{"id":4763,"date":"2023-06-09T15:49:45","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T22:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/?page_id=4763"},"modified":"2024-11-09T13:35:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-09T21:35:33","slug":"the-old-observatory","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/the-old-observatory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Observatory"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a working draft of Part One<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The most accessible field in science,
\n<\/span><\/em>from the point of <\/span>view of language, is astrophysics.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u2015<\/span>Neil deGrasse Tyson<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

James, a retiring professor of astronomy at a \u00a0California \u00a0university, invites two \u00a0fellow members of the University Haiku Society to a renga<\/a> session, a friendly competition of linked verse. \u00a0The bout takes place up at an old \u00a0disaffected observatory on a hillside on the edge of campus, where he once worked and taught years before the site became too flooded with ambient light from the surrounding suburban spawl to serve any scientific use anymore.
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The result is a poem within a poem, the renga, unnecessarily in terza rima, within the versified narrative itself, composed in modified Onegin stanzas<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The slope grows steeper the higher
\n<\/span>You go. “Exponentially,”
\nJames thought, his soon-to-be prior
\n<\/span>Profession essentially
\nKicking in. Uranologists,
\nUnlike those brazen sophists
\nWho disparage higher math
\nAnd who used to provoke his wrath,
\nHold that the sinuous curves nature
\n<\/span>Is clothed in are best exposed
\n<\/span>In numbers, prime or not. Thus posed,
\nProblems are not mere nomenclature.
\nBut he had decided to retire.
\nSo should we all, before we expire,<\/p>\n

First mentally, then in carnal
\n<\/span>Fact. Only a scant quarter remained
\nOf his teaching, a formal
\n<\/span>Seminar, plus, for the untrained,
\nIntro to the Stars. <\/i>Not basket-weaving,
\nEven so it was often full, leaving
\nMany frosh (so they should be styled,
\nGendering having become reviled)
\nAnd other desirous takers waiting.
\nThey’d have to wait forever now
\nThat he had honestly to avow
\nHis lust for quanta had begun abatting.
\nThey no longer stuck in his mind.
\nBetter to leave astronomy behind.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

His condition was subclinical
\nAnd definitely not praecox
\nBecause (not to sound cynical)
\nAs measured by calendars and clocks
\nHis grasp at seventy was past due to falter.
\nNo way for aging to alter
\nIts course. Yet like the stoic stars, red
\n<\/span>Giants or blue dwarfs, we should not dread
\nDeath, though theirs take eons.
\n(Instants in the universal scheme
\nAre epochs in our own brief dream.)
\nJames reacted as epicureans
\nDo. Live modestly, calm the brain,
\n<\/span>Enjoy moderation, avoid pain.<\/p>\n

So he had crafted the Letter
\nWhose burden cannot be reversed:
\n<\/span>“Dear Dean, With regret (better:
\nRelief) I’ll be stepping down the First
\nOf July next.” The real reason
\nHe decided to squeeze in
\nObliquely among the official bull
\nThat his career had been long and full,
\nRewarding, even inspiring.
\nA vague reference to “life change”
\nWouldn’t appear the least strange
\nFor someone who was retiring.
\nThough neither Altzy nor Parky yet,
\nHe’d seen signs of their imminent threat.<\/p>\n

The letter stayed on his computer,
\n<\/span>Unsigned, unsent, awaiting the right
\nMoment. Mood would be his tutor.
\nMeantime, there was an annual rite
\nTo attend to. The equinox,
\nHis Feast of Equal Arcs,
\nFell fell on his birthday, or else
\nThis fell on that. Nothing less
\nWould do but to convene the members
\nOf the University Haiku Society
\nFor the yearly renga. There was a variety
\n<\/span>Of amateurs around, but Septembers
\nAre hard on academics. Attendance had shrunk
\nTo three, which first put him in a funk.<\/p>\n

