To the coooool notes of the Beatles, "Hey Jude" ("better better betterbetter"), Frank Sinatra's "I Wish You Love" ("and in July, a lemonade, tocool you in the summer shade"), Simon and Garfunkle, "Bridge Over TroubledWaters" ("like a bridge over troubled waters, I will lay you down"), andRichard and Mimi Farina, "Pack Up Your Sorrows" ("you've got to pack upyour sorrows, and give them all to me, you would lose them, I know how touse them"), we hearAND IN JULY A LEMONADE:A MEDITATION ON TRANSFORMATIONBUTTERFLIES DO IT AND POETS DO IT TOO--WHAT POETRY MAKES OF LIFE'S LEMONSWill the change, says Rilke. (Or, depending upon the translator, Want thetransformation). You must change your life. Rumi says yes, no, accept thestate of unknowing; welcome the Guest however interruptive or disruptive;so says bossy Kabir; and so says Jane Hirshfield—that shining white bullappearing in your pasture, however bad or confusing news as it seems,should be treated as a gift with all your hospitality aglow. And so ourshow today, for a hot July, is how poets prescribe lemonade out of life'slemons. On the headstone of Jackson Pollack's grave are these words,"Artists and poets are the raw nerve ends of humanity. By themselves theycan do little to save humanity. Without them there would be little worthsaving." What work that poets do is *so little* yet enough to make lifeworth living, no matter how difficult or full of sorrow? We are savoringthe sweetness of the poetry of transformation, lemons into lemonade, changethat becomes us as we become who we are meant to be on this journey. Iwould do it all again, says Wendell Berry. That's the spirit of lemonade.So let's hear Berry, Hirshfield, Rumi, Kabir, Leonard Cohen, Jack Gilbert,Cavafy (there's a theme of Greek mythology and living on Greek islands).Kabir lays out what's at stake: "Friend, hope for the Guest while you arealive . . . Jump into experience while you are alive . . ." Hope forlemons, the white bull in the pasture, interruption, disruption, whateverthreatens to unseat us: so say our poets, giving us a way of knowing whatit means to be alive. Sip, sip, the lemonade, as we slow down, for the newswe need "without which men die miserably every day" (William CarlosWilliams).© Barbara Mossberg 2013Write: bmossberg@csumb.eduThank you.And on the Monterey Peninsula, August 3, we celebrate Rumi, "we shall be amighty kindness," bring your favorite Rumi poems and ears and hear Rumi inPersian!The little house in Jewell Park, Pacific Grove, sponsored by the City ofPacific Grove Poet in Residence Program, 4-6 pm. Contact the Pacific GrovePoetry Collective on facebook!