Today’s beer has in a roundabout way gotten me thinking about heaven. It’s called The Poet and its label is a raven in the night. A pretty clear allusion to Edgar Allen Poe’s poem named after the bird. From my reading of it, the crux of the work comes in two stanzas near the end.
`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'
`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'
In the first stanza the narrator learns that his ceaseless mourning has deprived him of the promise of heaven. Worse yet, in the second stanza he learns that he’s also lost heaven for his beloved Lenore as well. If heaven had never existed, the raven would have said “no,” but it pretty consistently sticks to “nevermore,” pinning the blame on the bereaved lover. It’s all kinda giving me second thoughts about drinking New Holland’s Poet, but it is an oatmeal stout. Also beer.
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| Bubbly bubbly head. |
The second thing I noticed about the label was that the moon is upside down! The basalt lava plains mostly occupy the northern hemisphere of the near side, duh! I’ll just focus on the glass. This looks pretty darn good. The aroma hits me with lots of milk chocolate. The crystal malt brings the sweet feeling of smugly enjoying esoteric poetry. It ties a rope around your waste and keeps you from losing yourself in the deep, dark abyss of the chocolate malt. Each sip is a tightly controlled descent into the enveloping unknown while always tethered to safety. Subsequent visits to the aroma as the beer scurries down the glass reveal the hop notes hidden in the 37 IBUs. This is squarely a tasty beverage. Even the tactile senses of the mouth get to revel in it’s velvety smooth texture. No banishment from celestial existence here!
Poe was not at all the only poet to muse over the concept of heaven. I recently encountered End of the West where Michael Dickman describes a quasi “What Dreams May Come” image where heaven is whatever you want. The last page of his Wang Wei: Bamboo Grove reads,
You know
how we are going
to disappear
into the dirt forever
Or burn
into the sky
into oceans
Well, I love this about us
and I want to be able to do it
all by myself
It won’t be scary
or cold
Not like what they told us at all
If the are spiders
and there will be
spiders
they will not kill us
in our
New Cities
In the next poem, End of the West, he goes on to describe four of these “New Cities.” Each one a personal heaven for a loved one and one for himself. We all get a heaven that we construct through our experiences and desires. Or maybe it’s even closer than that. In a more straightforward way, Helen Lowrie Marshall wrote,
Heaven’s not a fenced-off place
In some far distant sky,
Nor is Eternity consigned
To some sweet by-and-by.
Heaven lies in every
Ordinary, common day.
We make our own Eternal life
Each step along our way.
Eternal time is measured
By a common hourglass.
We glimpse a bit of Heaven
As hours and minutes pass.
We only need the eyes to see.
The heart to count its worth,
To make our own Eternity
A Heaven here on Earth!
Three different poems from three very different directions that all have one thing in common. They all paint an intrinsic link between the here and now and heaven. Whether it’s Poe’s heaven that can be brought in and out of existence by our commitment to living, Dickman’s heaven that is formed by our life before death or Marshall’s heaven that is this present life, the onus is on us. Heaven will not just come scoop us up one day. We have to take charge of it. Man! I should start wearing floaties before reading poetry because it is getting deep! Beer is such a small thing, insignificant when compared to the fundamental workings of the universe. But I for one think it’s not a terrible place to start. Even if it doesn’t know what direction the moon goes. Cheers!
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