As the eyes in the room were watching for chicanery on my part, the pendulum slowly began to stir. My hands were still. To everyone’s delight the pendulum seemed to move with a determination of its own, back and forth- just across the poem at first, in the small space of the letters, and then beyond into the white of the paper…
There was a rock tumbler in our house growing up. Seemingly ordinary pebbles would emerge from the canister a week later in a fine state of polish, fitting perfectly in our eager hands and catching the light in new ways.
In contemporary haiku, the words glint and the tumbler of technique grumbles.
One day I had a moment of connection while writing. Instead of continuing climbing that day, I sat and reflected on it during my mountain walk. I decided then that the next day I would demonstrate to my senior class that an artwork is more than the sum of its parts– more than the paint on the canvas, the ink on the page. I would create an object lesson using only the spare words of the poem I had just received as inspiration.
The following day I wrote the poem on the blackboard, set up a stool on a desktop and clambered up onto the desk, pulling a wooden pendulum from my pocket. As an ink stain on the piece of paper the poem weighed virtually nothing, it occupied less space than a rain drop, and couldn’t be read beyond an arm’s length.
As I leaned over it, I began to focus intently on the ten words of the haiku;
strands of web–– / this leaf, that leaf / the same dream
At first the pendulum did nothing at all.
As the eyes in the room were watching for chicanery on my part, the pendulum slowly began to stir. My hands were still. To everyone’s delight the pendulum seemed to move with a determination of its own, back and forth- just across the poem at first, in the small space of the letters, and then beyond into the white of the paper.
There wasn’t a sound in the room.
The pendulum began to move even more freely, as if everyone watching it was empowering its motion, swinging widely now, about a quarter of its arc across the paper. Encouraged, I too intensified my concentration and the arc grew to its full reach, swinging from one extreme to the other across the poem, crossing the expanse of the paper, and into the space beyond it. Any more and it would have done loops!
I think we were all a little surprised.
And then I broke my gaze and addressed the class. As I did so, the pendulum slowly retreated back into gentler arcs and drifted into stillness again.
Present in this spare stain of ink was more than language, words, or poetry. There was an exchange happening between art and audience, connecting with the intention invested in it. The audience honored its presence, raising it into full, collective awareness. The poem responded as if it too was conscious, the pendulum swinging at full length, caught in the current and currency of the exchange.
For about a hundred years now, science has been revealing that consciousness infuses and informs the world around us. Into the arts and sciences today shines a light from beyond the room.
For those who worry pebbles into a fine state of polish, a treasure shines with new light.
For however briefly, it is my wish to also hold that spark beyond.