The egotism inherent in hosting
\nHis own birthday was thus tempered by
\nThe modesty of its scope. Toasting
\n<\/span>With ceremonial kanpai
\n<\/i>Was <\/i>certified ritual <\/i>in a renga session.
\nHe would feel free to freshen
\nThe small cups after each round,
\n\u00a0<\/span>Making sure there was sake around
\nFor the three of them. But he wanted
\nNo special attention to fall
\nOn his person. This was the protocol.
\nPoetry itself should be vaunted;
\nPhones would be turned off;
\nAll three would be free to quaff.<\/p>\n

Haiku is an affectation
\nWhich must yield to the concerns
\nOf the living. Its creation,
\nIn this case by taking turns
\nIn improvised linked renga,
\nIs an onerous agenda
\n<\/span>On its own. The pool is small
\nAnd shallow. Many go AWOL.
\nFew within this academic ghetto
\n<\/span>Cultivate this archaic form.
\nThey all have duties to perform.
\nEven if they regret in petto
\n<\/i>Having to leave the fold
\nThey can easily catch a diplomatic cold.<\/p>\n

So he had proposed a three-sided
\nBout with Jim, prot\u00e9g\u00e9, and Luisa,
\nOldest friend. It would be guided
\nBy himself, though Luisa, a diva,
\nWould doubtless keep a hand on
\nThings. In fact he planned on
\nIt. Master is a role he was loath
\nFreely to assume. It was both
\nOut of character and ill-suited
\nTo the group. Principles too
\n<\/span>Were involved, ones he had thought through.
\nRenga, though firmly rooted
\nIn customs from the Japanese past,
\nOught not be ruled by feudal caste.<\/p>\n

Custom wants a single sitting
\n<\/span>To wind up a hundred lines.
\n<\/span>Impossible! Even admitting
\n<\/span>That these three amateurs showed signs
\nOf talent, they could not keep up
\nA Masters’s pace. No way to speed up
\nThe pace of verse. Besides, they’d start in late
\nAfternoon, so darkness would dictate
\n<\/span>An end to their proceedings.
\nNot for them paper lanterns lit
\n<\/span>From within by candles. No fire pit
\n<\/span>To warm their feet and encourage readings.
\nTheir venue was disaffected, shut down,
\nWith a gate they’d have to climb around.<\/p>\n

Mid-afternoon on the designated
\nDate they rendez-voused at James’s place,
\nWhere he impatiently waited.
\n<\/span>In his canvas shoulder bag, in case
\nAnyone needed to nosh, were his own
\nHome-made sushi, his silenced iPhone
\nAnd, of course, the sake. They hiked
\n<\/span>Up to the site, increasingly psyched
\nAt the thrill of composition.
\nThe path led past remnants of chaparral
\nThat once covered the locale,
\nJust a phase in the transition
\n<\/span>To the ticky-tacky that would come,
\nThe dull suburb it would become.<\/p>\n

The University had promised
\n<\/span>This old observatory would be
\nPreserved, perhaps an honest
\nClaim, but one which James patently
\nDisbelieved. Any occasion
\nHe could use his powers of suasion
\nTo get people up there, he did.
\nAmbiant light from the suburban grid,
\nCampus, and the gated communities
\n<\/span>Arrayed on surrounding hilltop
\n<\/span>Summits had finally put a stop
\nTo research requiring real expertise.
\nNow it just sat there, its green dome
\n<\/span>Rodents’, lizards’ and insects’ home.<\/p>\n

It would be dusk when they finished.
\nNot the poem, which they’d only start,
\nBut the sake. As light diminished
\nThey’d gather their things and depart,
\nTaking a look at the starry
\nSky emerging above, chary
\nOf slipping coming down the hill
\nIn the looming dark. Below, they’d chill
\nIn his garden with another flagon
\nOf sake and snacks. They were old
\nFriends so events couldn’t be foretold:
\nThey might or might not drag on
\nDepending on if someone needed to bail.
\nThe renga they would finish by email.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0***<\/p>\n

