Book Review

Maryland Weather
by Lee Evans
Published by Medusa Press, 2007
Available online through Amazon.com and Lulu.com.
Also available at your favorite bookstore,
ISBN 978-0-6151-7301-6

These poems, which span the range of years form 1996-2007, represent the poet's selection of the best of his work. The interaction between nature and the human realms is the overriding theme of the book, and the poet addresses its different aspects in the poems.

1.

There is much philosophical substance in the poems and the various themes which they address. It is important to remember that they are poems and not short essays. This is particularly important point because of the obvious pains the poet took in crafting these poems. Not only are they lyrical, but many are done in a variety of rhyming formats and are very skillfully executed, too.

The poet recognizes the basic harmony of nature, which operates quite effectively without human interaction. He suggests that people could learn to regard nature as a great teacher, rather than an adversary, particularly since we are already immersed in nature. This attitude reflects the influence of Lao Tzu, Taoism, and also the famous English Romantic poet, Wordsworth, on his thought.

Poems on Lao Tzu, and two that refer to Chuang Tzu, set the tone for the collection—if a person has a sense of fixed identity, regarding themselves and other beings, this attitude obscures their view of reality, which is whatever is happening, right in front of their eyes. Such thoughts are expressed both didactically and with humor, as in the poem "End of Summer" whose final stanza reads:

"Did you ever," I asked
the Old Man of The Sea,
as he leaned on his trident
and stared at the waves,
"have so much fun playing
out there in the water,
you forgot who you were—
and became Everything?"

The poet draws a similar conclusion from Bodhidharma's famous nine years of meditation in a cave and his subsequent awakening, namely, that one

… walks the path before you—
To arrive at your destination
By seeing no more than meets the Eye.

(from "Mind Your Own Business")

As there is no abiding substance or mind, so is there no clear distinction between the waking and dreaming states. In this spirit, the poet repeats Chuang Tzu's famous question: Are we butterflies dreaming that we are human, or are we humans dreaming that we are butterflies?

By way of contrast, Descartes, the famous French 17th century rationalist, scientist and mathematician, maintains the basic distinction between waking and dreaming, using clear and distinct ideas as a basis for truth; if we have clear and distinct ideas, then we are awake, but if we have non-distinct ideas, as is often the case in a dream, then we are dreaming. However, having clear and distinct ideas would not protect the individual from the influence of any malign "evil genius," or evil genii, who could deceive him even about the clarity if his ideas. Only his trust in the beneficence of a personal God saves Descartes from skepticism about the basic reliability of his senses, and knowing that he is awake and not asleep, at a given time.

The message of Chuang Tzu, and the poems of Maryland Weather, is not to shirk the implications of skepticism by seeking certainty in any fixed belief, even a belief in a beneficent God. What we believe to be real changes from moment to moment. It is Heraclitean flux, like Maryland weather.

…as we say here in Maryland
Concerning the weather,
"If you don't like it, wait a minute,
And it will change."

(from the poem, "Maryland Weather")

We are all fellow creatures, with individual and unique perspectives. Suffering and the imposition of suffering on other beings occurs, if one clings to fixed perspectives, or to things that supposedly do not change, for change is a basic part of our experience.

The poet's reflections on the textures, surfaces and structures of things, is stimulated by his work in the Maryland state genealogical archives. Just as in the archives one might explore surfaces but not depth, so one might focus not on a real tree but a tree within the mind, which the poet points out, often functions as a kind of inverted tree, and distracts people from the real trees, out there in the world (paraphrasing from the poem "Metaphysical Roots"). Several poems at the beginning of the book, speak of how genealogical research, with its scraps of paper, mistake appearance for reality. The poet then writes of actual leaves, autumn leaves. He warns of the danger of mistaking even beautiful images for reality—"Even Dante's Celestial Rose was a seeming…" (from "Mind Your Own Business"). Reality is right where each of it is, right now, if we but open our eyes. And, this same poem contains the story of Bodhidharma, who helps transmit Buddhism from India to China. After nine years of contemplating a wall in his cave, he learns to perceive the wall as it is, not as his mind conceives it. In so doing, he learns to perceive reality, which is always that which is right before our eyes.

The last four stanzas of the poem read:

There are surfaces everywhere you go,
But they are all of your own Mind.
To contemplate them is to abide
In the absolutely present moment,
Never disdaining appearances.

And should this gazing interfere
With how you think life ought to be;—
Should this Wall stand between you
And the object of your hopes and dreams—
Just take these parables to heart:

You can shout all day at the lowering clouds,
But the spring rain is not forced thereby.
You can point all day at mysterious moons,
But it only serves to stiffen your finger.

You should mind your own business,
And walk the path before you—
To arrive at your destination
By seeing no more than meets the Eye.

2.

Many of the poems are written from the perspective of the other—the other person, non-human beings, and nature itself. The poems are written with wit and with a sense of whimsy and irony. Those poems then become a series of what could almost be called biographical statements by different non-human observers, who, happily for us, have a penchant for poetry. The poet is obviously inspired by parable, myth and folklore. And so, we meet several lyrical skulls, with whom the narrator converses about change and mutability (what else!). There is the poem "Cicada," in which this insect, aware of itself in a very human kind of way, gives a short discourse on change and permanence. An aviary perspective is provided by a parrot who repeats Buddhist dharma on impermanence, and so seems to indicate his readiness for a human birth. And right after "Cicada," the poem "Born Old" relates the experience of a baby and a calf who are born old, but grow younger by the day.

