Song of a Man Who Has Come Through

A conversation with D. H. Lawrence

The below work takes a poem by D. H. Lawrence, “Song of a Man Who Has Come Through,” and responds to it stanza by stanza.

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!

I am an open door through which winds of a new Time are blowing.

What wind blows through you? Is it the pale, damp wind of a courtyard that no longer holds life? Once there were children playing games and fresh laundry and harvests to process but now an odor of mildew and dust. The old wind does not even carry the tang of death or decomposition or ready soil but only pallid clay.

Or does this wind of a new Time blow through you, too? Whence and whither this wind we welcome? What harmonic joy to remain open to this movement. What giddy terror to wonder about its nature. What exquisite suffering to continually cry, “if only!” If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!” My every breath is this if(in) only(out). A pathetic wishing would not ache so but this prophetic if only bears upon us, makes demands of us, gently destroys and saves us, bends and straightens us in a sustained note that time reveals as a melody ancient and future. I am a string I fear will break at the turning and yet I want to keep singing.

If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed
By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world

Do you and I share the same eschatological naiveté? Are you a dove who knows where the olive tree grows? Can you fly by night midair between formless waters of sea and storm? Can you navigate by starlight? Can you hear the voice blowing through you? Can you hear the silence in the midst of the roar? Can I yield to this wind ? Can I loan myself to this wind with no knowledge of what will be returned? If only I am a winged gift.

Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Driven by invisible blows,
The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

Therefore I have set my face like a flint. I am a stone which breaks other stones. What is the edge of a blade but a vibration that cleaves. How water and wind can break a mountain in two. How a man who knows stone can, after getting to know the stone in his hand, tap at the heart line of it to create a resonance that opens, like a plectrum plucking a string.

Can you withstand these invisible blows that drive us? I think I cannot but I am held together and summon power to harden myself as a steel chisel, dumb until the hammer falls and then singing and ringing into the rock until the white, chalky spot becomes a dark crack which then becomes a bolt of light.

I see a three-tree grove of poplar, elm, and willow sharing the same roots. Daughters of evening, give me a golden apple. I was made to eat it.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

I call to my soul: simus fontes. I am a source in this world though I am not the source. Do you have the courage to make this claim? Look at me, divine waters are pouring out of me. I am the infinite, briefly. Look at you, living waters flow from your inner place. You are the transcendent, contained. We are waterfalls of a new Time inbreaking; watery footprints in our wake.

Can you let go of yourself enough to claim, with no fear, no control, no shame, that you are a good fountain? Whisper more clearly. Do not pollute your wonder with reservations.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.
No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them

Was it three fists rapping in unison or a single hand that woke me in the night? Was it a thief or a lover? Was it a single voice or chorus that called my name? Let these messengers sing their song of doom and bloom