First fight. Then fiddle. Ply the slipping string
With feathery sorcery; muzzle the note
With hurting love; the music that they wrote
Bewitch, bewilder. Qualify to sing
Threadwise. Devise no salt, no hempen thing
For the dear instrument to bear. Devote
The bow to silks and honey. Be remote
A while from malice and from murdering.
But first to arms, to armor. Carry hate
In front of you and harmony behind.
Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.
Win war. Rise bloody, maybe not too late
For having first to civilize a space
Wherein to play your violin with grace.
–Gwendolyn Brooks, 1949
War and Peace. Do we first need to fight to define a place of peace? The recent turmoil in the Middle East and the conflict in Libya brought this sonnet to mind. It explores the idea of creating a space where art, for a while, can flourish. The bow and the sword. Do they reside together? Does one allow for the other, as the other again flows back in the circle? Maybe life is about understanding the cycle as a constant swirl of this and that. The yin and yang of it. Is it finding the rhythm in our disciplines and understanding balance?
Is our aim to conquer? Our egos bring us to chaos, and to war. Sometimes our morality compels our involvement. We wage war, or find ourselves in its brutal path. The external battles are often a manifestation of our inner battles. We slaughter our demons. Fight our egos and our addictions. Fight for freedom. We seek focus, moving free of distractions to take care of what is difficult first. Overcoming obstacles. We want to win.
Is our aim to create? The more civilized we become, the greater our capacity to conceive and construct beauty. But in our development, we are also more apt to fight. The hand that holds the bow also grasps the spear. As we evolve, our weapons become more sophisticated. We devise new ways to inflict pain with greater accuracy, and ever widening distance from the opponent.
Art itself is painful – the poet knows it –Ms. Brooks‘ life spanned from 1917 to the start of the 21st century. And she found her space as an honored poet, and the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. In the poem, she refers to art as “hurting love”. The music is light, magical – “silks & honey”. Art is powerful, and moving. Perhaps it is so because art and peace are born from the battlefield. And those moments of quiet beauty are our salvation.
Toni Josephson
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Tags: art, create, destroy, fight, gwendolyn brooks, peace, poetry, war
Beautiful poem, Toni, and a beautiful, insightful examination of its themes and the human condition. War has always been endemic to civilization, unfortunately–the machinations of our egos never cease. But we balance our brutality with art. A deeper conflict.
Thanks for this post–from a fellow warrior/poet. Or is it poet/warrior?
Thanks, and true…