On Pursuit of Happiness - from Paris to Monrovia

For the Voice of the Village, February 2012 issue, I wrote the following column. My term as Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga is coming to an end, so I thought about what happened in the last two years. . .

Poetry … in pursuit of happiness

As a new citizen (American for mere two years), and a resident of Sunland for just fifteen years, I was delighted to have been elected the Sixth Poet-Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga in March 2010. English is my second language, so it was quite an honor. During my “Passing of the Laurels” Ceremony in April I was wearing a silly grin almost the whole time: I was so excited! I picked my motto for the two years in office to be “Poetry ... in pursuit of happiness."

There are many rights enshrined in constitutions of different countries; only in America do we have the pursuit of happiness. Many people came here for that reason and I am one of them. As a professional music historian, I spent years finding out and explaining what others thought – why the composers created the music they did, what did they try to say… It was – and is – a worthwhile occupation, but there is no comparison with writing my own poetry, about what I think and, what’s at the core of my being, what I feel. “The moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself” (e.e. cummings).

I feel calm and safe when wondering in Tujunga Wash, taking pictures and scribbling notes for my poems. There are so many things you can say about the sublime beauty of the mountains and the river. I feel proud to have found a place where I am at home among friends, where I can be, for once, for all, “nobody-but-myself.” Sunland-Tujunga is a wonderful, homey, friendly community, with amazing history and talent. The natural surroundings, the colors of clouds in the sky, the infinite variety gardens – this is all breathtakingly beautiful, but the greatest treasures of our neighborhood are its people. This is why we have Watermelon Festivals, Bolton Hall Museum, Village Poets Readings, Fourth of July Parades, art exhibitions, and community papers. Time for some “love poems” for our neighborhood… one illustrated with my photo, and one with a painting by Susan Dobay, Musicscape 12. (www.susandobay.com)

_______________________________


I already posted here one of the two poems from the column, "My Sky" (I live inside a painting by Rene Magritte...), which I had illustrated with a variety of photographs I took in the Tujunga Wash and in my garden.

The other poem belongs in a set of four inspired by paintings by Susan Dobay. These particular light blue paintings are incredibly happy and whimsical. Looking at them fills me with happiness that can be felt but rarely. Reading poems with music by Rick Wilson improvised to accompany my voice was one of these unique, unforgettable moments of complete and perfect happiness. The sun was golden, in that four o'clock hour that fills the day with ripeness of things well done. The friends as attentive as they could be. The host, Susan Dobay was asking impatiently if I'll read my "Awakenings" that she's so fond of... Kathabela was spectacular in her light turquoise outfit with shiny mirrors on the skirt. Rick's playing was inspired. I think that making art makes life worth living.

Thanks to my poetic and artistic friends, I have found happiness in Sunland and Monrovia. The painting for this poem is above and on the cover of the book, "On Awakening" edited by Kathabela Wilson for Poets on Site and including poems by many poets, inspired by seven of Susan Dobay's paintings. That one, of a large tree, reminded me of a children's game. . .


See, how we dance?


Simon says – “grow”
and our roots reach for water
our branches for the sun

Simon says – “blossom”
and our pink petals open
in a gold mist of newness

Simon says – “sing”
and we let the breeze whisper
with hummingbirds, jewels, leaves

Simon says – “fly”
and we turn and turn again
in swirling clouds, voiceless music, dancing

____________________________________________


Hilda Weiss and Wayne Lindberg of Poetry LA have recently visited Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, to record Featured Reader Just Kibbe and local poets. As one of the co-hosts of the Village Poets Open Reading on January 22, 2012, I was recorded as well.

I presented my Three Postcards from Paris which will appear in Quill and Parchment later this year. The postcards are about my visit to Paris on the occasion of the Maria Szymanowska Conference in October 2011. There's nothing about Chopin in my postcards, except that he lived in Paris and I walked some of the same streets. I had visited his grave at that time, but I did not write a poem about it.

Poetry L.A. posts videos on YouTube and links on their website. Thanks a lot to Hilda and Wayne! This is their labor of love. They are not paid for it and they spend countless hours documenting the state of poetry in L.A.

As for the fruits of my own labor, I had already rewritten the central poem and reorganized them, moving the first one to the end. Maybe it will not be moved, in the final version. I'm still figuring out the flow. The current one is fine, too - ending on a humorous note.