By venerable tradition
\nThe first to weigh in should be
\n<\/span>The honored guest, whose mission
\nWas\u00a0 <\/span>to set the terms for all three.
\n<\/span>He or she should be followed
\nBy the host, if the hallowed
\nRules hold. James was both honoree
\nAnd master of the ceremony.
\nSo he went first, reciting
\n\u00a0<\/span>Then fingering his words onto his screen,
\n<\/span>Which they had shared between
\n\u00a0<\/span>Each of them, implicitly inviting
\nThe next in line to step up and reply,
\n<\/span>To compete, to contend, to vie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Day sheds its sheath
\n<\/span><\/i>of light, the skin of things,
\n<\/i>\u00a0a wisp, an aura, a wreath.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Rhyme was not the point of haiku.
\nSometimes the first and third lines
\nCould, but no one was obliged to try to
\nRhyme. Renga itself had other designs:
\nThe elegance of reciprocation,
\n<\/span>Thr necessary sophistication
\n<\/span>Of knowing which rules to obey
\nAs well as when to display
\nLicense. Haiku was but a component
\nOf renga proper, since the well-known
\nVerse form does not stand alone,
\nRather is followed by the opponent,
\nLuisa in this case, placing a riposte,
\nA two-line rejoinder to the host.<\/p>\n

(Day sheds its sheath
\n<\/span><\/i>of light, the skin of things,
\n<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>a wisp, an aura, a wreath)
\n<\/i>Every stem and blade clings
\n<\/i>to the flare once within.<\/i><\/p>\n

James resisted the temptation
\n<\/span>To censure her second rhyme, unheard
\nOf in the annals. Inspiration
\nShould not be denied, but a single word,
\nOnce placed, can produce worrisome
\nSide-effects, from which can blossom
\n<\/span>Verbal flowers–but also thorns.
\nEven an accidental rhyme transforms
\nEverything, sets up a rigid schema.
\nIf Jim echoed clings<\/i> and then within<\/i>,
\nItself in internal rhyme with skin<\/i>,
\nThey might be trapped in terza rima!
\nJames decided better not to voice
\n<\/span>His fear: let Jim make his own choice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

0He had caught Luisa’s allusion
\nTo the ag\u00e8d who cling to a flare
\nWithin. He had no personal illusion
\nAbout mortalty, a fate he would share
\nSooner or later with every creature
\nOn earth, and beyond. Death is a feature
\nOf life. Indeed, he had implied
\nSo in the lines to which she had replied.
\nOne purpose of poetry is to sow doubt
\n<\/span>A wreath is often placed on a grave,
\nThough it can also garland the brave.
\nDoes life shine from within or without?
\nDoubts are fine for poets. He knew. He was one.
\nAs for doubts about his dying, he had none.<\/p>\n

(Every stem and blade clings
\n<\/i>to the flare once within.)
\n<\/i>Such a wakening!
\n<\/i>As shadows climb the mountain
\n<\/i>the heavens stir anew<\/i><\/p>\n

After Jim finished composing,
\nThey saw they were doomed to terza
\nRima, incongruously imposing
\nItalian onto Japanese forms (or vice-versa).
\nHe had had to be dauntless
\nTo throw down such a gauntlet,
\nWhich was one reason James liked
\nHim. Everyone wants to write,
\nBut Jim wanted to write audaciously,
\nThough boldness here was not in the sense
\nBut its garb. “<\/i>There is a difference”,
\nBadinage he offered facetiously.
\nSuch is the nature of youth,
\nHonest but brash, lacking couth.<\/p>\n

In olden days, a renga session
\nBegan at sundown. Images from the night
\nWere far from banned, but self-expression
\nFed mostly off memories graced with light
\nOf day, like those culled and recollected
\nBy someone of his age, James reflected,
\n<\/span>Who, in the sunset of his span of life,
\n<\/span>Finds that signs of darkness are rife
\nAnd turns, as if by intuition,<\/a>
\nTowards his light-crowned past,
\nBrighter by way of contrast.
\nEver the technician,
\nWithout looking up at the sky,
\nJames drafted his reply.<\/p>\n

