I found this beautiful–and beautifully published–poem by Robert Lax in my collection of his works. The original is printed on three of four sides of two-foot-tall fine paper with cover sheets that are disintegrating. I don’t know who printed it or when.
Father Dan Riley, OFM, reports that he and a small group of others from different faith traditions have been discussing the establishment of a new center dedicated to Lax and Merton and committed to civil dialogue in an increasingly uncivil age. The center would probably be housed at the Mt. Irenaeus Fransciscan Mountain Community Father Dan founded near St. Bonaventure University many years ago. Here’s the community’s description of its location:
Mt. Irenaeus rests on nearly 400 acres of beautiful land in the Allegheny hills of Southwestern New York State, with seven cabins, large community House of Peace, Holy Peace Chapel, 10 miles of trails, labyrinth garden, reflective pond and other sacred outdoor spaces for contemplation.”
One possible design for the center is an octagon, to reflect that shape’s importance in several traditions. The building would also incorporate some parts of the Marcus cottage where Lax, Merton and their friends gathered during college summers, writing, making music, and practicing debating important matters in community.
Riley and others have been trying for years to find a way to move the Marcus cottage from the hills above Olean down near campus. Unfortunately, the cottage hasn’t been maintained, so it isn’t feasible (or cost-effective) to move the whole thing. Instead, they’ve secured pieces of the cottage to put in the center: the mantel over the living room fireplace and the sailing ship model above it, as well as the doors and hinges from the bedrooms Lax and Merton slept in. An expert is looking at the cottage to see if other parts are salvageable too.
According to Father Dan, the center would be a place outside the Mt. Irenaeus Franciscan structures where people from different backgrounds could talk about issues of any kind, whether they came out of a faith tradition or not. But it would be “a mystical place, not just dialogic,” he says. Its core value would come from the root of the word “conversation,” which means not just talking but turning or changing together.
If you’re interested in being connected to the project or just knowing more about it, you can write to the Mt. Ireneaus office coordinator, Michelle Marcellin, at mmarc@sbu.edu.
A major work of art honoring Robert Lax has been unveiled in his hometown of Olean, New York.
Painted on the walls of the Library & Liberal Arts Center on the Olean campus of Jamestown Community College, murals inspired by Lax’s circus poems now grace the spot where his father, Siggie, took him to watch the circus pull into town when he was a boy. (Note the railroad tracks in the foreground in the picture above.)
According to the Olean Times-Herald, more than 25 artists and volunteers helped “world-renowned muralist” Meg Saligman with the installation, and another 1,000 community members participated in “various summer paint day events.”
“Titled ‘Vantage Point: Our Valley of the Sun,’ the mural’s name is inspired by poet Robert Lax’s famous work, ‘Circus of the Sun,'” the newspaper reports. The project was supported by several local and regional organizations and is meant to celebrate those who live and work in the area. (One of Lax’s childhood homes once stood just steps away.)
Saligman–who grew up in Olean and went on to paint some of the largest murals in the United States–combined her own research with interviews with community members to come up with the murals’ designs. It was the discovery of the poems of Olean’s homegrown poet, however, that brought everything together.
To read more about the Olean mural, click here. To see more of Seligman’s work, visit her website: megsaligman.com.
[This post appeared first in the Robert Lax Newsletter. To sign up for this free bimonthly (or so) mailing, click here and enter your email address on the left-hand side of the page.]
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Today is the 107th anniversary of Robert Lax’s birth. I’ve received notes already from people who are celebrating it in Belgium and Russia. As a small commemoration, here’s the first poem in the best collection of his work, 33 Poems. It seems a good summation of how Lax viewed life.
the head of the commit- tee said he couldn't use it it shot off, he said, in too many direc- tions throw it onto the junk- heap, he said, out there where the wild- flowers grow
For today, at least, let yourself be thrown out there where the wildflowers grow.
Happy birthday, Bob!
(Click here to watch the Blackbyrds live out Lax’s advice.)
not
so
much
find
ing
a
path
in
the
woods
as
find
ing
a
rhythm
to
walk
in
Robert Lax, p. 381, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax
Coincidentally, over the past few weeks, several people have asked me about the simple poem printed here. If there’s one thing I learned during my many years of hanging out with Robert Lax, it was to trust coincidences, which, with Lax, were better called fortuities.
People talk about “thin places” in the world—locations where the barriers between our tangible reality and a more spiritual realm are less substantial. These are thought to be places of unusual energy, where unusual things can happen. Findhorn or Iona in Scotland, for example. Or Lourdes in France. Or Lax’s own island, Patmos.