Maja - Three Postcards from Paris

A Haiku for New Year 2012

A Haiku for 2012



black water dragon

in a nimbus of danger

we laugh to freedom




© 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

Christmas Wishes with Roses and Ivy

It is that time of the year again. Christmas. The stack of cards waits for my pen and a moment of stillness. Maybe an afternoon on the sunny patio would allow me to reconnect with friends and family? There is so much to do, so many parties to go to. I have to remember not to start thinking of holiday-ing as a chore, one more thing to do when there is no time, no time at all. It is nice to send cards, at least to sign them, if not write something original for every addressee. We are all interconnected through a network of thoughts and affection, but tend to forget about its importance in days filled with the daily business of busy-ness.

I was asked to read some poems at a party and realized that I have not written my annual Christmas poem yet. It came to me in the rain, when I could barely see the road ahead and the sky was heavy with darkness.



Did you know?

Some Christmases are rainy
Tears fall from overcast sky
On lonely crowds in hospitals
And prison yards

Sometimes Christmas is icy
Frozen under the pale moon
Changing faces into lifeless
Shadows at night

Some Christmases are scarlet
And green like fir garlands and hearts
Warmed by barszcz and hot chocolate,
Evenings by the fire

Sometimes Christmas is white
Snowflakes melt on my gloves
The thin wafer of opłatek we break
Shelters us in good wishes

Some Christmases are sparkly
With the tinsel of laughter
Giggling children unwrap gifts
Magic in the morning

My Christmas is golden
Like that first star of Wigilia,
Warm kisses with kompot and kutia
Blessings under the tree

© 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

I paired this poem with a photo I took this October at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. I liked the open window, looking out through the multitude of shapes and colors onto a simpler, luminous world.



The picture became the cover of my Christmas card, and I paired it with the collage for the poem of "Rosa Mystica" - already posted here, but included below in the image pages. I also reprinted my last year's holiday poem, "Rules for Happy Holy Days" as a reminder about the importance of holidays. This poem was written for my last year's Christmas wishes. These Rules are timeless.



Rules for Happy Holy Days

Don’t play Christmas carols
at the airport. Amidst the roar
of jet engines, they will spread
a blanket of loneliness
over the weary, huddled masses,
trying not to cry out for home.

Don’t put Christmas light on a poplar.
With branches swathed in white
galaxies, under yellow leaves, the tree
will become foreign, like the skeleton
of an electric fish, deep in the ocean.

Clean the windows from the ashes
of last year’s fires. Glue the wings
of a torn paper angel. Brighten
your home with the fresh scent
of pine needles and rosemary.

Take a break from chopping almonds
to brush the cheek of your beloved
with the back of your hand,
just once, gently. Smile and say:
“You look so nice, dear,
you look so nice.”

© 2009 by Maja Trochimczyk



Since the year 2012 is supposed to be the last year of this Earth in existence in its present form, I figured I'll reprint, as a farewell of sorts, the "Apocalypsis" poem written for Easter, as well as some lovely poems that I enjoyed writing and reading this year: "A Jewel Box Sunrise" and "On Mushrooms." Below is the complete card with all the poems I selected to share for the holidays this year.














_____________________________

Poetry, photos and design (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

You can print out a little booklet from the .jpg images of the poems, each stretched to a full page 81/2 by 11 in., sideways.

A Season Sparkling with Love

I spent the morning taking pictures of liquid amber leaves and all sorts of other colorful tree leaves or petals that shone in the sun. I love the sparkling beauty of sunlight. The pictures are not ready yet, but I found a poem about fall colors, so here it is.

As everyone knows, November in California is the equivalent of September in Canada, and our fall display of color ends only at Christmas. The first daffodils are coming out already, confused.



The Way

Do you like the poplars?
They line up the streets
cutting across sugar beet fields
on the outskirts of Warsaw
The yellow heart-shaped leaves
tremble in the breeze, glisten
like molten metal after the rain

The California poplars stand straight
and tall, guarding the way
Two fence poles gossip
The fields sparkle with color –
Fuchsia, rusty orange,
Burnt mauve, and bronze

The summer grass is dead
The rocks bruised purple
By the dying sun
Only the sky, blessed by honey,
Shines with the mandarin certainty
Of coming home


Would you like to know everything about everything? How about narrowing the focus and knowing just one thing, right now? Is knowing it all better than loving it all? Or some of it? As far as we can see? Astronomers keep finding clouds of matter further and further away. Billions of years. The seventh-billion human was born recently, or so we heard. Could you love seven billion people, even in theory? Possibly not. The numbers are too overwhelming.

