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SECOND PLACE
Odysseus and the Worm Farmer:
Thoughts on the Writing Art
By James Saint-Cloud
San Rafael, California
“
. . . And we know, also, all things that happen on
the abundant earth.” Thus they sang as their
beautiful melody rang out, and indeed, my heart longed
to be hearing them . . .
—
Odysseus, tied to the mast, hearing the sirens’ songs. Homer, The Odyssey.
My day is spent enjoying people I meet. And prying
stories from them when I can. Like John who wanders
through the café when I’m having tea,
who tells me about his vermiculture days, and the evening
in Topanga Canyon when the worms spilled from his pickup
truck, out onto the road. How he did his best to scoop
them up. How the next day he saw his worms everywhere,
between the treads of tires around the neighborhood.
Once that would have been a ho-hum in my scheme of
things. But not now. Now I am writing. Now I am wondering
how this red-streaked maelstrom of a world upturned
may fit into the plots I currently have raveling along,
three or four of them at once, imaginary worlds I move
among, peopled inside of me—inky lifeblood flowing
through their veins, moving along a landscape paper
thin, fed by this and that experience I’ve had
or heard about, or read and made my own. I write, and
for some moments I am hauling worms down a two-lane
road beside the western sea. I am Odysseus tied to
a ship’s mast to hear the sirens’ song.
Wanting to hear more.
One gift I prize most, for gift it certainly must be,
is the ability to take up some flimsiest gossamer of
happenstance, anything offered me, and weave bright
fabric out of it. Colors flooding onto tapestry, not
seen arriving til they’re in full bloom, there
on the page. And few joys so sweet as seeing a story
or poem as it all connects, to see that it works and
feel, Yes!
Sure, there are dead ends, false starts, old fears
of what unknown horizons hold. Unseen cords that bind
my hands. But once the plunge is made, when the waves
close dark around my head, the story doesn’t
let me loose until the one or two last twists have
wrung the pleasure out of me in rivulets. It’s
done. It’s then I go to the café, so wishing
for anyone to show my writing to, to bring with me
into this other world that sings. I collar passers
by and friends to take a look at it, who say, “I’d
love to!” then are embarrassed to see me afterwards,
with, “I just haven’t had the time.” If
you’d just read it, all ten minutes’ worth,
I think at them, it might open a time portal wide for
you!
Encouragement must so often come from deep inside.
How I envy those who are in love! Pouring out poetry
through their lives, their touch, their words. Loving
at a distance, perhaps, two hearts poured out bittersweet
in ink. At the moment I do not share that tender vicissitude.
So I conjure the lover that awaits. Write for her,
whose face I’ve never seen. Despairing at so
many opportunities for relationship I missed those
early days before I could relate, so young and stupid,
grievously oblivious. For relationship, intimacy, I
now know, is what makes literature come alive. Mysteries
of two worlds entwined, endlessly unfolding, spiraling
each to each. Though yearning for it also seems to
fill the pages well enough.
Relationship begins with oneself, of course. Cajoling
memories long hidden from their caves. Allowing awkward
fantasies to go unchained into the paper’s bright
open arms. Uncorking the inkwell—to let my genie
of creativity fly free. Opening the spillways, parts
of me dammed up so long, dark unleashed mysteries that
flood me along with them. I am tied to the mast of
all I have experienced, listening to the sirens’ sweet
faint song on imagination’s distant shore.
Because I write, I read much more. For information,
research, yes, and much more fiction than before, discerning
that fine art—how to get the story out. How to
wield wonder, bring the listener’s heart to touch
my own, to sense this same thunder moving deep inside
of her, born of a lightning ever sensed but seldom
heard, bright jagged songs sung closer, clearer now—my
words the string that ties her to the mast with me.
My days are spent enjoying other people’s worlds.
And my own world grown brighter as I link horizons
up, to have their storms flow into mine—each
person a nexus where our many circles meet. A great
wide necklace of humanity! Linked each to each, where
I may feel the subtle circles cascade through my own,
experiencing the cry of what is tangled, bent, o’erturned,
enchained. Knowing all the circles must run smooth
and true again before this dream of weaving circles
may be folded up, and woken from.
Setting a course where I’ve never thought to
go, taking the reader along with me as though the future
is a page that turns. Introducing her to these paper-people
living deep inside of me, with their own hopes, their
tears, their own hands bound at masts to hear the sirens’ whispered
promises—the kiss not given, word not said, touch
that never came, one more chance for all that might
have been. Inviting her to go with me, out for a swim;
to ride along the western sea where some dreams find
their way to earth, and others go careening off against
the road.
No longer do I hesitate to go where horizons circle
red and thin, this dawn-beauty reaching out for me
to come to it. I embrace these songs I so desire to
make my own, tearing myself loose from gossamer bonds
that hold me to the mast. Flesh, bone, blood, no longer
mine to call my own. Flowing out into the inky spilled-out
sea. Diving toward those sirens I hear call.
James Saint-Cloud lives in northern California.
His poems have been published in the Duke University
Archive,
and his poetry and fiction have received honors in
the New Century Writer’s Awards and the Florida
State Writer’s Competition. Two novels are seeping
around the edges of his days, making their way toward
ink.
Copyright (c) 2003 for the
author, all rights reserved.
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