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Kimblerly Blaeser - my journal records the vestiture of doppelgangers
00:20:08
Words can’t quite fully capture the activity, oddity, and awe that is everywhere around us, but poet Kimberly Blaeser makes a gorgeous attempt in her poem “my journal records the vestiture of doppelgangers.” The three stanzas overflow with an exuberance of colorful creatures — from checked loons and flitting mayflies to a “blissful beaver” and a “red squirrel swimming (yes! swimming)” — and with love — love of the natural world, of looking, of language, of the language of looking, and of being present for such everyday wonders. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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My name is Padre Go Toma. And over the summer I was staying in a place where there was a balcony, a lanai was in Maui, in Hawaii, and somebody had said to me that the cardinals like blueberries so dutifully, because I think cardinals are spectacular with their red plumage and brown plumage and gorgeousness. I am put some blueberries in a little row on the ledge of the balcony and no cardinals came. Instead who came were two cheeky looking geckos, and each of them went and successively licked every single blueberry and they came back the next day and licked them and I felt like I was wondering what was going to happen. And I used to wait every day to watch these geckos, and in a certain sense it probably was only a couple of minutes each time that they did it. But I felt like time expanded and my whole day sometimes was centered around waiting for my friends, the geckos, with their little eyes, to look and to taste the sweetness. My journal records the Vestiture of doppelgangers by Kimberly Blazer 1. Remember how the loon chick climbs to the mother's back o checkerboard bed and lifted wing. O tiny gray passenger who settles, eyes drooping closed, webbed foot lifted like a flag. Each day, each week, I write missives. Mayflies, transparent wings as stained glass, fluttering across the surface of lake an impermanence imagos who transform, moult, mate, glitter as splayed bodies on water. I write the red crown mad V of vulture wings drying in morning sun. I record red squirrel swimming, yes, swimming across a small channel. 2. I barely breathe, watching the narrow body a mere slit of motion, dark and steady like all mysterious Paddle, paddle and arrive. Now climb, bedraggled and spent, onto the small safety of a floating log. It rests. We catch our breath. Now it scurries ahead to the other log. End here. My journal stutters with a squirrel story bigger than words. Unfathomably it plunges back into blue chance into uncharted. We are never done, it says with a body tiny enough to know the world is large, it says with a courage I am greedy to learn. Three praise here, all fabulous, unwritten, each shimmer of spent body journey from rest to blue. Next, who, I ask, is the blissful beaver devouring each yellow water lily, if not our doppelganger? Continually I feel paws pulling, mouth filled with flower lust. What little rooms are words in these seasons of plenty? The first thing that strikes me about this brilliant poem of Kimberly Blake is the title. My journal records the Vestiture of Doppelgangers so vestiture means clothing, and doppelganger, from a German word meaning double goer, you know, it's often used to refer to somebody who resembles another, particularly resembles without being a relative. And it can refer to an apparition of the supernatural as well. And there can be good or bad luck associated with that. But I think it's the first instance of doppelganger while seeing similarity in a living, breathing being that's been being referred to here. What really interests me, though, is not the word vestiture or doppelgangers, it's the other words, and particularly journal and records. I'm interested that the title isn't I'm writing in my journal about the vestiture of doppelgangers, but my journal records. What an interesting way to speak about it, as if the journal is doing it itself. And I think there's something really interesting in that, because often, especially if you're doing something daily, you do forget so much. And when you read back what you've written in your journal, it's like your journal is reading you back and reminding. And so the journal is a record in itself, because the brain can often feel like it's hard to hang on to so much information. Journal comes from the word jour in French, meaning day. And it had never occurred to me until preparing for this poem to look up what the etymology of record is. And it is so rich, re for the repeated. And then cord comes from the Latin word for heart. And so what we have in a record is a journal. Record is a daily rehearting through writing of the clothes of doppelgangers. And of course, we wonder who are the doppelgangers. But the introduction of this through the medium of the heart, through the medium of the everyday, and through the way within which somehow writing is the hearting of self, I found that to be so rich and so informative. There's love everywhere in this poem. Love from the heart and love for a practice of everyday observing and loving the world. I think through connection and