Holidays give us a perfect opportunity to leave billions of people to their own resources, abandon trillions of stars spread across billions of light years to their unimaginable cosmic scale, and to focus on the people we are closest to, those we are connected with either biologically, through genetic links of kinship, or by choice, through that strange thing called "love."

It is probably because I got so completely disconnected from my "kinship network" and the safety of my genetically-predetermined, linguistically-defined environment, that I like writing about love so much. Writing is a substitute for doing, Freud knew that. At one point, I tried to define the various types of love, from desire to acceptance. The word itself is completely overused and extremely hard to put in a poem.

There is no greater love than... Love your neighbor... Do you love me? ... Mommy loves you...I love this necklace... I love turkey?

What does a single person without a single family member nearby do on Thanksgiving or Christmas? Mope around? Try to score an invitation to someone's party? Write? I wake up early and look at the sky above the hills outside my window. I make up memories of non-existent past. They are nicer than the real ones, I'm sure of that.

A Jewel Box Sunrise

Silver cirrus clouds float west
Like shoals of fish in an amethyst sky.
Sun rises over a wintry orchard.
The smooth zeppelin of poetry
Carries me above the tangle of dreams.
I rest, bruised after stumbling
Through twisted roots, broken tree limbs.

Frost grows flowers on window panes.
See how they dance? You nod
Over your morning tea. “You are welcome”
I smile at your questioning gaze.
My grandma’s gold-rimmed china cup
Warms your hands. Steam rises
From the bright topaz liquid.

“Tea flows in your veins, sweets,”
You say, laughing. The helium of words
Fills the skin of the moment.
“Come here” – you wrap
Your arms around my waist.
A kiss of herbal fragrance.
Dawn blossoms into lucid light.

We go outside, stand under
Snow-covered cherry trees.
They sigh and crackle. Their sap
Rises deep beneath the bark.
The white balloons of our breaths
Dissipate through cold air crystals.

I’m glad I waited so long
For my jewel box sunrise.

_____________________________

The "Jewel Box" poem came from the coldness of an air-conditioned room and being really, and I mean, really bored with an endless meeting. This is why I'm never bored. In transit, on a plane, waiting for a red light - if I find a bit of paper of any kind, I just write, write, write. Is it a better way of spending time than doing anything else, like fretting and complaining? Possibly. The results are here to stay.

Pity the modern chefs of astounding inventiveness; we can never eat twice what they cook. Pity the musicians before the advent of recordings; we could never listen twice to their voices. The notation was, and is, just a skeleton of a music that came to life under their fingers, with the air they breathed.

But pity the poets? We still know the names of Sappho, Dante, Keats. The words change meaning as the river of language flows, like lava, through centuries. The liquid, effervescent stream shifts, evolves, and transforms itself in response to the new landscape it encounters. We translate and re-translate ancient poetic gems into new linguistic guises. Poetry lives, sparkling with love. It is the mirror of the spirit, life itself.



__________________________________

Photos of public art at Washington Dulles International Airport, and of a palm frond in Sunland, California (C) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

Poetry (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk. "The Way" was inspired by a painting "Road Home Olancha" by Trish Shaheen, a part of the Poets on Site project associated with the "Painting My Way" exhibition at APC Gallery in Torrance, September 2011. Published in the Poets on Site anthology, edited by Kathabela Wilson.

On Szymanowska's Satin Slippers

I went to Paris in September, came back changed in October. An astounding city, full of history and charm. My purpose was to talk about Maria Szymanowska and visit and photograph places associated with Chopin. I found his grave and put a poem from "Chopin with Cherries" there. I went to the church where his Funeral Mass was held, with Mozart's Requiem (St. Madeleine) and I wondered about his empty chair and white evening gloves at the Bibliotheque Polonaise near the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The purpose of my trip was to give a paper about Maria Szymanowska, a Polish virtuoso composer-pianist, who preceded and inspired Chopin with her brilliant style, etudes, mazurkas and songs... Szymanowska (1789-1831) died young, too; Chopin was 39 when tuberculosis finally defeated him. Szymanowska - at 42 - went quickly, of cholera in St. Petersburg. But first she managed to enchant Goethe, who wrote for her a poem entitled "An Madame Marie Szymanowska (Aussohnung)." Known as "Aussohnung" (Reconciliation) it was included in the Trilogie der Leidenshaft, inspired by the sixty-year-old poet's tragic infatuation with a young girl, Ulrike. Szymanowska's music, her empathy and beauty helped the aging poet return to his senses. (I write about recent research into her life and work discussed at the Maria Szymanowska Colloque in Paris in my "Chopin with Cherries" blog).

