The Door

I have just read a fabulous passage in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Dillard quotes Stephen Graham (I have no idea who he is), who writes, "As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged on the shingly beach of a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens" (80). "The door," as Graham puts it, is sort of a sublime experience, an insight to the world. Dillard mentions seeing "the tree with the lights" (c.f. "Seeing") and believing this experience to be the door opening, to remian open forever, that it "opens on eternity" (80). However, she realizes that the door is opened "from eternity, as it were, and shone on that tree eternal lights, it nevertheless opened on the real and present cedar. It opened on time.... On that cedar shone, however briefly, the steady, inward flames of eternity" (80). Eternity opens its own door for us to have a brief vision of sublimity. Often, we close it ourselves, or we never allow ourselves to see it when it is open.

What Dillard is describing is the basis for all great poetry, specifically, in her case, pastoral poetry. I think of myself as someone who wishes to be a poet, not as an actual poet. I am always thinking, "If I could do this, or see this, or go there, or think in this way, then I would be able to write poetry." I am reminded of Childe Harold who searches for newer and greater sublimities at every turn. Having climbed Dragon's Tooth, I must now climb the Peaks of Otter, and then I must clime Mount Everest. Having moved from the city to a small town, I must now move out to the country. I will then truly see the bucolic as it is, and I will be able to appreciate the pastoral. However, once I've moved 10 minutes outside of town, what must I do once I've gotten tired of that. Move an hour outside of town? And what then? We are ever desiring newer and greater sublimities; we try to manufacture those moments when the door opens on eternity, shining eternal light through the tree.

I have been moved by a terrible, elderly choir to near tears, for in that moment eternity opened its doors, and through the mouths of the elderly angels sang. I did not ask for this experience. Indeed, I do not know that I was even particularly prepared for it. But perhaps that is the point. One cannot be prepared for such an experience--that would counteract the very purpose of such an experience. Once again, it would be an attempt to manufacture it for ourselves. Perhaps there is something we can do to make ourselves more receptive of these moments--spots of time, in the words of Virginia Woolf. I do not know what that is, and I suppose if I did, I would be able to call myself a poet.

~N.B.