observation and recording and finding the heart and the self expanding outwards to be part of the world, not just observing it, but being in the midst of it, being part of the everything of the everything I find myself loving right at the beginning of the poem, the loon chick, and the way that it climbs onto the mother's back. And then the second sentence, see, seems to me like it lifts itself into praise. Oh, checkerboard bed and lifted wing. Oh, tiny gray passenger. You know, the mother's back is a Bed, and it's patterned and the O and the O. In poetry, you call these an apostrophe. And they lift the poem into the realm of song and praise. And there's wonder and hymnody to everything that's occurring right in front of the eye here. And there's more love as well, then with the mayflies and the vulture whose wings are drying in the morning sun. I love that image. And then towards the end, of course, the blissful beaver devouring each yellow water lily. So the title, including record, or record, if you want to put it like that, and journal. And the heart and the heart's days, they're sketched with such repeated love for being in the world. Each day, each week, I write missives. So the last piece of etymology is to think about missive. It comes from a Latin word, meto, to send. And who is sending this and what is being sent and how? I feel like there's reciprocality happening everywhere. So much, so much love, so much life, so much vibrancy is being sent back and forth. It isn't only the poet who is writing missives. Somehow the world is. The missive is the sending of so much that simply couldn't even be recorded. It is almost impossible for me to read this and not think of Jared Manley Hopkins and his capacity in delicious, sometimes tongue demanding language to unfold everything that's occurring in front of him. And I feel like Kimberly Blazer is possessed by the same wonder. And there's a little theological reference in an early line, imago's who transform the imago. There could be a reference to imago, this theological idea of made in the image of God. And Imago DEI being a Latin translation of the original Hebrew from the book of Genesis. And this poem, as a praise poem, is not, however, looking to God. It is looking at looking. It is looking at the squirrel, at the beaver, at the vulture, at the mayfly, at everything that's occurring right in front. And who is the doppelganger? That's the question that we're left with by reading this delicious poem. It culminates with this question. Who, I ask, is the blissful beaver devouring each yellow water lily if not our doppelganger? Our doppelganger. So there's a connection between the creature observing and writing in a journal, and then the creature who's eating the flower. The togetherness has been throughout the whole poem, though, because earlier in the second part of the poem, looking at the fabulous swimming squirrel, the poet is saying, I barely breathe, watching the narrow body, and then noting the squirrel's body climbing onto a log. And then this beautiful line occurs. It rests. We catch our breath. So who's the we that changed to the we there? Of course, it could be that there's a few people watching the squirrel. Absolutely. So maybe the poet is among some companions. But my first impulse in reading this is to think that the we was the poet and the squirrel, you know, the swimming squirrel, understandably exhausted. And this swimming squirrel. There's an emphatic in the first verse to let us know that, yes, you might think, as I did, that this was an error or made some mistake. So the squirrel, yes, swimming. This is an important way in which the poem is also kind of alert to its own wonder and arousing our, you know, delight and wonder at such a feat. It almost anticipates the reader's critique or anxiety, thinking, can I believe this? And this poem is saying, yes, you can. It's hard to believe, but of course you can. So the exhausted squirrel who has swum and we hear it climb, bedraggled and spent, onto the small safety of a floating log. It rests and takes a breath, and the poet does too. So there's creature and creature watching and holding breath. And then the squirrel scurries. What a gorgeous word. And what's so interesting is we get the impression here of one of the major themes of the poem, which is that words fail us and that you will never be able to record in a journal, even using the heart, all of the things that are happening. My journal stutters with a squirrel story bigger than words. The unfolding visuals of this poem are so captivating and beautiful, and they're underlined by the technique of alliteration. So the imagos who transform. Moult, mate. Lovely M there. And that line, red squirrel swimming. Yes, swimming across a small channel. There's a wet sibilance being evoked here in a line describing this plucky and skilled and soaked water crossing squirrel. I find myself wondering, where did this occur? Kimberly Blazer is an Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist. She's Native American and she's an enrolled member of White Earth Nation. And she grew up on the reservation, which is located in northwestern Minnesota, and that happens to be the largest of the 11 reservations in the state. So maybe this poem is a record of what