christianreader | MOGADOR and PENELOPE. and introducing Lax. (Reply)

Friends,
I joined a while back... I haven't posted before,
have followed posts which are interesting and seem to
focus on recent rather popular sort of books? This has
left me a little hesitant to contribute as mostly I read
stuff that is a little older and a little less popular
but lets take the plunge!
let me introduce one thing I am reading now in some
depth and that is the work of Robert Lax. Lax
was a poet and a friend of Thomas Merton he lived
1915-2000 and for the last 36 years in the Greek
islands, mostly on Patmos(returning to Olean New York
to die in the last months). If you want to read more about
Lax you can scroll through my recent journal to a number
of entries beginning December 20.(I might add that in general
I will be happy to friend anyone who wishes to friend my
journal)
I would like to share one poem here which I think you may
like, it is from his great cycle of circus poems
Circus of the Sun and is titled Mogador and Penelope.

"Penelope and Mogador by Robert Lax

One time Penelope the tightrope walker asked Mogador
how he was able to land so gracefully after he did a
somersault on horseback.
Mogador said:
It is like a wind that surrounds me
Or a dark cloud
and I am in it
and it belongs to me
and it gives me the power
to do these things.
And Penelope said , Oh so that is it.
And Mogador said, I believe so.
The next day in the ring Mogador leaped up on the horse
He sat on it sideways and jogged hal-way around the ring'
He rode around balancing lightly in time to the music;
He did a split-jump--touching his toes with his hands;
He did a couple of entrechats--braiding his legs in
mid-air like a dancer:
The Oscar threw him a hoop.
Mogador tossed it up in the air and spun it.
He caught it,
Leapt up,
And did a sommersault through it!
He thought
I am a flame
A dark cloud
A bird;
I will land like spring rain
on a mountain lake
for the delight of Penelope
the tightrope-walker
He landed on one foot,lost his balance,waved his arms
wildly and fell off the horse.
He looked at Penelope,
Leapt up again,
did a quick entrechat,
and Oscar tossed him the hoop,
He spun it into the air and caught it
And he thought:
It is like a dark cloud,and I am in it;
It belongs to me,
And it gives me the power
To do these things.
He landed on one foot,lost his balance,waved his arms
wildly and fell off the horse.
Penelope the tightrope-walker looked very calm.
Mogador leapt on the horse again.
Oscar frowned and tossed him the hoop.
He threw it into the air and caught it;
Leapt up and did a somersault through it.
He thought:
I am a bird and will land like a bird!
He landed on one foot,lost his balance,waved his arms wildly
and fell off the hourse.
Now in the Cristiani family, when you fall off three times
They grab you by one ear,
And bend you over,
And one of the brothers
Kicks you.
And that is what they did to Mogador.
Then the circus band started playing again
And Mogador looked at Penelope:
Then he looked at the horse and flicked his ear with his hand;
He jumped up on the horse and landed smartly;
He stood up in one leap and caught the hoop;
He twirled it in the air and caught it again;
And then he did a somersault through it.
He didnt think anything.
He just did a somersault
And landed with two feet on the horse's back.
Then he rode half-way around the ring
And got off with a beautiful scissors leap.
Penelope applauded,
And clasping her hands overhead,shook them
like a boxer
Mogador looked at her,
Then back at the horse,
And with a gesture of two arms he said
It was nothing.

.....

Mogador...

We are all wanderers on the earth,and pilgrims. We have no
permanent habitat here. The migration of people for foraging
and exploitation can, with grace(in the latter days)become
a traveling circus. Our tabernacle must in its nature be
a temporary tabernacle.
We are wanderers in the earth,but only a few of us in each
generation have discovered the life of charity, the living from
day to tay, receiving our gifts gratefully through grace,and
rendering them, multiplied through grace to the giver. That is
the meaning of your expansive,outward arching gesture of the arm
in the landing: the graceful rendering,
the gratitude and giving."

May I add the note that Mogador (Mogador Paul Cristiani) was a
circus rider and acrobat who was a friend of Lax's...Robert
Lax travelled for a time as a journalist,but appearing occasionaly
as a clown, with the Cristiani's circus.
Mogador had said to Lax when they first met precisely those
--may we say Pentecostal?-- words about the cloud...

I am thinking it would be interesting to reseach Mogador's own
life a little and see if at least an article could result and
am thinking of that as a goal this year--perhaps visiting the
Lax archive at St Bonaventure's College in Olean New York.

I would add that I think Robert Lax is one of the few truly
great poets of the last century(and perhaps best of those
after the time of Yeats,Eliot,Pound etc). Or at least he is
in ratio to being little known in America, a very great writer
indeed and also I would say a sage of Christian wisdom...

perhaps the book "Love had a compass" can be a good introduction
to the range of his work.
wishing everyone a Blessed New Year and good reading!
yours
+Seraphim