Here they were, salmons “singing in the street,” in Northern morning light that favored gold and blues. Right out of an Auden poem that stirred in the recesses of my brain, vaguely remembered. Had to dig it out, oddly relevant to our times when Southern light is dimmed by black smoke, or flickers as burning embers. Like all truly meaningful poetry, his poem captures universal truth, models defiance and stirs hope.
Malo Hasselblad Metal Fish Walkway at Washougal, WA waterfront Trail
***
As I Walked Out One Evening
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
by W. H. Auden (1907 – 1973)
From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by the Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
The poem is disguised as a traditional ballad, filled with cliches which altogether take on different meanings when read in the context the poet builds around them. The message is as serious as it gets.
Our narrator is out on an evening stroll amongst the sea of humanity, fields of harvest “wheat,” that might soon meet their reaper. He overhears a lover singing, near a brimming river and the train tracks that could quickly carry one away, looming disaster and flight metaphors in one simple verse.
The lover borrows every available absurdity to express the strength and longevity of his sentiments, with love lasting until the impossible happens, physically, geographically, biologically, metaphorically – in other words, lasting forever. The depth of love is expressed in fertility symbols (said singing salmons and the rabbits.) The allusion to disaster and flight is repeated in the image of the seven stars, squawking like geese. It refers to the Pleiades, a star cluster that played a major role in Greek mythology. Like migrating geese, the seven daughters of Atlas fled from place to place for many years pursued by Orion, until Zeus turned them into a constellation as he did with Orion, who still hunts them across the sky.
The lover’s song expresses the belief of singularity: the first love of the world, flower of the ages. But, more importantly, an unshakable faith in continuity, or even permanence. This is of course, a core belief that keeps us all going. Not just for love, but for life plans, for the existence of what and who we know and hold dear.
An unshakable faith, until it is shaken, or burnt to ashes, as the current case may be.
Such relentless optimism awakens the malevolent clocks: Time will have none of it, our lovers soon be disabused of their notion of eternity. Physical decline, material worries and economic stress (icebergs in the cupboard,) the eventual abating of sexual desire (desert in the bed) all putting cracks in the vessel once thought to last forever. Time manages to put the very notion of fairy tales onto its head: the presumed innocents prove to be lascivious, and relationships revert in unexpected ways. Why should “happily ever after” be the one to survive?
Looks like an inevitable ride downhill towards impermanence or even death. But now Auden rescues us with some strangely placed exhortations that are subtly encouraging.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
Could be washing your hands free from guilt of having been so naive, mistaken about continuity, or unable to live up to the promise of eternal love. But could also be a suggestion that you interrupt the narcissistic admiration of your Self in the basin, by making waves that destroy the image, pushing the focus on something else. That would make sense given how much Auden had embraced Freudian theories. It would also very much explain the next command:
‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
YOU might have failed in your naive or misdirected optimism, but LIFE remains a blessing. I read this as such an important reminder to be grateful. There is stuff out there, even if not what you hoped for, even if you lack agency, even if you dropped, or were dropped by a lover (a repeated theme in Auden’s personal life, made more complicated by being gay in times where it was illegal.) Even if you incurred unimaginable losses, there is a world out there. (One, I might add, shouting for us to find ways to protect it.)
And significantly:
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’
Look out towards the world, no matter how rotten you feel, and remember the commandment to love your neighbor like yourself. They might be crooked, so are you. The whole idea is about goodwill/love towards others, a form that is not necessarily the sexual rush of the lovers we encountered in the first part of the poem, but the notion of Agape, the “unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another, “as the dictionary defines it. Reaching out towards humanity as a whole, engaging in brotherly love, might protect from time’s relentless drag.
***
We are experiencing Agape at this very moment. The love and support extended towards the displaced by the Eaton Fire is beyond description. I cannot thank everyone personally, but am deeply grateful for the outpour regarding my kids. From what I hear, mutual aid is generally flourishing in Altadena, trying to soften the blows while everyone is still in a state of shock, where even finding a meal or a change of clothes can become an overwhelming task. The fire is forging an already tight community into a whole, held by concern for each other.
In our personal case, it feels like a small child is at the protected core of concentric rings, reaching ever further outward. Fiercely shielded by parents, who are supported by grandparents, aunts and uncles, then friends, then acquaintances, then friends of the older generations – a whole network of emotional sustenance, physical comfort, shared expertise and financial generosity.
The Greek word apocalypsis actually means not so much doomsday, but revelation or unveiling. The fires reveal humanity’s fragility and the consequences of ecological overshoot – using more than the planet can sustain. But they also reveal something essential: We cannot count on permanence, but we are here and now surrounded by love.
You don’t know how much of a difference that makes at this very moment.
Auden wrote this in 1937, unsettling times in Europe with rising fascism, not unlike our own – he soon after emigrated to the U.S., having had a harrowing time when traveling to Spain to report on the Civil war. I think it is a poem to be bookmarked for the year(s) to come.
Here is Auden reading his poem.
And here is a song cycle by Benjamin Britten. “Our Hunting Fathers, Op. 8, was first performed in 1936. Its text, assembled and partly written by W. H. Auden, with a pacifist slant, puzzled audiences at the premiere.”
