Who If I Cried. . .

[Michael Bailey]

didn't mean to trivialize it, there's just this funny image
in my mind of Euclid gazing on Beauty Bear
but that's in addition (though not in complete opposition)
 to the point of the poem and passage

what makes Ruperta ascend? music
what brings Yashmeen and Cyprian together in Vienna? music
I enjoyed your rhapsody, Robin,
and (since a sort of virtual nictitating membrane often draws shut
over my eye when trying to read poetry or philosophy)
I really appreciated the ventilation of the Duino Elegy.

excellent 1st trip ... anybody could learn a lot
about set and setting from that.  It's still pretty mysterious,
especially acid: how such a tiny, almost homeopathic dose
could have such large effects.

Yashmeen and Kit have both seen flashes of the
type of beauty indicated in the poem (and so has Gunther)
and many have suggested that the raptures induced by
music are of a similar nature.  That the passage appears
at their leavetaking, indicates they are being called unwillingly
away from a perception that - as the poem details -
is rare and precious.  "massive sandal on stone" -
how beautiful upon the mountain!

On 4/8/08, robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> (also on p 635, I caught an overtone:
>  "that terrible ecstasy known to result from unmediated
>  observation of the beautiful" -- a poem that, um, somebody
>  I know suggested was about one of the Care Bears...
>
>  Ok, kiddies, I'm going freestyle here. . . .
>
>              Who, though I cry aloud,
>              would hear me in the angel orders?
>
>  So, let's start around 1971, here in Fresno. This is about three months
>  before my first "trip" [mescaline, btw].I was keen on hearing Beethoven's
>  15th quartet because of my ongoing interest in "Acid', going back to
>  around 1965, when the Beatles settled in. The effects of the Beatles
>  acid trips seemed to be best about a year or two before they took
>  the stuff.
>
>              And should my plea ascend,
>              were I gathered to the glory
>
>  Anyway, now I'm all of sixteen and absorbed by Beethoven, and Aldous
>  Huxley wrote about the Fifteenth quartet in "Point-Counter-Point", a book
>  that I've only managed to get to the part about the quartet. So I'm in the
>  Fresno State Music Library [It was was Huge, it was Great] and I'm listening
>
>              of some incandescent heart,
>              my own faint flame of being
>
>  to the Guarneri String Quartet version on RCA, and everything is going
>  smoothly, lovely stuff, quite a bit of pulling at the heart-strings, and the
>
>               would fail for the glare.
>              Beauty is as close to terror
>
>  third go-round
>
>
>              as we can well endure.
>              Angels would not condescend
>
>  something weird
>
>              to damn our meagre souls.
>              That is why they awe
>
>  is going on.
>
>              and why they terrify us so.
>              Every angel is terrible!
>
>  Usually I manage to get one of the nice booths
>
>              And so I constrain myself and
>              swallow the deep, dark music
>
>   just me, myself and I
>
>              of my own impassioned plea.
>              Oh, to whom can we turn
>
>  But this time, I was sitting in the middle of a big open
>  room with lots of people all around me,
>
>              in the hour of need?
>              Neither angel nor man.
>
>  and I started to cry uncontrollably, and it felt as
>
>              Even animals know that we
>              are not at home here.
>
>  Sweet as drinking Mead from the Rider-Waite Ace of Cups
>
>              We see so little of what
>              is clearly visible to them.
>
>  And I saw this house in the country in the midst
>
>              For us there is only
>              a tree on a hillside,
>
>  of a green meadow
>
>              which we can memorize, or
>              yesterday's sidewalks, or
>
>  and I knew I was home.
>
>              a habit which discovered us,
>              found us comfortable and moved in.
>
>  And I cried, and I cried and I cried.
>
>              O and night...the night!
>              Wind of the infinite
>
>  And the music ended.
>
>              blowing away all faces.
>              Within our solitude appears
>
>  And I took off my headphones
>
>              a nearly lovely god
>              or goddess, all the
>
>  and took the record to the counter, still crying, and pretty
>  much fleeing the building with my head down.
>
>              heart is ever apt to meet.
>              Lovers fare no better,
>
>  And finally I open my eyes and the Eucalyptus trees are
>  glowing magenta and purple with glints of green, I was
>  seeing these auras around the trees, and I felt washed
>  and fully of joy.
>
>              concealing, by their love,
>              each other's destiny.
>
>  For what it's worth, the work I talking about, Beethoven's
>  Fifteenth Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 is famously modal,
>  which we are in right now, everything in the novel in
>  moving modaly upward, an old Monk trick.
>
>              Do you still not understand?
>              Pour your emptiness
>
>  Anyway, this is only part one of the story,
>
>              into the breeze-
>              the birds may soar
>
>  We'll get there when we get there.
>
>              more swiftly for it.
>