same enchanted lilacs that had cast the spell which had inspired the poem.

As the table came into focus, the enchanted lilacs worked their magic. There sat Whitman, in all his ghostly glory. Walt Whitman himself. As I approached, shimmer became substance. Then I noticed the other guests at the table. There was Pablo Neruda, my favourite poet, so self-effacing, in the midst of a declaration that poetry was basically the eloquent evolution of the pick-up line, and the battle cry. Most of the men at the table nodded in agreement.

Then, on the other side of the table, facing Whitman, my attention focused on a flautist. Could this man also be a poet? Then, he spoke. At first, his beautiful cadences, his trained voice continued melodically, as if the recitation was nearly song. But as I listened, and the night and the lilacs worked their magic, the words became clear.

Like Whitman, this man spoke the language of love of life. His words were, at times, filled with a deep devotion to God, and at other times, secular and nearly profane. His poetry sang of tragedy — I came to understand that he had lost a son to smallpox — Smallpox! In the 20th century! I learned that this devout Muslim had taken a Hindu for a wife, and had lived through the partition of his people, and the marginalisation of the language of his poetry by the new government of Pakistan.

Neruda leaned toward me. "That is Kazi Nazrul Islam. You know him."

I did?

"Think about the qualities you love about the people you've discover in Bangladesh," Neruda whispered. "The passionate interest in politics, the lyrical cleverness of nearly everyone, the courage and the beauty of the people despite adversity. The tolerance you have seen, the devotion to God, to Family, to a brighter future. Think of the poetic depth of empathy and the love of colour and life that is so evident and can only be purchased at the price of great suffering."

I realised that my own little book, my own worth as an author would never allow me to pull up a chair at this august gathering. Every writer seated at the table reflected the tragedies suffered by their nation at large, and had somehow transformed that suffering into magnificent art.

From the core of that suffering, I wondered if the polemics which define Bangladesh's current debates were anticipated long ago by Kazi Nazrul Islam's life — religious tolerance, gender equality, linguistic integrity, as well as discussions on how to deal with social inequality and issues of justice.

I listened to his recitation of Rabi Hara, and could find no translation. Still I understood the feeling in his voice. It rises, it flows, it trembles with emotion. The frustration of not knowing the meaning of the words reminded me of my visits to the Italian side of my family, in which I could only inhale the sweet aroma of the tomato-sauce drenched meals, and I could only close my eyes and imagine the paradise it would be to taste such excellent dishes, but being allergic to tomatoes, I could do no more than smell.

The Hungarian poet, Petofy Sandor, who had disappeared after writing the poem which inspired the 1848 Hungarian Revolution, smiled at me. "Son of Magyars," he said, "I rejoice that you will never find a place at this table. The greatest blessing I could wish for my people is that they never suffer enough to be able to understand the poetry of past generations, and that art never be the tightrope that a nation must cross to avoid plummeting over the precipice of human misery."

I conversed with the flautist for a while. His white beard billowed in the lilac-scented breeze, just like Whitman's. Both men's smiles seemed to defy gravitas — Kazi Nazrul Islam had dealt with loss of children, the ostracism of having a mixed marriage, a wife's illness, the many tragedies of his nations, the demise of mind and body, and the daunting task of reflecting a new national identity for a nation with such a difficult birth.

As I left the garden that night, the voices faded and the flute music mingled with the rush of the eastbound traffic along Route 110. But as I walked away, I think I heard the poets planning to meet again at the next new moon on the campus at the University of Dhaka.

"Let people of all countries and all times come together, at one great union of humanity. Let them listen to the flute music of One Great Unity. Should a single person be hurt, all hearts should feel it equally.

If one person is insulted; it is a shame to all mankind, an insult to all! Today is the grand uprising of the agony of universal man."- Kazi Nazrul Islam.

And I thought about that Agony of Universal Man as I drove away, and I pondered:

Though tornadoes tear the tender belly of our moderate classes, And our towers fall,

Though the Prom King is flown home in a casket,

Can we, the pudgy-spirited Americans, ever starve to death in empathy

With a hundred TV channels and a finger on the remote?

Poetry is more than pick-up lines and war cries. Poetry is purposeful weeping. Perhaps that's why our most eloquent American voices are way off my UPS friend's route — they come from trailer parks and ghetto housing projects.

I celebrate the birthday of my newest reason to learn Bangla — the poetry of Kazi Nazrul Islam, 112 years old this week. I read his poetry slowly, a poem or two per day, waiting in anticipation of the next verse I will discover that was penned by his hand, and perhaps, through his eloquence, I will gain enough empathy to catch a tiny sting of that agony of universal man, and that sting will bring me closer to the people of Bangladesh. This bringer of literary treasures, like my Karaoke buddy, the UPS man, will always be welcome at my door, even after the lilacs have ceased to bloom.

My prayer for you, Bangladesh, is that your future generations never find a seat at the poet's table.

——————————————–
Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", is scheduled to be released by Findhorn Press in May of 2011.