Hillel & Jesus

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

From JewishAnswers.com :

This statement was made by Hillel the Elder (in Pirkei Avot Chapter 1:14), the leader of the Jewish Supreme Court in the Land of Israel in the early part of the 1st Century

…

every person struggles on a daily basis with the balance between what one does for oneself and what one expects from others. Hillel is saying that the bottom line is that one’s life is in one’s own hands – don’t expect anyone to make your life for you because they can’t and won’t. On the other hand, if one’s focus is only on oneself to the exclusion of others, then what value does the person have? To be completely selfish is to lose touch with the rest of the world, to lose touch with life.The connection between the first and last part of the teaching is not obvious. The last part is saying that since we don’t know what each hour will bring, we must respond to each moment as if it is a once in a lifetime opportunity – ‘if not now’, when are you going to have another chance. On a deeper level, it could be saying that each moment in our lives is unique – even though it may seem that the opportunity to do something returns the next day, the context is never the same.

How about the teachings of another Jew of around the same time:

‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

TO A RED-HAIRED BEGGAR GIRL

 

Baudelaire, a French poet who lived and died in the 1800’s, is one who deserves his reputation for being a bad influence. Some of his poems are sensual, others are lusty, perverse, abusive or disgusting — many were suppressed during his life.  A selection of his first lines from the end of the wonderful little book of his poems I have here illustrates the range — to read them (and the poems themselves) is to feel a bit shaken (My wife is dead, so now I’m free) unclean (I spent the night with a gruesome Jewish whore), intrigued (My darling was naked, or nearly, for knowing my heart..), or desiring (Long let me inhale, deeply, the odor of your hair). Odor, scent, and the power of smell have force in his poetry, and I have at least one more poem to share from this book, but for now, I’ll just place this poem here, almost juvenile in its sexiness — one of the more innocent of his poems in this excellent translation, but an evocative poem for this evening.

A few notes first:

strophes – these are pairs of stanzas – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strophes

Belleau – a poet of 1500’s, the French Renaissance. ” most known for his paradoxical poems of praise for simple things and his poems about precious stones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remy_Belleau

Patchouli is an essential ingredient in many perfumes, it has a strong heavy odor.

 

TO A RED-HAIRED BEGGAR GIRL

 

Gaping tatters in each garment prove

your calling is not only beggary

but beauty as well,

 

and to a poet equally ‘reduced,’

the frail and freckled body you display

makes its own appeal —

 

queens in velvet buskins take the stage

less regally than you wade through the mud

on your wooden clogs.

 

What if, instead of these indecent rags,

the splendid train of a brocaded gown

rustled at your heels,

 

and rather than town stockings, just suppose

curious glances sliding up your thigh

met with a gold dirk!

 

And then if, for our sins, those flimsy knots

released two perfect little breasts that shine

brighter than your eyes,

 

and your own arms consented to reveal

the rest, though archly feigning to fend off

hands that go too far . . .

 

Strands of pearls and strophes by Belleau

arriving — imagine! — endless streams

‘from an admirer’;

 

riffraff — talented and otherwise —

offering tributes to the slippered feet

glimpsed from below stairs;

 

gentlemen sending flunkeys to find out

who owns the carriage always told to ‘wait’

at your smart address

 

where in the boudoir, kisses count for more

than quarterings, although the cast includes

a Bourbon or two!

 

— Meanwhile, here you are, begging scraps

doled out by the local table d’hôte

at the kitchen door

 

and scavenging discarded finery

worth forty sous, a price which (pardon me!)

I cannot afford . . .

 

Go, then, my Beauty, with nor ornament

— patchouli or pearl chocker — but your own

starveling nakedness!

 

Charles Baudelaire

Les Fleurs Du Mal

translated by Richard Howard.

Baudelaire: Poems (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets)

through rooms where dust is a deepening skin

I’m learning to read poetry by typing it in so I notice every word just a bit more. I read too fast for poems. Maybe I type too fast for them, also, but typing, at least is slower.

GETTING THROUGH

Like a car stuck in gear,

a chicken too stupid to tell

its head is gone,

or sound ratcheting on

long after the film

has jumped the reel,

or a phone

ringing and ringing

in the house

they have all moved away from,

through rooms where dust

is a deepening skin,

and the locks unneeded,

so I go on loving you,

my heart blundering on,

a muscle spilling out

what is no longer wanted

and my words hurtling past,

like a train off its track,

toward a boarded-up station,

closed for years,

like some last speaker

of a beautiful language

no one else can hear

DEBORAH POPE

The Poetry Anthology, 1912-2002,

The Poetry Anthology, 1912-2002

1994-1995

p. 416