The poet stretches his imagination in a very intriguing way to present a panorama of nature without people. What the poet calls a Premiere Snowman feeds the birds and animals out the very substance of winter and nature, thus preserving them. He becomes a kind of primal Garden of Eden without human beings (from the poem, "Premiere Snowman"). We have the very powerful and moving poem "Deaf, Dumb and Blind," written from the imagined perspective of a handicapped child. The word dumb really applies not to the child, but to the congregation at church who are entranced by themselves and the materiality of their world, and their lack of sensitivity to others, including the child.

In one of the final poems of the book, "By the Roadside (after Chuang-Tzu and Bunana)," we see the skill of the poet combined with philosophical acumen:

The skull is speaking here:

"Perhaps you'd like to hear me speak
About the end of woe."
"Oh, tell me everything you know!"
The skull resumed, "In Death are no
Distinctions that men seek.
"No seasons waste each other there
With changes soon undone;
No phase of moon or fire of sun
Surpasses Wisdom's light for ones
Who move beyond your sphere."
…And the concluding stanzas of the poem:
I heard his words with skeptic doubts,
And said, "If magic arts
Could somehow cause you to depart
From your abyss, and take your part
Once more in your own house,
"With mother, father, wife and child,
And all your wealth and friends,
Would you refuse the chance to blend
With what you loved, to live again,
If only for a while?"
The skull stared fixedly at me,
And said, knitting its brows,
(This was a dream, remember now!)
"No one who casts away life's shroud
Regains that misery.
"While living, be a dead man, then;
Be dead so through and through
That anything you think or do
Will be as though there were no you—
And dwell here as my friend."

The genius of Taoism is acceptance of change and tolerance of nature itself, as well as the perspectives of different human and non-human beings, who inhabit different places in the natural world. As the poet writes in the last stanza of his poem on Lao Tsu:

Unknown to all, unknown to himself,
Unobtrusive virtue influencing
All waters to flow to their origin,
He is the perfect stranger:
His camouflage is what you wear

3.

The poet does not rest content with relativism, or reality conceived as a multitude of difference perspectives, when applied to morality. Justice and injustice are not simply terms subject to interpretation. He emphasizes the importance of balance and harmony rather than hubris or human pride. Likewise, rather than conquering nature or the mind, the poet urges that people be with as nature it is.

But how can we impose our will,
When our own Nature rolls away
The cliffs, and crashes down the hills,
And sinks the ports beneath its waves?
It gives one pause, perhaps, to know
The world as but the mind's shadow.
That awful moment, when the veil
That shrouds all enterprise is rent
And ripped off like a canvas sail
Before the vessel veers and wrecks,—
'Tis then the Old World we disdain
Is stranded with us once again.

(from "Cape Cod")

When harmony among people, and between human beings and nature is disturbed by war, not only does the world change but the poems too change. The tone of the poems shifts from being descriptive to the being prescriptive. The poet no longer dispassionately records his observations. The poet, rather, creates poems which seek to extort and cajole right action, from often reluctant people, people who fall back into being manipulated by religious and political authoritarianism. The latter all too often masquerades as faith and patriotism. The poet also inveighs again the Hobbsian struggle of all each against all—humans vs. humans and human vs. nature—rather than a more cooperative, sympathetic and less adversarial approach to dealing with others.

The poet attacks religious hypocrisy, which he sees as nothing less than the use of religion to justify war, as in the very powerful short poems "Baghdad Looming" and "Blue Angels." These are the final two stanzas of poem "To The Warmongers":

…
My heroes are a different breed:
They flout your false authority,
Refusing to wage war when it is wrong.
They willingly would go to jail,
Be beaten, cast out from the pale,
Than serve as cowards the unjustly strong.

Did not the Man you praise as God
Defy the zealots as His blood
Ran down to wet the Roman soldiers' feet?
Did He not rise to bear the loss
For men who died upon His cross—
Who scorned all wars and loved their enemies?

The poet's attitude toward war is perhaps summed up most concisely and with considerable power in his "Nothing But The All." We reproduce this short poem in full, and with it we will end this review of Maryland Weather. Lee Evans' poems are powerful, engaging, and witty. They challenge conventional views of the world, in their philosophical and moral aspects. They deserve a wide audience, and hopefully the publication of this collection of his poems will help to realize this.

Nothing But The All

Young men and women, answer not the call
When politicians beat the drums of War:
Lay down your lives for nothing but the All.

Seek not the foe, but stem that bitter gall
Which rises from your hearts' fermenting core.
Young men and women, answer not the call.

The world cannot be kept out by their walls,
Or broken into Theirs and Mine and Yours.
Lay down your lives for nothing but the All.

Think not that when you stand so brave and tall
Your sins are covered by your uniforms:
Young men and women, answer not the call.

Two guardians defend the Moral Law:
Your Conscience and your Shame stand for its norm.
Lay down your lives for nothing but the All.

Far better that one die than one should fall.
Refuse this wrong, though you should be abhorred.
Young men and women, answer not the call.
Lay down your lives for nothing but the All.

—Reviewed by Paul Dolinsky
editor@thegoldenlantern.com