"Miracles
are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of
miracles:they
are by somebody who can
love
and who shall be continually
reborn,a
human being;somebody
who said to those near him,when his
fingers
would not hold a brush 'tie it to my hand'--"
...
e e
cummings,
excerpt from A Poet's Life, read out loud by
This essay,
Tie The Brush To My Hand III,
is the third in the trilogy
Tie The Brush To My Hand:
I lovee e
("edward estlin") cummings.
I love
his poetry. But ... is it poetry? Or is it
prose? It could be one. It could be the other. Or it could
be something else. It's his deployment of
language
which is most unique and
original,
captivating and holding
my attention,
whether it's being read or just
listened.
And particularly when it's being read, the utterly novel way in which
he deploys punctuation has me more than merely engaged.
It's got me completely riveted.
In the excerpt from his book "A Poet's Life" which starts this essay,
we become party to this scenario: in the company of
his friends,
an artist holding court is
dying.
Contemplating
being born again,
he asks
his friends
to support his commitment (even while his strength fades rapidly) by
tying the brush
(paint
or calligraphy) to his hand so that when he's no longer strong enough
to hold it himself, he can continue
painting
(presuming his arm remains strong enough).
There's so much to unpack here. What
moves me to tears
is one, his powerful commitment (in particular, to
painting
/ calligraphy), and two, the finality of ie the
inevitability of
death
robbing him of that ability, and three, that he would risk being
vulnerable enough to ask
his friends
to support his commitment, even in the face of imminent
death,
by tying his brush to his hand. I
wonder
... what's it like to be
full on
totally committed in this inspiring,
extraordinary
way? We don't know whether or not his commitment will outlast his
fading strength and imminent
death.
We do know that as he nears
death,
it becomes harder and harder for him to live up to his commitment. In
the light of this, he is asking all
his friends
for their support in holding him to his word and his commitment, with
an utterly remarkable, bone-numbingly authentic request: he is asking
them to tie (his brush) to (his) hand. Wow! ... that's just ...
wow.
What he illustrates for me is the domain of real commitment. Now look:
the domain of real commitment is not the domain of doing. How
so? Even when he can't hold his brush anymore, he's still committed. So
real commitment isn't necessarily physical. It doesn't necessarily
occur in the domain of doing. Real commitment
shows upin language
ie my commitment
shows upin my mouth
(thank you
Werner).
He is committed because he says he is committed.
He expresses his ongoing commitment through a
linguistic
act
even when he can no longer produce the physical actions he requires to
fulfill his commitment.
The request to "'tie it to my hand'--" brings forth what I call the
shared aspect of commitment.
Ordinarily
when I commit myself to something ie when I'm committed, I do it by
myself, I make it happen by myself, I take responsibility for it by
myself. But this kind of commitment, this "'tie it to my
hand'--" kind of commitment, is one that
begins
as a "my" commitment, yet won't be fulfillable until it becomes an
"our" commitment. In that way, it's
a gamechanger.
