by John Harris Beck
Member since:
May 28, 2006

"Consecration of the House": 9/11/2007

September 10, 2007 08:59 PM EDT (Updated: September 10, 2007 11:23 PM EDT)
views: 113 | comments: 42

 

 

 http://media-files.gather.com/images/d713/d360/d744/d224/d96/f3/full.jpg

CONSECRATION OF THE HOUSE

    For my homeland: 9/11/2007

 

We all have set up walls, to give our selves

a home, built of what seems most strong,

trued to our own uprightness, right or wrong.

 

Set in this treasure-place how are we not

to think it only ours?  To make its truth

a walling-out of friends unrecognized,

as well as thieves and liars?

                                                Trust encompassing

all worlds--  Sight that resists not any thing,

and so can all things see--  Thought not stopped up

in single works, but ever working free!--

and Warmth within so fired that touch won't

freeze in fear, or graspingly--

                                                  such Spirit Lights

give homes Transparency, doors Strength to close

and open free, and all who dwell inside--

Authority to live becomingly.

 

 

 

(c) John Harris Beck 

 

 
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Comments: 42

Tom C. Sep 10, 2007, 9:30pm EDT
John - I probably should wait to read some other comments, just to see if I'm dead off here, but I'm getting a sense of idealism. Though materialist and defensive - inclined to see "truth" as evidence of our preset aims - human spirit can wreak great change in ourselves, our communities, and our world. No longer shall we play our tune without regard to others, rather let's find the strength to warmly embrace each other and shine, for only when we recognize that we are sharing this world can we truly bless it as our home.
Edward Nudelman Sep 10, 2007, 9:37pm EDT
John, this is an effulgent and bold statement in favor of liberty and living free in the global milieu. I might scrap the bold. The first two strophes are brilliant, but I get distracted by the bold type. And one nit, I stumbled just a hair over the syntax of the construction in the last stanza... perhaps because of the plural noun and the clauses depending on the word "give." This is a powerful, terse and intelligent poem laden with an important sub-text.
John Doyle Sep 10, 2007, 11:11pm EDT
Well said John. Well said
John Harris Beck Sep 10, 2007, 11:25pm EDT
Lost, thanks, found a fix (inside for therein). Life inside a door would be kind of painful.
Tom - idealism - yes. This is even in a somewhat stilted old idealist style, willfully archaic.
Edward, thanks, I ditched the bolds. Much better.
John, thank you, I appreciate your approbation.
flit . Sep 11, 2007, 1:07am EDT
and very confined :) (life inside a door, that is)

I like this ....read a few things lately re: rhyming poems (bad; I don't agree) .. this works beautifully read aloud.
Svetlana Goryacheva Sep 11, 2007, 2:06am EDT
Moving and impressive, dear John... great poem!

Blessings and good luck, now and always - S.
Esther IS Flesh and Blood S. Sep 11, 2007, 4:42am EDT
John, Excellent poem and you're not the only idealist out there...
Carolion Grailbear Sep 11, 2007, 11:43am EDT
And you know, I'm grieving for the "friends unrecognized!" Ah, ah, humanity.
Faith H. Sep 11, 2007, 11:49am EDT
I agree with Fatima, I hear a Whitmanesque boldness in this wonderful poem to our House.
John Harris Beck Sep 11, 2007, 12:16pm EDT
Flit, I usually fight rhyme, it's a dangerous drink for me, but sometimes...
Thanks, Liz, Esther. "Excelsior!"
Fatima, I'm glad there's a Whitman echo for you.
And Sveta, wouldn't this be better in Russian? More at home, maybe, where the ideal is almost felt in the language...
John Harris Beck Sep 11, 2007, 12:19pm EDT
Carolion, that is your special mission: awakening to the spirit the other in everything. What a loss when we don't see it in someone.
Faith, yes, it's got a line of purpose out to Walt... though he would spin it out in long easy breaths, and make it all so you could touch it.
Smaragdus M. Sep 11, 2007, 5:36pm EDT
9/11 alarmed global security, especially borders and immigration, spurring law and intelligence to focus attention on who "belongs" inside national walls. Sense of self-endangerment grew for many citizens who before 9/11 felt secure, and foreboding grew and mutated, swaying south to Mexico. Like this country, many have built up personal "walls" of protection, but as your poem encourages us, John, we should all be aware of when to open our door and when to keep it closed. Our home is supposed to be a place of comfort, not a prison or a fortress. We should have lots of windows ("transparency") to let the ("spirit") light in (the light of the sun for our literal house and the brightness of human ideas into an open mind).
Alkistis Wechsler Sep 11, 2007, 7:41pm EDT
I ordered my Whitman on line - much cheaper than in waterstones.
And oh ... before I go to sleep, I realised that is nine eleven again ....
Silence in front of the memory of such horror ...
Andrea Grenadier Sep 11, 2007, 8:00pm EDT
Dear John, I sense a lot of joy here, and much well-placed idealism in the best sense of the word, and of the world. To live freely is now a dream: it's almost breathtaking how much we've lost. I love the freedom of movement this lovely poem has, almost a breeziness encompassed in a very serious subject, after all. Quite a fine piece, my friend.
lea and... c. Sep 11, 2007, 10:58pm EDT
A home ...a subject close to my heart. I design and build homes, they have a spirit of their own. I want them to be open, transparent, bright but also warm and inviting as I am. Your poem express those sentiments and regardless of what happened we must strive to be that which we believe in.
Minakshi w. Sep 12, 2007, 7:00am EDT
The ideal home--not turned into walls by outer shields....rather, uncovered, inside us, with warmth , sensitivity..and always a welcome place if built of sympathy and oneness.