(Such a wakening!
\n<\/i>As shadows climb the mountain
\n<\/i>the heavens stir anew.)
\n<\/i>Held in their slow spin
\n<\/i>now but a planet or two.
\n<\/i>The evening star is a planet
\nAs even frosh know, so
\n<\/span>Out of the narrow gamut
\nOf objects bright enough to show
\nIn the advancing
\nDusk, he knew without glancing
\nUp that Venus would be among
\nAny celestial objects hung,
\nAgainst the darkening fabric
\n<\/span>Of the sky, once the sun set.
\nBut it hadn’t. It was time for a reset,
\nWhich Luisa, given her maverick
\nManner mixing candour and guile,
\nWas sure to deftly launch in style.<\/p>\n

(Held in their slow spin
\n<\/i>now but a planet or two)
\n<\/i>Thistle, laurel, sage,
\n<\/i>manzanita, sumac, rue:
\n<\/span><\/i>only names on the page<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>For now, there was a plethora
\n<\/span>Of visible shapes and forms,
\n<\/span>Entrancing in the waning aura
\n<\/span>Of the sun, which adorned
\n<\/span>Them\u00a0 <\/span>with a soft yellow
\n<\/span>Verrneer. The sharp yet mellow
\nAroma of dissicated chaparral
\nHeld Luisa in thrall.
\n<\/span>Before, sumac and manzanita
\nWere mere names on a page,
\n<\/span>Like laurel, rue, and sage.
\nThey were truly incognita
\nUntil she smelled them
\nUp there, then finally beheld them.<\/p>\n

(Thistle, laurel, sage,
\n<\/i>manzanita, sumac, rue:
\n<\/span><\/i>only names on the page)
\n<\/i>which assume the shape
\n<\/i>of gilded shafts of foliage<\/i><\/p>\n

Jim had concluded the waka
\n<\/i>With a classic distich
\nShowing, with no lack of
\nFinesse, he could stich
\n<\/span>Disparate lines together.
\nAround them was heather
\nOf a sort, but “interwoven strand”
\nOf colored yarn” also stands
\nIn any good dictionary.
\nOpposite “heather”. How a word rhymes
\nThen joins with another was sometimes
\nEery, even nothing short of scary.
\nJim had consolidated the terza rima.
\nIt fell to James to launch a new thema.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(which assume the shape
\n<\/i>of gilded shafts of foliage)
\n<\/i>each stem a landscape
\n<\/span><\/i>of prickles and involuted bracts
\n<\/span><\/i>from which there is no escape<\/i><\/p>\n

It was not in the traditional
\nEsthetics of renga to comment
\n<\/span>On or to adduce additional
\nAbstractions to what was meant.
\nTelling as opposed to showing
\nUsually makes for slower going.
\n<\/span>But they were not Japanese.
\nThey could do what they please,
\n<\/span>Which is what the former
\n<\/span>Did themelves. If they wanted to shift
\n<\/span>Focus to the unseen, what a gift
\nTo them all, a foreigner’s
\n<\/span>Prerogative, perhaps, but one
\nTo be judged on its own.<\/p>\n

Twenty years before he had given
\nLectures on exoplanets at Meiji U
\nIn Tokyo, which was a kind of heaven
\nFor him. What particularly drew
\nHim to it was how this mosaic
\n<\/span>Of simulacra was basic-
\nAlly and utterly itself: a French cafe
\nDetailed down to a Cinzano ashtray
\nReplete with aproned gar\u00e7on
\n(Sauf qu’il n’parle pas<\/i> fran\u00e7ais<\/i>),
\nBookshops in a language there was no way
\nTo read. James loved the foreign.
\nTokyo was a place to find it within,
\n<\/span>Either the foreign itself, or its twin.<\/p>\n

