Fragmentary Blue.
Miscellaneous Poems. 1920
Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)--
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
RF wonders what is it that attracts us to the color blue which we spot now
and then - in a bird, a butterfly, a flower, a precious stone or an eye,
when we have an infinite blue sky above us? He feels that this is because
the sky is unreachable. Because we cannot have the sky we desire things
that are the color of the sky around us.
At a more philosophical level, we fulfill our longing for the Heavens above
– for peace, spirituality, for the unattainable through things that
are within our reach. We seek things on earth that we associate with heavens
above. Notice that the spiritual things he talks about are not temples,
churches, or mountain peaks but the beauty of our commonplace things –
a bird’s or butterfly’s blue wing, a blue flower, a blue precious
stone, blue eyes.
Almost as an aside he says that earth is earth and not heaven yet. He is
clearly differentiating the two on a philosophical, spiritual level. But
he adds that some scholars may say that the sky is part of the earth (it
is earth’s atmosphere). This is purely a scientific view. So, as always,
RF considers all points of view. He dabbles in spirituality, science and
flights of imagination and finds his carefully balanced answers.
As in the poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay, in this poem too, RF is talking of
the ‘unattainable’. Man’s predicament is that he desires
to possess that, which is unattainable and at the same time also knows the
futility of such desires. The most valuable things in life are not for possessing
but to lead us towards spiritual upliftment.
Color connotation
Blue is the color of calmness, security, of ‘dreamlike yearnings’, of distance, therefore ‘divinity’ ‘spirituality’. It is also the symbol of fidelity, faithfulness. Blue is the color of sky and water. The blue of water (the color of depth) impersonates the female principle and that of the skies the male principle.
Came across this related joke on the web (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=gold)
A rich man was near death, and became very upset because he had worked
so hard for his money and he wanted to take it with him to heaven. So he
began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth along. An
angel heard his plea and appeared to him.
"Sorry," the angel said, "but you can't take your wealth
with you." The man implored the angel to speak to God to see if He
might bend the rules. The man continued to pray that his wealth could follow
him.
The angel reappeared and informed the man that God had decided to allow
him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man got his largest suitcase,
filled it with pure gold bars and placed it beside his bed. Soon afterward
the man died and showed up at the gates of heaven to greet St. Peter.
St. Peter, seeing the suitcase, said, "Hold on, you can't bring that
in here!" The man explained to St. Peter that he had permission and
told him to verify his story with God.
St. Peter checked and came back saying, "You're right. You are allowed
one carry-on bag, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting
it through." He opened the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that
the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaimed, "You brought
pavement?"
Click on the poems to read their analysis.
Birches
Mowing
Into my Own
Putting in the Seed
Going for Water
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Fragmentary Blue
Reluctance