At the conference, I presented the first version of my poem about Szymanowska. After making some changes, I read it for the workshop of Westside Women Writers group and I received comments from Millicent Borges Accardi, Kathi Stafford, Georgia Jones-Davis and Sonya Sabanac. Here's the third version of this work in progress. I want to capture her life as I see it - she was dazzling, inspiring, enchanting, and disappeared all too quickly.



The Shooting Star

Reflections on Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831)

“He brought a horse to her bed, that’s why” – they said.
“No, he did not let her play. She left…”
“Not the only one, mind you.”
Rossini wrote: “Madam,
I equally adore your modesty and talent.”
“At least she was a mother – that redeemed her.
Three children, two daughters, that sort of thing.”
“Did she love them? Was she doting?”
“Didn't she leave them for three years
To play her music?”

“Did she travel alone?” Always with her sister –
Paris, London, Dresden, Marienbad.
Devastated by Ulrike’s youthful charms,
Goethe found comfort in Maria’s nocturnes,
Reconciliation in the kindness of her voice.
He saw Das Ewig Weiblich.
He wrote Die Aussöhnung.

A Roman Goddess?
Wearing the latest London fashions?
She was the Queen of Tones for Mickiewicz,
the Polish bard. A friend of Prince Vyazemsky.
The Court Pianist of the Tsarinas.
A Warsaw brewer’s daughter,
She rose to royal heights,
Shining with the brilliance of her art.

She was elegant, refined
In her pristine muslin gowns,
With sleek belts and jewels.
Her satin slippers dared to
Outlive her by two hundred years.
They sit on a shelf, laughing.
She’s gone. Her daughters,
orphaned in a fortnight of cholera,
Are gone, too. So are
Their daughters’ daughters.

What remains of this dazzling life?
A gold bracelet with a cut sapphire?
A handful of songs, etudes and dances
Scattered along the way? Sweet melodies
Frozen in the air above vast plains
Of snow drifts and tundra?
The sparks of a shooting star
Falling across our dark winter sky?




________________________________


Lithograph based on a portrait by Maria Szymanowska by Jozef Oleszkiewicz, 1825. Framed print from the collection of Bibliotheque Polonaise in Paris.

Maria Szymanowska's satin evening slippers and an image of Warsaw's Grand Theater of Opera and Ballet. Paris, Bibliotheque Polonaise.

Portrait of Maria Szymanowska by Aleksander Kokular, Rome, 1825. Copy, original in the collection of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature, in Warsaw, Poland.

From Grief to Thanksgiving

I have written a lot about death and sorrow - too many poems, I think. It is what I lived through, not just the death of the loved ones, the loss of the family, of home – also the worst death, the death of hope, the death of the soul itself. Those of us who have extended, loving families may not understand the sentiments of my poem, “For Sale.”

For Sale

© 2009 by Maja Trochimczyk

Can I sell my life at a swap meet?
I do not want it. Nobody does, who knows.
Tattered, it has big holes
Where happiness used to be.

Can I sell it, then? Or trade it, at least,
For a better, less worn model?
You know – four kids, a minivan,
Home on the golf course.

Not this broken set of mismatched
Memories, fit for a thrift-store shelf.

My mother had a suitcase
Full of fabric pieces she cut to shape
And never made into dresses.
A seamstress’ cemetery
Of abandoned dreams.

The hue was not right,
She said.

The life she gave me was not right either
It faded into a dark, hollow green
Losing its luster in one country
After another, as I moved on
Hauling my treasures –
A stack of papers, ready
To go up in flames.

Can I sell it on E-Bay?
Or just give it away
To a more worthy keeper?