A young colleague at Meiji,
\nWhom he told he’d once tried
\n<\/span>Aikido, asked him if he’d maybe
\nEnjoy the service of a personal guide
\nTo the headquarters, the Hombu Dojo.
\n<\/span>He would never have gone solo.
\nHe was eternally grateful he did
\nAccept. Aikido took, so amid
\nHis abtruse models of planetary
\nFormation, birth and death there arose
\nA paradigm of throws and blows
\nTurning around balance and ki<\/i>.
\nOne reason he liked linked verse:
\nIts goal to persuade, not coerce.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(each stem a landscape
\n<\/span><\/i>of prickles and involuted bracts
\n<\/span><\/i>from which there is no escape.)
\n<\/i>Even the far-flung jet lacks
\n<\/i>impetus to slip away.<\/i><\/p>\n

Luisa was wont to reply directly
\nBut always with her own twist,
\nWhich she did circumspectly
\nWith her couplet. Its gist,
\nNot quite a prevarication,
\nWas definitely the predication
\nOf a self-evident fact.
\nNo one or nothing can abstract
\nAway the pull of gravitation.
\n<\/span>This was music to James’s ears,
\nAttuned to the sounds of the spheres,
\nTo a planet’s revolution and rotation.
\n<\/span>Luisa had asked that they lift their eyes.
\nJim ‘s turn contained a surprise.<\/p>\n

(Even the far-flung jet lacks
\n<\/i>impetus to slip away)
\n<\/i>One eye, two : parallax,
\n<\/i>perspectival interplay
\n<\/i>measured in space<\/i><\/p>\n

A meta-reflection on vision
\nItself is not within the usual remit
\nOf renga, which aims at precision
\nOf objective reference. But lit crit
\n\u00a0<\/span>Be damned, especially that waged by
\nProfessionals who are enraged by
\nWhat others not themselves have writ.
\n<\/span>Jim didn’t care a whit.
\nHe loved nothing more than a ditty,
\nA sally, a jibe, a wisecrack, a quip.
\nHe urged the offended to get a grip.
\nIf not, well … more’s the pity.
\n<\/span>So again it fell to James to remind
\nWe should bear passing itself in mind.<\/p>\n

(One eye, two: parallax,
\n<\/i>perspectival interplay
\n<\/i>measured in space)
\n<\/i>where tracks begin to decay
\n<\/i>before they leave a trace\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Loosely woven criss-crossing vapor
\n<\/span>Trails had begun to catch the pink
\n<\/span>Of sunset where their ends taper
\nOff to the east. Day and dusk would soon sync
\nWith one another, leaving
\n<\/span>The contrails in the dark, their weaving
\n<\/span>Unfinished, divined but unseen.
\nBut the crepuscular scene
\nBefore them was prolix
\n<\/span>In its offering. No need to turn
\nTo intangibles or to spurn
\nWhat is belowthe skies for solace
\nThen arose an evening breeze
\n<\/span>Which Luisa sought to capture in a frieze.<\/p>\n

(Where tracks begin to decay
\n<\/i>before they leave a trace)
\n<\/i>Breeze brushes the bristles
\n<\/i>of the thorny spines, the carapace
\n<\/i>of dessicated thistles<\/i><\/p>\n

There was less and less sunlight.
\n<\/span>Soon they’d scuttle down the hill,
\nHurrying to beat the dark of night.
\nJust time enough for Jim to distill
\nA final couplet before retreating,
\nBy James’s count completing
\nThirty lines, eleven haikai<\/i>, four
\n<\/span>Full exchanges, not a bad showing for
\nAn informal friendly outing.
\nJim came through.
\nNo need inventing new
\n<\/span>Rules nor flouting
\nThe old nor mixing metaphors
\nTo open doors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(Breeze brushes the bristles
\n<\/i>of the thorny spines, the carapace
\n<\/i>of\u00a0 <\/span>dessicated thistles,)
\n<\/i>scratches on the lambent air
\n<\/i>of evening\u2019s shredded whispers.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a working draft of Part One         . The most accessible field in science, from the point of view of language, is astrophysics. \u2015Neil deGrasse Tyson James, a retiring professor of astronomy at a \u00a0California \u00a0university, invites two \u00a0fellow members of the University Haiku Society to a renga session, a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Old Observatory”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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