Quilt

Few months ago I read that some Chinese poems with four verses have a peculiar form: the first verse introduces a topic; the second continues it; whereas the third verse introduces a new topic, and the last joins the former verses. It is like by means of a thematic juxtaposition a new meaning emerges. This new meaning is not the direct sum up of the topics, but a subtle nuance that knits them and creates diferent tones, colors, and warmth. Like a quilt. For lyrical ends, verses one, two, and four should rhyme. It is clear that this rhyming emphasizes the irruption of the third verse. This a free - non rhymed - example:

A silk trader in Tokyo has two daughters
20 years old is the oldest and 18 is the youngest
A soldier can kill with his sword
But those ladies will kill you with just their gaze.

Mississippi John Hurt' lyrics are a flowing river. Suddenly a boy throws a flat pebble over the water. The pebble hits the river, giving birth to ephimerous circles. The river takes the circles with him. The pebble jumps and hits the river again. The river collects the circles. The boy smiles. Eventually the river swallows the pebble. Then the boy puts his hat on his head and leaves his guitar aside. Now he is a man. A peasant that shares his crop with the land owner. A logger going to the forest to chop some wood. A picker that dyes the cotton with his purple.

This night the man arrives to his hut. Puts his hat on the table. Lights the night with logs in the hearth. Reminds the boy throwing pebbles in the Mississippi River. John is the name of the boy. John takes his guitar. John sings a song about a man that picks cotton but this night is cold and the man has no logs to light his night. The left hand of the man is hurt. John does not want a cold night to the man: John reveals to the man that he should ask the youngest daughter to make him a pallet. It does not matter if the fabric is red cotton or Chinese silk. The man sleeps beneath the quilt, rumoring something about guilt and a Chinese poem for a 20 years old girl. 

Bell

A man in love is dying. He rests on his bed. The beloved woman is not with him. Why she is not there? because they are not married and in this conservative world they can no inhabit together under such circumstance. That is the social context. Whereas the emotional one is cruder: she does not love him. She is at her house. Knitting? Playing the piano? Sleeping? Certainly she is not thinking about him.

The last wish of the man is to see her. He commands to his servant: "Go to her house and bring her to me. Say her she must come to my side: Now."  We need to acknowledge this action, because of it now we know a couple of things: first, on that world you do not ask your siblings or friends to make you an intimate favor, even when you are in the rush of dying. Second, he is not poor, he has at least one servant, nor she is, for in a conservative society there is no pot to melt social classes.

Classes do not mix. But coexist. They are the pattern of the social fabric. How do they communicate among them? To answer that question let say that he is a landlord and she is the daughter of another one. He commands the servant in order to communicate with her. Among people of the upper class a servant is the message (or a door, a laundry machine or a car). That is why the woman takes her time before going to the deathbed: she receives a message, puts it aside, and thinks about going or not, about what to wear, and how to take control of this uncomfortable situation. “What does he want from me? – she wonders – To make me the faster widow in the history?” First lesson: if you are dying, do not send a message, but a messenger that can hurry the situation on your behalf.

The communication is more complicated between a landlord and a servant. Thanks god, customs help to facilitate the dialogue. A servant is not supposed to interrogate a landlord about what he is doing or thinking or ask explanations about why the landlord does not ask a friend to bring the lady. The servant would break this custom only in case of an emergency: "Excuse me for awake you, my lord, I am afraid that the house is on fire. Do you mind if I help you to dress to go outside? I will need to throw some water." Or the servant would break it in case of an extreme personal necessity only if the timing and place allow it, of course. "Dear lord: my son died. And I failed to save the money to his burial..." Second and final lesson: customs are dikes.

Coexistence of far social classes in a close place is a tricky thing to the landlord. He needs to separate the possible settings and manage them in different manners. The regular activities only require him to command accurately and monitor the accomplishment every now and then. "I want the curtains of the library open at the sunrise and close at dusk." Like the fiat. The problem arises, for instance, when the landlord suddenly is thirsty: he is not supposed to shout “A glass of water.” Nor you can expect that he uses his feet and hands and goes to the kitchen to help him. He could do it but he would not. Instead the landlord uses bells to alert the servant that he needs something and to signal where is he.

So, the dying man, William, rings a service bell. The servant goes to him to receive his last command. The servant becomes a walking message that delivers itself to the woman, Barbara Allen. The servant fades away. After a long while, Barbara goes to the deathbed and makes a prognosis for free to William: “You are dying”. She leaves him. William dies while she is walking back to her house. The church bell tolls the knell. Now is god who calls to the service.

The narcissistic Barbara assumes that William died because of her. Barbara does not realize that he was dying before she made the obvious prognosis. She knows that there are a lot of men dying for her. Her narcissism makes Barbara to believe that she is a magnanimous person and decides to manage god’s will, dying the next day in order to avoid a massacre.

Barbara and William were buried almost together, not so far but no so close. Customs are dikes. William is next to the place to sing to god (singing is the way that god prefers to know about his creatures' news). William roots a blood and passion flower. While Barbara is outside, nourishing an almost immaculate little flower. She was good at the end, but not enough to be a white rose.

Hearth

"What circle?" I wonder as I listen to the Carter's song Can the circle be unbroken. Maybe it is the circle of life. However, this is not a circle but a cycle: from birth to death, from ashes and dust to life. The carbon cycle. No, it is not that circle. Why to mourn if this cycle is broken? Why to ask to keep it? It does not guarantee rebirth or reincarnation of those who kick the bucket.

This circle could not be neither the old Greek's and existential Nietzsche's circle of eternal return. Because a circle like that it is not only pagan but also centered in the here and now, not in the eventual end of time and final trial. If every moment is a replica of several moments in the past, we only have one opportunity to make a choice to be ourselves: at this place and this time. This is the foundation of our freedom. And freedom is not a synonym of Lord. They could be similar, but certainly they are not the same. For the simple reason that we can not ask Freedom for the salvation of the soul of those who died. Although it is clear that some of us put our hopes in freedom to liberate our minds and bodies in this life.

Tony's hearth (detail) by Lux (2013)

There is, however, a circle to ask to keep unbroken when a loved one passes away: the circle around the fire that warms the bodies and nourishes the spirits in the night. This is the circle that you want to preserve. Because at this circle there is nothing else but life and joy of living.

Appalachian cabins are unique because their porches, but also for their hearth. They materialize two sides of human experience of place, solitude, and proximity. Outside, at the porch, we enjoy seeing the vast sky and the changing forest. Singing. But to be in peace with all that open space, the mind needs a counterbalance, around the fire, at the hearth, in darkness. Sharing.

In Spanish, the name for hearth is hogar. But hogar also means home. Whereas in Greek mythology Hestia " is a virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity, the family and the state" (see more). A matriarchal figure inhabits the hearth, the heart of the home. The center of the circle. At the end, the song asks the Lord to keep the goddess. It is a matter of balance: openness and intimacy, sunshine and fire light, sun and moon...