Wild iris field, Ota-jinja shrine, Kyoto

So I spent the first half of yesterdy morning re-reading one of my favorite poems, “The Wild Iris“, by Louise Gluck. Gluck’s work in this collection won her a Pulitzer Prize. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently in the Eastern religion section of the Barnes & Noble bookstore ( so much so, they’ve reserved a table for me at their in-store cafe), which has allowed me to appreciate the poem in a new light. But first I allow you read the poem for yourselves…

“At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.”

Cover art for the Pulitzer Prize Winning "The Wild Iris", by Louise Gluck

The first time I read this, I was overwhelmed by the beautiful imagery and haunting language that Gluck uses to describe first, her emotional suffering and then her emotional restoration or rejuvenation. The voice of the speaker in the poem is the iris. Throughout the collection, Gluck utilizes the the themes and cycles of life, death and rebirth to represent the human condition. After reading this poem beneath the grey light of the clouds on the beach, the recognition of the principle of Samsara trailed soon behind, like the shadow trails the object.

In “The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Inner Peace: The Essential Life and Teachings“, the Dalai Lama says, “Samsara is the cycle of existence (birth, death and rebirth) conditioned by karma. It is the wheel of suffering that characterizes the phenomenon we call life.” Whether or not the parallels between Samsara and the speaker’s journey are intentional or not, well, only Ms. Gluck can say. But I like to think so.

Namasté