"cherry tree in winter" ZJC (2007)
Walk with grief like a good friend.
Listen to what he says.
– Rumi
When I am being honest with myself, though I strive for high and noble emotions like compassion and love, the emotion I carry with me daily, right now as you read this, is sorrow, heartbreak, grief. I feel it in my muscles and body just as much as I feel the winter wind outside or the hot tea in my cup. And I do not think I am alone in this. My dear friends write to me and they are in pain and there is so little I can do to comfort. Divorce, death, separation, illness; what can one letter in return do? I do not know; especially when my own sorrow reaches up and suffocates me.
Having said that, the drama queen in me admits it is rather self-indulgent I know, I began thinking of the idea of grief as a teacher, a maestro, an instructor. But, I shout, I do not even know how to begin that, how to turn something that feels like such a terror into such a friend? Perhaps … perhaps … as I have been learning, when in doubt turn to the Sufi mystic poet Rumi. I was reading Coleman Barks marvelous translation of this poem by Rumi, Backpain:
Muhammad went to visit a sick friend.
Such kindness brings more kindness,
and there is no knowing the proliferation from there.
The man was about to die.
Muhammad put his face close and kissed him.
His friend began to revive.
Muhammad's visit re-created him.
He began to feel grateful for an illness
that brought such light.
And also for the backpain
that wakes him at night.
No need to snore away like a buffalo
when this wonder is walking the world.
There are values in pain that are difficult
to see without the presence of a guest.
Don't complain about autumn.
Walk with grief like a good friend.
Listen to what he says.
Sometimes the cold and dark of a cave
give the opening we most want. (23)
This poem blew me away; so why do I carry sorrow like a badge? What does it mean to me besides keeping those years of tears bottled up? Why I am afraid of the crushing responsibility I have been avoiding for so long that I am not a failure as I claim daily to be? Do I choose a life of “quiet desperation” because it allows me not to reach for the stars?
Thinking of how other people in other cultures have delt with sorrrow, I have been reading the Kabuki play, Seki no To, roughly translated as The Barrier Gate (written in 1784 in Japan). There is a beautiful painting of the play housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum with the title: "Somezone in Tsumoru koi yuki seki no to (Snow and love piled up at the Seki-no-to Barrier Gate)." The play is long and complex but the character who interested me most was Somezome, the spirit in a black cherry tree. The Fitzwilliam Museum explains about the painting:
[the play] is set at the barrier gate at the pass on Mount Osaka sometime in the ninth century. Sekibei, posing as a guardian of the barrier, is none other than the villainous Omoto no Kuronushi, who secretly plans to overtake the country. He gets drunk and deduces from the stars reflected in his drinking bowl that he will overthrow the emperor if he performs a ritual using burnt wood from the nearby giant black cherry tree. But when he tries to chop it down, he is halted by the appearance of the spirit of the tree in the guise of the beautiful courtesan Somezome (her name means 'dyed-black,' like the tree). After a series of transformations Somezome is victorious. The poem here both alludes to the barrier gate (seki no to) in the title of the play; [and] … makes reference to the appearance of [the actress] Onoe Kikugoro playing the spirit of the tree:
The ice of the mountains has melted and
Onoe lingers like haze -
blooms like flowers at the barrier gate.
That brought me to thinking of Somezome during the long months of winter and Rumi's advice not to complain about hard times but find wisdom in them. I think more than anyone a restless cherry tree probably has more to complain about and yet even though she wanders the snowy wastelands while her tree-self sleeps the winter away, I cannot see Somezome despairing that the snows will never end, that her tree will never wake, that leaves will never cover her limbs again. Without winter there can be no spring. Without my grief I could not tell you any of this. Perhaps, then, if I can offer my dear friends going through pain any advice, it is that while the pain hurts now and the dark nights are long now, without them we would have never met and without these terrible circumstances you would never be where you are right now; safe long enough to read all this. And knowing you are safe can't be all bad.
Since my grim fortune forces me to love,
to long, to sigh for what I cannot hold
and that fussy mountain cuckoo, above
all my other loves, leaves me in this cold,
lonely place, I tell you this: whoever
hears my songs of aching need, misery
filled with this unfulfilled yearning, hunger,
thirst – come, take me. I am a black cherry
with deep roots and what hurts and twists the heart
now will only bring pleasure later. From
my pain you came, I will tell you, my lost
song no one else heard. When you come, sweetheart,
I will tell you. Please hear my song, my psalm,
my cry in this wild storm, this endless frost.
Works Cited
Barks, Coleman. A Year With Rumi: daily readings. San Francisco: Harpers (2006)