Wish we all live in such dwellings.....in body and spirit.
John Harris Beck Sep 12, 2007, 7:19am EDT
Thank you all for reading and feeling this. And Lea, an actual home builder, that's a fine harmony. Andrea, I'm glad you hear the joy!

In a comment elsewhere I described what was most affecting for me, as a New Yorker, on 9/11, but the continuing horror, Alkistis, is that our hearts were opened wide for a time, and were closed again when the retribution began. Closed so that we wouldn't have to feel how the "collateral damage" of our revenge and "security" inflicts the same intimate loss we suffered on many innocents.

And Smaragdus, you delineate very nicely that this is about literal house and national home and personal being,
Andrea Grenadier Sep 12, 2007, 9:10am EDT
John, I forgot to mention the beautiful coincidence (or irony?) in your title, which is the same as Beethoven's op. 124 overture, "Consecration of the House." This overture, you probably know, is actually an overture to "The Ruins of Athens." How appropriate!
John Harris Beck Sep 12, 2007, 11:36am EDT
Minnie, I'm glad you're back...

Andrea, yes, I chose the title from Beethoven, but I didn't know it was also part of the Ruins of Athens. A mere irony, I hope, not a prediction.
Andrea Grenadier Sep 12, 2007, 11:43am EDT
Oh, I thought you were being ironic! and historic, too.
William Dotani Sep 12, 2007, 10:47pm EDT
Love how you build on and keep the theme consistent. I found the wording in the second stanza a bit difficult in rhythm.
I'm checking comments from the past month for those who commented on my articles so I can reciprocate. I have not been receiving E-mail notification telling me who has commented.
Barbary Chaapel Sep 12, 2007, 10:52pm EDT
An Ideal poem for the day, John, written with a fine world vision.
John Harris Beck Sep 13, 2007, 7:34am EDT
William, hi -- the second stanza is backward (emphasis on NOT in the first line) to avoid just pushing the points out dogmatically. I'll think about other arrangements.
Thanks for dropping by, Barbary.
Neal Wass Sep 13, 2007, 2:00pm EDT
Set in this treasure-place how are we not
to think it only ours?


For me this is the core of your poem. We all believe that we have taken proper precautions and that we are safe, here in this place where we can say or do as we please, refuse or accept friendships, shun neighbors. We have it all, that is until we feel
the reality of diappearing freedoms and disasters brought on by bad politics and lack of understanding.
John Harris Beck Sep 13, 2007, 2:20pm EDT
Thank you for the connections, Neal.
manoj sanyal Sep 14, 2007, 12:22am EDT
excellent poem.
William Dotani Sep 14, 2007, 4:39am EDT
I see your point after a reread. I'm certainly no poetry expert, but doesn't this make this stanza stand out. Maybe it's like a chorus in a song.
John Harris Beck Sep 14, 2007, 7:24am EDT
Thank you, Manoj!

William, it does make the second stanza stand out, kind of reversing the flow of stanza one. It's an awkwardness that is something like old-fashioned speechifying (I grew up in a house with a lot of old books around). Then the last stanza take off in a third direction. This is definitely a funny-strange poem rhythmically...
Anne B. Grote Sep 14, 2007, 2:52pm EDT
This is my first introduction to your poetry and I do feel right at home with this lovely verse. Thank you.
John Harris Beck Sep 14, 2007, 7:28pm EDT
Lee, you've read it and said it beautifully, thank you.

Anne, I'm glad you came, and glad I'm getting to know your poems.
Granny Janny H. Sep 17, 2007, 4:27pm EDT
I love your image, John and the feeling I get reading the final stanza:

such Spirit Lights

give homes Transparency, doors Strength to close

and open free, and all who dwell inside--

Authority to live becomingly.

We Americans, so vulnerable to that heinous attack, so horrified by the vision of collapse, are ultimately generous and noble in spirit.
The metaphor working for me is of that of our collective American spirit where we
live our lives as free citizens and by doing so set a global example of democracy in it's
ideal form. We have historically opened our doors and hearts to immigrants and we
have also tried to help those who suffer in other countries. I hear this thought in the second stanza.
So much is said in these encouraging and well chosen lines.
Though it is written in honor of 9/11 it stands on its own as a poem for all time.
John Harris Beck Sep 17, 2007, 6:56pm EDT
Jan, I'm so glad you like it and hear what you hear in it. To paraphrase, perhaps, -- that America and Americans are a demonstration project for the whole world. Not the world's boss, but a microcosm, a window into an improving future.
John F Walter Sep 19, 2007, 8:36pm EDT
Man, you had me wanting to read Emerson again, John. Your complex rhyme scheme and use of capitalized value words--Trust, Sight, Thought, Warmth, Spirit Lights, Transparency, Strength, Authority--infuse the reader with a sense of what language can do in framing absolute principles of a better way of being, in a nation that has ceased to regard its own civic uniqueness in favor of personalised self. And the way you imbue those value words with fresh meanings accords with my own sense of a need to find an integral ethos that we can all share, beyond false rhetoric, where we approximate a commonwealth beyond suspicion and fear and Cold War paranoia rehashed as terrorist stealth.
John Harris Beck Sep 19, 2007, 10:24pm EDT
Emerson rocks. Or, Whitman rocks, Emerson rules. Sorry, wrong generation!

Thank you, John. "A commonwealth beyond suspicion and fear and Cold War paranoia rehashed as terrorist stealth." Powerful prose.
Yvonne F. Sep 24, 2007, 9:24am EDT
Excellent poem John, thank you for sharing
John Harris Beck Sep 24, 2007, 6:03pm EDT
Thank you, Yvonne.
David C. Sep 26, 2007, 8:47pm EDT
a powerful piece, well done.
John Harris Beck Sep 26, 2007, 9:27pm EDT
Thanks, David.

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