Lax, to me, was an example of a “thin person.” His life was filled with fortuities, mostly of a spiritual nature. And it was oddly common for those who came to know him to have the same kind of experience in their own lives. The reason, I believe, was that Lax was more open to the spiritual realm than most people. As a result, the veil between this world and the next seemed to thin around him. When he came in contact with a person in a complementary state of spiritual openness, anything could happen. And often did.
When I met him, for example, an extraordinary series of improbable coincidences put me on Patmos reading about him in his best friend’s book, and several more led to our actual meeting. At the time, in part because I was young and had a certain hunger, I was more open to spiritual possibilities than at any other time in my life.
One of Lax’s most beloved pieces of advice is to put yourself “in a place where grace can flow to you.” Rather than a physical space, I think he meant a way of being, a spirit of receptivity, an orientation toward the living God. By putting ourselves in such a place, we open ourselves to unseen love, the energy of the universe, and the possibility of fortuities.
The question, of course, is how to do that. Through prayer? Patience? Meditation? Charity? All of these are worthy ways to access grace. But I believe the main way, for Lax, is right there in his poem.
Once, years ago, the artistic director of a prominent theater told me a key moment in his life came when he was about to leave graduate school and start his career. Unsure whether he should move to New York and become an actor or return to his hometown to start a theater, he asked an old professor—a grizzled veteran of the New York stage—for advice. The professor fixed him with a narrowed eye and said, “There’s no path. Do what you want to do.”
It seems to me Lax is saying something similar in his poem: Stop trying to find the path to get through the woods as fast as you can. Concentrate instead on discovering who you are and let that carry you forward, at whatever pace and in whatever way is most natural for you.
It’s the rhythm and the movement that are most important, not the woods or the path. The rhythm is the rhythm of the jazz musicians jamming, the acrobats performing on the backs of horses, the islanders setting out to fish in tiny boats. The movement is the movement of the music. Of the animals. Of the sea.
Each of us must find the natural rhythm and movement in our own lives, our own beings, as we are fit and blessed and motivated to live them. Then will the fortuities of grace and love begin to flutter down “like birds,” as author Milan Kundera once wrote, “to Francis of Assisi’s shoulders.”
[This post appeared first in the Robert Lax Newsletter. To sign up for this free bimonthly (or so) mailing, click here and enter your email address on the left-hand side of the page.]
In early October, a group called The Riga Project Choir gave three performances in Latvia of “The Arc in the Sky,” composer Kile Smith’s choral cycle based on Robert Lax’s poetry. According to the RPC website, “The choir is comprised of former members of Latvia’s top professional and amateur choirs, who now work primarily in other fields.” Smith reports that this was the choir’s first performance of a substantial American composition and the first presentation of his choral cycle in Europe.
Two of the concerts took place at the National Library of Latvia in Riga, while the third was performed at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Daugavpils, in a heavily Russian ethnic area near the Belarus border. It soothes the soul to think of Lax’s poetry being sung so close to a war zone.
The concerts, sponsored in part by the US embassy in Latvia, were scheduled before Covid hit, which means before the war in Ukraine began. In another example of Laxian fortuity, they were postponed twice, allowing them to take place when the area most needed a Lax-like vision of peace.
Kile Smith speaks to the choir during a rehearsal for his Lax-based work.
The choir’s director, Christopher Walsh Sinka, studied choral conducting under Donald Nally, the director of The Crossing, who commissioned Smith’s piece. Sinka lives in Riga now with his Latvian wife. Smith and his wife Jackie were able to attend two of the performances.
to live in our dreams as though they were real, and through the waking day, as though we were dreaming
to treat all beings, in dream and waking, with reverence due the numinous
and yet to be wide awake, both in sleeping and waking
to what good end? to no good end: only to a continuation in being; to a clarification through being of what it means to be
–Robert Lax, journal entry, March 28, 1979
(p. 349, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax by Michael N. McGregor)
A Dutch website called Player FM is offering a free recording of Lax reading his book the hill. According to the site, the reading was recorded on Patmos in 1999 by Sigrid Hauff. The site is in Dutch, but you can play the recording simply by clicking on “Spelen” in the middle of this page.
Note: This post was originally part of the June issue of the Robert Lax Newsletter. To receive the latest Lax information, news, and writings, sign up for the newsletter here.
The image here—of a Lax experiment—is from an interesting website called Teaching Poetry and American Art. According to the site’s introduction, it is meant to “help students interpret the author’s and artist’s purpose, while teaching them to create images from words and use words to create images.” If you click on the link above, it will take you to the Lax page, where you’ll find a couple images of his work, along with links to some of his friends and contemporaries, such as Mary Ellen Solt, Emmett Williams, and William “Bill” Burford. The site is maintained by William Plashke.
Note: This post was originally part of the most recent Lax Newsletter. To receive the latest Lax information, news, and writings, sign up for the newsletter here.