There are so many of these signs now, littering our streets. And nobody’s buying. What do you do after you lose yourself – to grief (as I did), to drugs, or despair (as so many other still do)? One way out is to look closely at the world around you, to actually see the fuzzy petals of the iris, to forget about the existence of everything else just for an instance while contemplating the strange beauty of a flower, bewildering in its fragile complexity (“Black Iris” reproduced in the previous blog). Still, it is tempting to see the desert landscape as saturated with sorrow, while waiting for the new life of rain.



The Waiting

(c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk


Nothing but rocks grows here
On this plain of sharp yucca leaves
And sand –

Lavender hills draw sorrow
From the air, waiting for the clouds
To burst open –

Heavy with rain, they bring
A promise to each seed, hope for the roots
Of new life –


Another way of moving beyond grief and ennui, feeling too tired to live, is to learn the two key virtues that saints master and mere humans sometimes reach: compassion and gratitude. Since November is the month of Thanksgiving, and I’m immensely grateful for the beauty I have seen this year in the High Sierras, in Paris, and, of course, in Sunland, I think it would be good to end with a thanksgiving poem of sorts, inspired by a Buddhist amulet box, with a mini-Buddha inside (“A Box of Peaches”). If you want to hear me reading it, call the Pacific Asia Museum, 626-628-9690, and dial 455#, to hear me and Rick Wilson on the flute. It is also posted online by Poets on Site. I thought it would be nice to illustrate it with a picture of a very happy apple.


A Box of Peaches

© 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

You locked your Wisdom in a gilded box
Placed dainty copper flowers
Where metal bars cross, to hold them

You made a window for Compassion
To look out onto the silent world
Glowing with the Unseen

Would the talisman of the Smiling One
In your pocket save you? Draw luck
To your game of cards?

Let it be. Let the ancient words fall
On a carpet of bronze petals on your path
Dappled with tree shadows

Walk slowly through the magic
Orchard filled with an avalanche of peaches,
Ripening in scarlet sunrays

Stoop down to pick one, feel its warmth
In your hand, taste the mellow richness
Beneath the fuzzy, wrinkled skin

Say to no one in particular
The sun maybe, or the tree, or this late hour –
Thank you, yes, thank you very much

_________________________________________

Once, just once, I visited such a Buddhist orchard, filled with overripe peaches and the golden glow of afternoon sunlight. The friend who took me there died merely three weeks later, so I never wanted to go back. It is enough to look at pictures. But, at the end, the best thing to do is to count the blessings, the little ones, and the big ones. The time we have here is borrowed, we have to give it back, and to give an account of how we spent our capital of gifts, abilities, families, friendships, talents...

I must say I am very grateful this October: so many nice things happened to me. I received amazing signs of public recognition - as a community volunteer and activist. All these endless hours of working without pay and, often, a proper "thank you" have been rewarded by the kind words of the entire City Council of Los Angeles, City Controller, City Attorney and City Clerk.

Councilman Richard Alarcon sponsored a resolution that recognized my 15 years of volunteering on behalf of Polish-American community in Los Angeles, and my contribution to promoting culture in the local community of Sunland-Tujunga as the area's Poet-Laureate. The recognition, associated with the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Modjeska Club, was also recorded in the city documents, keeping track of such honors for countless community groups and activists. For someone who arrived in California merely 15 years ago, this is a great joy!

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich added his Commendation, and I can finally bask in the joy of being truly appreciated for all this volunteering that I have done, often questioning my sanity. Who does so many things for free? Would these recognitions, once for all, prevent a return to the doom and gloom of "I want to sell my life at a swap meet"? Maybe not, but they will certainly look great on a shelf in my office.

On Visiting Chopin's Tomb in Paris

The curiosity about Chopin's death appears almost morbid today, when the cult of fitness and health has placed all disabled and sick on the margins of society. As Franz Liszt writes in his biography of Chopin, the hagiography, rather, setting the tone for the legend of the feeble, tortured body and the elevated, spiritual, noble, suffering mind: "None of those who approached the dying artist, could tear themselves from the spectacle of this great and gifted soul in its hours of mortal anguish." And a spectacle it was. As Liszt claims, Chopin planned things in advance:

"By a custom which still exists, although it is now falling into disuse, the Poles often chose the garments in which they wished to be buried, and which were frequently prepared a long time in advance [...] Chopin, who, although among the first of contemporary artists, had given the fewest concerts, wished, notwithstanding, to be borne to the grave in the clothes which he had worn on such occasions [...] He had linked his love for art and his faith in it with immortality long before the approach of death, and as he robed himself for his long sleep in the grave, he gave, as was customary with him, by a mute symbol, the last touching proof of the conviction he had preserved intact during the whole course of his life. Faithful to himself, he died adoring art in its mystic greatness, its highest revelations."

