This week I am pleased to share a guest column by poet, writer, visual artist, singer, healer, and friend, Susan Beverly. Her “work is widely published and awarded. She loves reading publicly . . . and enjoys collaboration with colleagues in the arts. [Beverly’s] writing thrives on the concepts and experiences of philosophy, psychology, relationships, and spirituality. She loves titles and twists that surprise at the end of poems.” What follows is the text of Beverly’s own creative energy.
First night of autumn, there’s a breeze when I walk the Pekingese. Skateboarders slide by almost silently in the dark. I look back over four years, culminating at Lehigh University and then Trinity College. My nights have become a dark and brooding poem, like the weather in Dublin and Galway, as well as along the Shannon River. My days are enlightened by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, at whose feet I studied for a week, in awe. No president or pope could have more compassion and unconditional love. A very cheap airline ticket from dad and a friend to stay gratis made the green island a two-week blessing. An internet-saavy sister made it possible for me to learn the mysteries of the origins of the universe from an aging monk.
Dependent origination means that eternity unfurls in both directions, alpha and omega, without end. It also means the answer to all behavior and understanding. The lecture hall was kept at temperatures only a holy mountain dweller could love. Someone gifted me a blanket.
Wet, cold, dark days send the Irish into pubs, bookstores and cathedrals to talk about Oscar Wilde over strong tea, Guiness, and Bushmill’s. It all falls together with a lot of sense. Climate creates the character of peoples.
Poetry emerged, some ranging across the universes of philosophy and sciences. Also one about a cold-water codfish meal, one about a couple from Spain. I went to James Joyce’s wife’s home. I entered St. Nicholas’ cathedral where Columbus was inspired to explore and touched old, old stone. I fell under a spell through the arches of Trinity, later seeing not only the Book of Kells, but nearly collapsing at the sight of a first-edition, handwritten tome–Dante’s Divine Comedy in that library older than oldness.
The world was a poem, as I strolled down to the sea to buy an ancient ring for my daughter, to munch on spinach salmon quiche in a bag. It was also a poem as I meditated on the end of my nose, taught by a laughing man who loves the Chinese as if they are Tibetan.
I could show you some of the poems I wrote, but I think I am writing some kind of poetry-like prose here, capturing the light in an eye, the setting silver cold north island sun, where I could not survive. Galway was filled to the brim with interesting people, cobbles, stories, songs. When I came home, much felt empty. I’ve thought of moving backwards, but shan’t. I will stretch my mind, my money, my vision. I will move forward and remember the concept of no-thing-ness:
It would seem that the closer you get to the bottom of something the more is-ness it would be of itself, the more like itself, say, an apple would be. But the deeper and smaller or the further and larger one gets, the nature of the thing disappears into nothingness. This fluidity reminds that I too am mostly a river of empty space and energy, moving forward, expanding, learning, growing.
That settled, I do what any self-possessing poet my age would. I head for that rare find, a PhD in Creative Writing. Thank you, my Lama, and thank you, Emerald Isle.
Ode to Eire
I fell in love with a fish from Galway–
a cold-water cod in this crowded cafe,
with chips and curry, a little wine.
I ate heartily; it was gone in no time.When I got home to Maryland’s Eastern Shore,
I found myself craving that dish even more.
That cod from McDonaugh’s on Quay Street–
it’s the only seafood I still want to eat.I’ve forgot about oysters, clams, and crabs,
scallops, flounder and bluefish seem drab.
I want that huge codfish, so flaky and gold
from my first trip to Ireland, so rainy and cold.I didn’t mind the weather and I was happy to pay
for such a great meal on such a gray August day.
So be happy you live there and eat all you can
because I’m back in America, so sad that I am.I live by the Atlantic near the Chesapeake Bay,
but I want codfish and chips from Ireland every day.
- Susan Beverly
Susan Beverly MLA is Creativity Consultant for Sweetspot Arts and Wellness. Her two latest collections of poetry, The Bodies of Trees, and, The Cool Side of the Pillow are much praised by Michael Glaser, Maryland’s Poet Laureate, one of her long-time mentors. Reach Susan via email.