שירת היש

יצא לי לדבר אתמול עם מישהי חכמה על נושא שמבחינתי הוא כבר לעוס ואפילו כמעט מאוס - האם יוצר צריך לסבול, האם יצירה טובה באה מסבל. (האם, כמו במשפט המפורסם של טולסטוי, כל המשפחות המאושרות דומות וכל משפחה אומללה אומללה בדרכה שלה).

אני רוצה לחשוב שלא. ההיאחזות בסבל דווקא יכולה להגביל את העולם היצירתי ולהוביל לחזרה על אותן תימות. צריך גם להבחין בין סבל לבין צער או כאב - גם מי שמרפה מסבל ישן יכול לחוות ובהכרח יחווה את כל קשת הרגשות האנושיים.

בכל מקרה תמיד אהבתי הכי את יהודה עמיחי, גם את שיריו וגם את הדמות שלו, משורר איש משפחה, איש שמח וטוב לב, שאפשר היה לראות אותו בירושלים, באוטובוס, חוזר מהשוק עם הסלים. יונה וולך הייתה משוררת מופלאה, אבל טוב שלא כולם מוכרחים להיות יונה וולך; שאפשר גם להיות יהודה עמיחי.

ובת השיח שלי הזכירה לי את וולט ויטמן, משורר היש והמלאות. אפשר לכתוב מתוך כאב ואפשר לכתוב גם כשהנשמה עולה על גדותיה ממלאות ואושר - וזה מה שאפשר להרגיש בשירה של ויטמן. השפע האדיר מתבטא גם בשפע המילים, אז ניסיתי לבחור ולצמצם. הנה קטעים מ-Song of myself שלו, ובסוף יש לינק לאתר שבו אפשר לקרוא עליו וגם לקרוא את הפואמה המלאה.

From Song of Myself
by Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself.
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul.
I lean and loafe at my ease...
observing a spear of summer grass.

I will go to the bank by the wood
and become undisguised and naked.
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.


The smoke of my own breath,
My perspiration and inspiration ...
The beating of my heart,
The passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves,
and of the shore, and dark colored sea-rocks,
and of hay in the barn.

The sound of the belched words of my voice...
words loosed to the eddies of the wind.
A few light kisses, a few embraces,
a reaching around of arms.
The play of shine and shade on the trees
as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets,
or along the fields and hillsides.
The feeling of health.
The song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess
the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun...
there are many millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand...
nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books.
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me.
You shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourself.

I have heard what the talkers were talking.
The talk of the beginning and the end.
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance...
Always substance and increase,
Always a knit of identity... always distinction...
always a breed of life.

Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul...
and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
Lack one lacks both...
And the unseen is proved by the seen
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst,
age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things,
while they discuss I am silent,
and go and bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me,
and of any man hearty and clean.
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile,
and none shall be less familiar than the rest.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating,
idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, bends an arm
on an impalpable certain rest,
Looks with its own sidecurved head curious
what will come next,
Both in and out of the game,
And watching and wondering at it.

This is the press of a bashful hand...
this is the float and odor of hair,
This is the touch of my lips to yours...
this is the murmur of yearning.
This is the far-off depth and height reflecting
in my own face,
This is the thoughtful merge of myself
and the outlet again.

I exist as I am, that is enough.
If no other in the world be aware I sit content.
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

I am the poet of common sense
and of the demonstrable and of immortality.
And am not the poet of goodness only.

What blurt is it about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels me.
I stand indifferent.
My gait is no faultfinder's or rejecter's gait.
I moisten the roots of all that has grown.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then. I contradict myself.
I am large. I contain multitudes.

http://www.searls.com/whitman.html