When music is far enough away
the eyelid does not often move
and objects are still as lavender
without breath or distant rejoinder.
The cloud is then so subtly dragged
away by the silver flying machine
that the thought of it alone echoes
unbelievably; the sound of the motor falls
like a coin toward the ocean's floor
and the eye does not flicker
as it does when in the loud sun a coin
rises and nicks the near air. Now,
slowly, the heart breathes to music
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand.
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this poem is about the beautiful sounds of quiet, and the persistence of music- even in utter vaccuums
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It's a wonderful poem. Appreciate
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it is the edge of the world i look out from
into a mindless catachism of empty space -
The momneto mori tradition in art is associated with still life paintings that function as metaphors or reminders of mortality. This poem slowly reveals itself as a momento mori--the last line evoking a final resting place--but for a poem entitled "A Quiet Poem", it is anything but still. There is movement throughout, particularly in the cloud/plane image and the falling and flipping coin motif. What IS still is the speaker's eyelid/eye--something we initially associate with restful contemplation but begin to associate with death. This is a quiet at first not wholly given over to; the tension is subtley and wryly teased out in the transition from the first to second couplet, with "the eyelid does not often move//and objects" , where the word "objects" takes on a double meaning--the noun with its still life conotations, but also the verb, suggesting that there is something disagreeable about this repose, with the next line adding a sense of suffocation and the prospect that this supposed respite might slip into something more permanent, with "no rejoinder"--a final separation. The cloud and plane couplets further this push-pull by expressing a kind of dreamy wonder at the dynamism of human technology, which in turn re-emphasizes the speaker's stasis. The image of the cloud "dragged away", has mystic overtones--the suggestion of the limits of perception as conditioned by mortality being lifted--and immediately the dreamy state vies again with anxiety, as "the sound of the motor falls" mimics the settling in of breath in deeply restful states, but also intimates mid-flight disaster. As the coin is introduced in the next couplet, a shift in the poem's valences occurs--the drowing image is not met with the involuntary reflex, the kind of sudden jerk the body often spasms with on the verge of sleep, a remaining tension from the day, that has kept things off-kilter up to this point. The coin "sinks toward the ocean floor/and the eye does not flicker". There is a sense now, finally, of letting go--the coin, a token of what Wordsworth called "our getting and spending", the record our worldly ambitions, allowed to drift to the bottom of the sea where it is worthless, and the eye itself becoming unreflective, like the eyes of the dead, but in this case indicating an inward turn, perhaps a surrender to the deep trance state the speaker has been drifting toward and pulling away from throughout. The next couplet is then not so much another "jerk" as it is a kind of afterimage flashing in contrast to the tranquility at last achieved, a kind of movie image of a scene from the hurlyburly of life, where the coin now suggests high stakes, "rising to nick the near air" but is followed with the abrupt "Now" standing alone at the end of the verse, the hollow resonance of the "ow" causing a surprising inversion of the normal sense of the word and its connotations of urgency in contrast to the quicker, shallower sounds preceding. It comes off vaguely like an "ohm" and ushers in the last couplet that has the poet finally breathing in harmony and rhythm "slowly...to music." Music was introduced in the opening couplet but has not been mentioned since and is never given any specific identity, only that it was originally "far enough away" that it caused no motion of the eyelid. There has been a fitfull pull toward this music throughout the poem, and now th poet is one with it, has given over to the rhythms, "while the coins lie in wet yellow sand." The line teeters on the word "lie", indicating both repose and duplicity--perhaps a relief of the poet's anxieties over death as the quiet state first mimicked it, but also perhaps, on a more spiritual level, the intimation that death itself lies, and this harkens back to the coin "rising" in the preceding couplet after it had sunk in the sea, with the image of the sun doubling the sense a cycle of death and renewal. The sand is the dust to which we return, but it is wet--fertile--and yellow, as the sun and the earth at midday. Richard's interesting reference to the adage about "a coin to the ocean floor" takes on this deeper sense as well--the yearning not just for a return to some quotidian locale, but for a "rejoinder" to life after death.
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In one of Andrei Tarkovsky’s films, “Sacrifice” there is the repeated sounds of coins dropping down on the floor. In this film the The protagonist, Alexander, overcome with a sense of his own guilt and worthlessness, has made a wager with God in that he will give up everything he owns, even the only thing he loves in the world, his son, if only God will spare the world from impending nuclear disaster. The constant aural presence of the coins reminds us of the tremendous cost Alexander must pay if God is to grant his prayer to redeem the world. Alexander receives God’s acknowledgment of the wager when he experiences a vision in which he observes himself trudging through the mud where silver coins lie next to the sleeping—or dead—form of his son.
In O’Hara’s poem, i found it interesting his repeated use of the word coin. Having the vision of the film in my mind, i saw something here i had not seen before. The coins are a representation of the “cost” or “value” concept of time and how it is spent. “like a coin to the ocean floor”, is a superstition (one that i hold to) that if on a sailing vessel, you wish to return to the same spot, perhaps it was a good journey, you toss a coin to the ocean.
The other view is of a coin toss into the air as in “heads or tails” the luck of the toss…a chance event. Finally the “coins lie in wet yellow sand” and the images from Andrei Tarkovsky’s film, the idea of final rest (or death) and the lost wager with God.
There are so many other deep images here i will linger a bit longer, a captivated viewer held still by beauty and grace, then return for more to say. ~richard
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