was happening there. I don't know. It could be so many places. The language work in this poem is so rich, and I feel like one of the things that this poem is doing is pointing beyond itself using technically brilliant language to point beyond language. Early in the poem, there's a two word sentence and impermanence and then there's other sentences that are much longer and then other sentences that technically, according to some rules of grammar, aren't comprehensive or they leave something out. And I think one of the things that she's doing here is pointing in all kinds of formulations and permutations of language and sentences, what it is that's happening right in front of her. She says that the squirrel is dark and steady, like all mysterious and. And then she goes on to talk about paddle, paddle and arrive now climb, bedraggled and spent. So like all mysterious, like all mysterious, what is this? An interrupted sentence or an incomplete one? I don't think so. I think she's letting the language take us into wonder, like all mysterious and just letting us be basking really in the awe that's being sketched for us here. The creature and creature recognition is found in the industry. The squirrel is squirreling and the writer's writing. And they're both breathing and catching breath. We are never done and the world is large are two messages that are put into the squirrel. And Kimberly Blazer praises the knowledge of the tiny body and the courage. And courage brings the core from record back into the poem. So the heart again is repeating, repeating the heart of the squirrel beating the heart of the poet also beating praise here, all fabulous, unwritten. I feel like this is the heartbeat of the poem the whole way through it. The poem finishes with again the reference to the flower devouring, blissful beaver and the room of the poem. Stanza means room, from Italian. The room of the poem is imbibed by what Kimberly Blazer knows by watching. And the words themselves are presented as being too small. And she knows that she can never in language record what is right in front of her. To hear these gorgeous final lines continually. I feel paws pulling, mouth filled with flower lust. What little rooms are words in these seasons of plenty. Of. My journal records the vestiture of doppelgangers by Kimberly Blazer. 1 Remember how the loon chick climbs to the mother's back. O checkerboard bed and lifted wing. O tiny gray passenger who settles, eyes drooping, closed, webbed foot lifted like a flag. Each day, each week I write missives, mayflies, transparent wings, a stained glass fluttering across the surface of lake, an impermanence imagos who transform, molt, mate, glitter as splayed bodies on water. I write the red crown mad V of vulture wings drying in morning sun. I record red squirrel swimming, yes, swimming across a small channel. Two I barely breathe, watching the narrow body a mere slit of motion, dark and steady like all mysterious Paddle, paddle and arrive. Now climb, bedraggled and spent, onto the small safety of a floating log. It rests. We catch our breath. Now it scurries ahead to the other log end Here my journal stutters with a squirrel story bigger than words. Unfathomably it plunges back into blue chance into uncharted. We are never done, it says with a body tiny enough to know the world is large, it says with a courage I am greedy to learn. 3 Praise here all fabulous, unwritten each shimmer of spent body journey from rest to blue. Next, who, I ask, is the blissful be beaver devouring each yellow water lily if not our doppelganger? Continually I feel paws pulling, mouth filled with flower lust. What little rooms are words in these seasons of plenty, My journal records the vest of doppelgangers can be found in Kimberly Blazer's collection Ancient Light Poems, published in 2024 by the University of Arizona Press. Thanks to them for permission to use.
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This poem and to Frederick Courtright of the Permissions Company. Poetry Unbound is Andrea Prevot, Carla Zanoni.
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Daryl Chen, Sparrow Murray, Chris Heagle, Bill.
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Sigmund and me, Padre Gautuma. Our music is composed and provided by Gautam Srikishan and Blued Out Sessions.
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These episodes were made in New York.
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City on unceded Lenape land. Special thanks to Will Salwin, Nave Yan and Adam Morell at Digital Island Studios in Manhattan. Thanks as well to Frederick Courtright of the Permissions Company. Poetry Unbound is an independent non profit production of of the On Being Project founded and led by Krista Tippett. This season of Poetry Unbound is made possible by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Our other funding partners include the Liana foundation, the Baedale foundation, and Engaging the Senses Foundation. Poetry Unbound would be nothing without the listening community. Thanks to all who listen, who read and give through our weekly Poetry Unbound substack or directly to On Being. For links to the substack and to find out more about Poetry Unbound books and events, visit poetryunbound.org.