Meditation on the Road [4/6]

Six Wartime Sonnets (IV)

Huiwen Zhang

Unlike the three sonnets discussed before (cf. No. 15, 16 & 2), No. 6 is narrated by “me,” an observing, speculating, and contemplating individual.  It’s “I” who crystallize into a poem the objects of “my” observation, the airy flights of “my” speculation, and the branching shades of “my” contemplation:

6

I often see in the fields

A village boy or peasant woman

Crying to the clear, wordless sky.

Is it over some punishment or

A broken toy?

Is it over a husband’s death

Or a son’s illness?

Crying like that, never stopping,

As if their whole life is laid

In a frame, and outside the frame

There is no life, no world.

I feel that they through all time

Have been letting tears roll

Over a desperate globe.

 (tr. Huiwen Zhang)

Clouds of Suspicion

The first three lines build a scene as the point of departure; this, however, is no ‘naïve’ scene that can and shall be accepted without suspicion:

Do “I” see in reality, in memory, or in dreams? 

Why “often?”  How “often?” 

What’s the relationship between the “village boy or peasant woman” and “me?”  Am “I” a passerby, a stranger, or an acquaintance—even relative—of theirs? 

If this happens in reality, and “I” am just a passerby, what brings “me” to this strange field?  What is “my” initial destination?  Do “I” stop to observe or observe while walking on?  Does it make a difference?  Anyhow, the fact that “I” observe indicates “my” interest, but why do “I” keep distant from those “I” care for and refrain from initiating a dialogue?

If this happens in memory or dreams, does the chance increase that “I” am an acquaintance or relative of the boy or the woman—that the woman is actually “my” mum and the boy is “my” younger self?  Why do “I often” remember or dream the crying scene of “my” mum and “myself?”  What makes it such a haunting moment to “me?” 

Expansion of the Clouds

Contingent upon our responses to the “clouds of suspicion”, lines 4-7 reveal different meanings:

They are nothing but the speculation of the “I” who happen to pass across a field and catch sight of the scene.

They are more than “my” speculation because the scene immediately reminds “me” of something that happened to “my” family and “myself” years ago.

They are no speculation, but the most practical reasons remembered by “me” who carry the scene—and every cause behind it—through all these years of wandering.

They are neither pure speculation nor pure memory, but a belated explanation to “myself” of an old scene that “I” did not understand when it first happened.  Its frequent recurrence in “my” memories and dreams thereafter makes “me” eventually recognize a series of stories behind the scene.

The First Leap

Whatever the real meanings of the crying scene, lines 9-11 lift the sonnet to a new level by a leap: “As if their whole life is laid / In a frame, and outside the frame / There is no life, no world.”

What do we associate with the “frame?”  A painting or photo frame; a door or window frame; a perspective or camera frame?

What is the primary function shared by these frames?  To limit our vision to a specific picture—view, focus or orientation—and lock it up?

What happens with the frame in the sonnet?  It seems to “me” (and us, the reader) that the boy or the woman’s vision is limited to one of the causes of their cry and locked up: at that moment, they see nothing but a “punishment or a broken toy,” “a husband’s death or a son’s illness.”

Are they, therefore, to blame?  Why do we not blame van Gogh for seeing and painting only certain objects at one time?  What does his concentration bring about instead of narrowing down?  How does an ordinary person’s concentration differ from that of an artist?

Is it a sad perception or a sad truth that “outside the frame there is no life, no world?”  Does the boy perceive the punishment or broken toy as the end of his world or are they indeed?  Does the woman take her husband’s death or her son’s illness for the end of her world or are they really?  Is there truth that is not perception?

Am “I” (and we, the reader) at that moment not “laid in a frame” as well?  What else do “I” see besides the boy and the woman in the fields?  What else do we see apart from the boy and the woman in “my” eyes?  Who of us can ever escape that universal frame—the limit of human vision at a specific moment of our life?

Is it worth trying to escape it?

A Curious Contrast

Before proceeding to the last stanza, let’s zoom in on two points that build a curious contrast and deserve more attention.

The first is “the clear, wordless sky” in line 3.  Does this imply an indifferent and stoic cosmos that has no ears to human cry, remaining “clear and wordless” despite witnessing human suffering?  Or does it indicate an attentive and empathetic cosmos that unfortunately has no voice or gesture to express condolence and in fact suffers itself to remain “clear and wordless?”  Or does it suggest an initially attentive and empathetic cosmos, which, tired out by continuously witnessing human suffering, realizes the futility and absurdity of condolence and decides to become indifferent and stoic, and remain so? 

Why does the boy not cry to his mum, his grandpa, or even to a dog or a cow, but to this “clear, wordless sky?”  Why does the woman not cry beside her husband’s coffin, her son’s bed, or even in front of a shrine, but to this “clear, wordless sky?”  Whether it is unwilling or unable to react, the sky looks untouched and cool.  What’s the point of crying, then, if it yields no response? 

The second is line 8: “Crying like that, never stopping.”  As much pointless as a human cry to an inhuman sky is or seems to be, the village boy and the peasant woman do it, and they do it so persistently, sincerely, and vigorously. 

Where does this fervent, inexhaustible energy come from? —From despair?  From concentration?  From the unstained innocence and increasing fortitude of a boy?  Or from the frightened motherhood and sacred motherly love of a woman? 

Where does the energy go? —Into “the clear, wordless sky” and becomes an expressive cloud?  Into “the fields” and moistens the roots of all that is growing?  Into the wood, iron, or copper of “the frame” and makes it even solider and more inescapable?  Or into the eyes, ears, and mind of the “I,” a wanderer, and awakens “my” memory or inspires “me” to wild speculations and serene contemplations?

The Second Leap

Following the first leap in lines 9-11, lines 12-14 lift the sonnet by a second leap: “I feel that they through all time / Have been letting tears roll / Over a desperate globe.”  

Instantly, a random moment of crying is transformed into the absolute perpetuity of crying: not only at that moment is “their whole life laid in a frame,” but “through all time;” not only at the moment of passing across a field is “my” vision limited to a certain scene and locked up, but through all “my” years of wandering.  And the same to us, the reader: not only while reading “my” sonnet is our sight—and mind—limited to what “I” see and think, but at no single moment of our life are we perfectly free from any frame. 

In addition to this temporal transcendence of the universal frame, the last stanza also raises a chain of questions that leave the sonnet open:

Why do “I” feel that “they through all time have been”—instead of crying—“letting tears roll?”  Do tears have their own will, and the boy or the woman just let them go?  Is the human cry a state of activity or passivity?  Does it suggest a complaint or an acceptance, a surrender or a rebel?

And then, why do they let tears fall “over a desperate”—not despairing—“globe?”  Does the globe—planet, cosmos, or universe—have its own mental, spiritual, and emotional capacity and can be, like a human being, driven mad, ecstatic, or desperate?  What does it have to do with “the clear, wordless sky” in line 3?  Are we accordingly compelled to reevaluate the sky and its attitude towards the human cry?

Finally, is the “desperate globe” the origin and cause of the human cry, as the preposition “over” indicates?  Or is it rather the consequence—the development and climax—of the human cry, as the adjective “desperate” (in contrast to “despairing”) suggests?  Or is it neither of these, but instead, a mirror or parallel of the human cry, for the desperation of both the earth and the life on it is eternal, as the temporal transcendence—“through all time”—implies?

(to be continued)