Then, he decided on his burial - the Mozart Requiem at the Church of the Madeleine, the body to be interred at the Parisian cemetery Pere Lachaise, next to Bellini and Cherubini, and the heart, submerged in brandy, carried under the skirts of his sister back to Poland, to be enshrined in a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross on the Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street in Warsaw, not far from the place where he spent his youth.

Before burial, came Chopin's last days and moments, so fastidiously and admiringly described by Liszt:

"From week to week, and soon from day to day, the cold shadow of death gained upon him. His end was rapidly approaching; his sufferings became more and more intense; his crises grew more frequent, and at each accelerated occurrence, resembled more and more a mortal agony. He retained his presence of mind, his vivid will upon their intermission, until the last; neither losing the precision of his ideas, nor the clear perception of his intentions. The wishes which he expressed in his short moments of respite, evinced the calm solemnity with which he contemplated the approach of death.



As Liszt had it, everyone was blessed and raised to the heights of a spiritual realm by the very proximity of the dying "seraphic" artist: "—every knee bent—every head bowed—all eyes were heavy with tears—every heart was sad and oppressed—every soul elevated." After the final blessings, the agony began:

"A convulsive sleep lasted until the 17th of October, 1849. The final agony commenced about two o'clock; a cold sweat ran profusely from his brow; after a short drowsiness, he asked, in a voice scarcely audible: "Who is near me?" Being answered, he bent his head to kiss the hand of M. Gutman, who still supported it—while giving this last tender proof of love and gratitude, the soul of the artist left its fragile clay. He died as he had lived—in loving. When the doors of the parlor were opened, his friends threw themselves around the loved corpse, not able to suppress the gush of tears."

To remove the sanctified sheen of Liszt's verbosity let us read what Anne Woodworth wrote about this very moment in her poem published in the Chopin with Cherries anthology:

At the “Hour of Twilight”

– after reading Franz Liszt on Chopin’s death

Anne Harding Woodworth

Franz will write it all down:
that I swooned, that I asked for flowers
and music. Trouble is, I don’t know any Franz.

Tens of friends waited
in the anti-chamber. Trouble is,
I don’t have even four.

And a student held my hand,
because he wanted to return my affection
except that I’ve never had a student who loved me.

I do have a sister. I have two, but they wouldn’t think
of being prostrate at my bedside.
So who will hold my hand?

Where is a Franz who will unabashedly
describe my pillow? my sweat? my bitter suffering?
the unknown shores where next I go?

Of course, it’s true:
I don’t believe I’m going anywhere,
nowhere beyond nothing, that is.

Sing, Countess. Sing, my compatriot.
Trouble is, I’m not Polish. I don’t know any singers,
at least not one who can attain profound pathos.

And there’s no one to roll the piano I don’t own
to my bedroom door. Oh, Liszt, where are you?
I am coughing so. And the pain . . .

And the love . . .
Where is my Franz who will record
the cliché of a final agony?



I have not written about Chopin's death; for me his music is far too alive. But I have written about death and sorrow - too many poems, I think. The worst death, the death of hope, the death of the soul:

Black Iris

by Maja Trochimczyk

Black iris
Purple iris
Three tongues licking the air
The infinity of golden fuzz
Three in one

Trinity inside
Trinity outside
Circling, endless

Oh, to dissolve
Into that velvet smoothness
become one with the tricolor blossom
one with the tongues
Licking the air

Oh, to fade
Into the molecules
Dissemble within the iris
Flower into un-being
Into seed


The association of flowers with paying tribute to the dead, so typical of the West, was amplified in Chopin's death chamber: "His love for flowers being well known, they were brought in such quantities the next day, that the bed in which they had placed them, and indeed the whole room, almost disappeared, hidden by their varied and brilliant hues. He seemed to repose in a garden of roses. His face regained its early beauty, its purity of expression, its long unwonted serenity. Calmly—with his youthful loveliness, so long dimmed by bitter suffering, restored by death, he slept among the flowers he loved, the last long and dreamless sleep!"

