“… only perchance remembrance breaks the heart”

You won’t find that phrase in any Internet search engine — at least not until I post this page. You won’t find it in a book in the library, or on a video clip; buried, maybe, in a tattered notebook in some out-of-the-way cottage, hidden in an attic box or gathering dust under a bed, with pages as weathered as last season’s leaves. Probably the ink will have faded, if that notebook exists, or the pencil-line will have by friction and time been dissipated, so the words once alive in thought will have been undone, like a whisper in the wind.

Here’s an interesting notion: I may be the only living soul of 7 billion living souls to have that particular phrase in memory. It is the last line of a poem, for which I have no attribution other than an indirect line to a woman I had never met, whose name I may have been told, but which distance and time now holds out of reach of all but the deepest hypnosis. It was recited verbally by a dying friend to Olga Averino — the world-class operatic soprano from then-Russia, who with husband and baby crossed Siberia at the time of the revolution, settling in Boston; co-founder of the Longy School of Music; long-time inhabitant of little Victoria-by-the-Sea, PEI; the southwest corner of whose garden fence brushed the northeast tip of my parents’; who gave me a hand-typed copy of Principles and Art of Singing in exchange for a loaf of bread I brought from my oven that morning, fresh bread better given than eaten; who asked to read the poetry of my twenties and praised it (“keep writing, we need good poets”) — who then, on that last day that I saw alive, in the sunshine and in the lilac-laced afternoon breeze, traded poem for poems, and gave me the gift of her old friend’s words.

Now I pass them on to you.

Remembrance

No breath, no sight, no sound
disturbs the perfect peace
that we will come to know;
only perchance remembrance breaks the heart.

She repeated it twice, maybe once more on my request, that I should not forget it. It is worth slowing down to the speed of voice. Imagine who was speaking, when, and why. Better yet, don’t read them: speak them.

Poetry is not about books, but living and breathing beings, whose best attempt at explaining their lives (these long lives, these lives whose sands are taken by the tide) sound like… sighs, if they consider how many loves fit in seventy or eighty years. Olga’s friend had been diagnosed in the late stages of a terminal illness and, when she shared her poem, it was shortly before her lips would be still forever.

I didn’t begin this post with Olga on my mind, rather as a meditation on gratitude, gratitude that is sweetened whenever this brief flicker of life is not taken for granted. (non-sequitur: winter’s frost wrings the sugars from buried roots: finding the carrots or potatoes last season missed, lingering in the spring garden, is twice the delight, is passing ice and edible surprise) But then this poem, memorized in the most unceremonious of moments, traded on the slightest thread of friendship, whispered, and all of that life came rushing in.

Click here for a video retrospective of Olga’s work

Strange are the turns of fate. I have a poem in my head, because my mother has always been so interested in others and all things, and neighbors are  neighbors; because we meet each other as humans, and never meet as roles or stereotypes; because bread smells unbearably good when just from the oven; and because music and poetry and warm summer days are more beautiful shared than when taken in solitude.

“Ja, but I can think anything I want. I am free!”  ~ Olga Averino Federovsky

What I really wished to write about was grace. It emanates (I choose the word carefully) from almost anywhere, and mostly everywhere, and you can only avoid it if you run as fast as you can toward darkness, hold your hands over your ears, squeeze your eyes tight as they will go. But can you escape the morning sun, can you escape the evening dusk? Since the answer is No, it all comes to how you face this poignant, often painful, often delightful life.

Be brave. If you stand up to the impossible fears — these hands typing now will one day shake, the next feel cold and cramped, and will finally stop moving: after, please fold these hands in prayer for those who remain — when you embrace it just as it is, you get bigger, and you get better, and you get kinder.

Lately my good friend Guará has been paying me visits; he who always reminds me… that…  I don’t like when he visits, but appreciate his gravestone humors… more on this here.

In the shadow of his facts, Catalina was kind enough to teach me something she had learned, from the Buddhist teacher Thich Naht Hanh, who offered a version of the “Five Remembrances” of Gautama Buddha, translated into English and into the present day. When I am painfully ungrounded (Guará never fails to trip me up, and there I go, sprawling), this quiet mantra may not set my body upright, but it certainly helps my spirit find its feet.

The Five Remembrances

When you deny the reality of life, you appreciate it less. Meditate on the Buddha’s Five Remembrances and rediscover the magic of life, just as it is:

• I am of the nature to grow old;
  there is no way to escape from growing old.
  
• I am of the nature to have ill health;
  there is no way to escape ill health.
  
• I am of the nature to die;
  there is no way to escape death.
• All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change;
  there is no way to escape being separated from them.
• My actions are my only true belongings;
  I cannot escape the consequences of my actions;
  my actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Thich Nhat Hahn suffered a stroke a couple of weeks ago. His condition is “critical” if you believe the body does not die. In future remembrance of a great teacher, with gratitude for his light on what is ephemeral in all of us.

“The doctors have expressed surprise at Thay’s resilience and stability over the last week, as the intensive treatment continues. Thay’s blood pressure and pulse are stable, he is still breathing on his own, and he is becoming increasingly peaceful. However, in recent days Thay has been sleeping more deeply and communicating less.”  Plum Village, November 22, 2014.

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