The flowers are still there, in abundance. I visited his grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery on October 3, 2011, during a strangely hot Indian Summer day. The tomb was easy to find. That's where everyone was going. The cemetery office distributes maps with notable graves marked, from Heloise and Abelard, to Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Rossini. But there are no fresh flowers at almost any of them - except at Chopin's. The grave is taken care of by a local Polish Historical Society that decorates it with the national symbols (white eagle on a red flag), and vases for flowers. These are always fresh, brought to the grave by the stream of visitors. About fifty people passed by during the ten minutes we were there.

Afterward, I was asked for the location of Chopin's grave five more times on the way out - by an American, a French hobo (visibly drunk), an Italian couple, and a family with teenage kids. Some had flowers to leave at the people's shrine, I brought my poems and a cover of our anthology. I left it there for the grave-keepers to put in a makeshift historical museum, preserving notes, piano keys, and other memorabilia left for Chopin over 150 years after his death.

The intertwined themes of death, mortality and morbidity were associated with Chopin especially strongly at the end of the 19th century and through the early decades of the 20th century. Polish composer Zygmunt Noskowski (1846-1909) elaborated on the topic of the “typically Slavic” feeling of the unspecific, yet overwhelming, “sorrow” (“żal” or “żałość”) and nostalgia permeating Chopin’s music. This overriding expressive tone was associated with a general poetic quality in Noskowski’s 1899 article, “The Essence of Chopin’s Works:”

"Whatever we call the mood in Chopin’s works, be it “elegiac quality,” “longing,” or “sorrowfulness,” it is of primary importance to state that, above all, the purest poetry prevails in them and that the breath of this poetry captures the hearts in a way that cannot be described with words."

Strangely enough, Liszt attempted to do precisely that, "describe the ineffable in words" in his discussions of that most famous, and trivialized of Chopin's pieces, his Funeral March from the Piano Sonata No.

"All that the funeral train of an entire [Polish] nation weeping its own ruin and death can be imagined to feel of desolating woe, of majestic sorrow, wails in the musical ringing of this passing bell, mourns in the tolling of this solemn knell, as it accompanies the mighty escort on its way to the still city of the Dead. The intensity of mystic hope; the devout appeal to superhuman pity, to infinite mercy, to a dread justice, which numbers every cradle and watches every tomb; the exalted resignation which has wreathed so much grief with halos so luminous; the noble endurance of so many disasters with the inspired heroism of Christian martyrs who know not to despair;—resound in this melancholy chant, whose voice of supplication breaks the heart [...] The cry of a nation's anguish mounting to the very throne of God! The appeal of human grief from the lyre of seraphs!"

Seraphs or not seraphs, the music still moves us deeply, still resonates within us, still inspires. The YouTube comments of uneducated teens betray their helplessness under his sway:

"When this song is played while bright sun light shining through a big window. its simply amazing" (on Nocturne Op. 9, no. 2)

"Even when I'm sleeping its playing in my head!! Have to learn this!! Chopin rocks!" (on Prelude in D-flat major, Op. 28, no. 15, "The Raindrop")

"Full metal alchemist" (on Pollini playing the Etude Op. 10, no. 3)

"This is how music was meant to sound like, from the soul. Sounds that you can relate to and understand." (on Zimmerman playing the Ballade No. 4)

"Amazing how few notes can make you wonder in your thoughts.....ahhhhhh" (on Aszkenazy playing the Nocturne Op. 55, No. 1)

"Ok the first time I've heared this song, was because Jimmy Page did a cover of it and I must say this song is just like a sweet but really deep pain that is falling slowly and slowly as it's becoming more near to it's end...a very intense short piece of music indeed" (on Prelude Op. 28, No. 4)

So here it is, for your enjoyment, Jimmy Page (I do not even know who that is, but apparently, he plays a guitar):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZXG0fNUUXs&feature=related

______________________________________


Photos (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk, including the tombs of Bellini and of Chopin at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Vintage postcards with scenes of Chopin's death, from the private collection of Maja Trochimczyk:

Postcard with a caption in Polish: “Portrait of Chopin on his death bed, according to a watercolor by T. Kwiatkowski.” Published in Lwów: Nakł. Spółki Wydawniczej “Postęp,” n.d., ca. 1910.

Postcard The Last Chords of Chopin, based on a painting by Fr. Klimes, Les derniers accords de Chopin. Published by BKWI (Bruder Kohn) in Vienna, Austria, c. 1900-1910.