Portrait of a Garden PoetA Story by Paris HladA
Coupling of Grace & Fear
Paris Eugene Osowski’s Pilgrim
Heart is about love and is dedicated to the Gardener. In the
end, she is the only reason the poet cared about others at all. It is not that
he was otherwise disinterested in his fellow man, but that he was inclined to
do things that are different from love. In fact, even when he did love,
it was expressed with conditions and a nullifying expectation of personal gain.
Still, Paris could think of no better justification for his existence than
love, and he never stopped trying to improve his ability to care about others.
He chronicled that effort in the inspired and apposite poetry that follows.
Writing it made him feel noble and even optimistic about his chances of living
with a better sense of grace. But
Osowski’s work is more than a panegyric about the efficacy of love and the glories
of poetry. It is also the honest history of an aging
man’s search for meaning and his inevitable acceptance of life’s most abstruse
reality. For even as Paris conceived of the
project, the people he loved began to die. And as they did, he grew increasingly
suspicious that the universe of his feelings and most trusted beliefs belonged
only to himself, and that his loved ones were likely to have navigated life in
a similarly myopic way. He could only wonder whether what we call “love” is more
than a quixotic delusion " A kind of dubious story that we imagine and choose
to believe. Nevertheless, Paris was ever the
optimist. He was born to run life’s cruel emotional gauntlet, and he strove to
regain the position from which death had so callously pushed him. He continued
to dream and remained that kind of dreamer who decorates gloom with the
empyrean bunting of hope. Sadly, he began to realize his vision only in the
dregs of old age: He went outside and finally liked what he saw. And he liked
being seen by the eyes that watched him. Perhaps they belonged to a being
that cared more about its inventions than Paris cared about his.
The high
point of Paris Osowski’s early literary career occurred in 1964 when several of
his poems were read aloud at a ninth-grade class assembly at Olson Junior High
School in Minneapolis. Later, some of his work appeared
alongside that of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, John Berryman, in the University
of Minnesota Arts & Poetry Magazine.[1] But no comparable
obeisance was to follow, and Paris gave up writing
verse until he retired from teaching some forty years later. Then, with
eternity coming into view, the aging lyrist rededicated himself to the cause of
beauty and assembled his magnum opus.
However, no delusions of grandeur are
to be found in the work of Paris Osowski. He was comfortable in the knowledge
that he was, and would remain, a common poet. His lines are the fruit of an old man’s
hobby, rhymes that were written to enrich the lives and inspire the better
ambitions of people he loved, not dazzle the minds of strangers, or make anyone
wise. He recognized that his thoughts were not new insights, but affirmative statements about time-honored
truths, and he wanted our universe to remain ours as much as he wanted his to remain his. Still,
a timely coupling of grace and existential fear made Paris Osowski an American
garden poet - And that merited
the audience that he ultimately obtained. Yet the
Poet’s confidence in his work could be unseemly, and his literary ambitions
were at least on some level driven by ignominious vanity. And although he was
reticent to discuss his work with others, he regarded it so highly that he
thought it should be read, and even admired, by loved ones and friends. And
although that conceit was scarcely compatible with his veneer of Christian
humility, it gave him an excuse to claim a kind of patrician status in all
matters pertaining to his work. Only near the end of his days did things change
in any significant way; and then, only with the appearance of the lost souls
who began snubbing Paris after church. By then, a beaten penitent, the poet
came to recognize that he was less like others than he had hoped, and more like
others than he had feared. Still, that lesson available in aging, made the
creation of Osowski’s masterpiece possible. But Paris was not one to gain much in the
afterglow of an epiphany, nor did he ever live up to the standards of his lofty
ideals, even in those idyllic years when he looked to refine his thinking in
the storied hills of the Hudson Valley. Though he grew confident in his soaring
propositions, he failed to achieve much of what he had hoped. In truth, he was
only infrequently “mindful of the eternal,” and he never embraced a philosophy
or intellectual paradigm that he every time trusted. This, he would freely
admit, even though he was regularly critical of inconsistency in others. Like
so many of us, Paris was a rank hypocrite; but in fairness to him, he would
have been the first to concede that fault and the last to supply an excuse.
That said, Paris recognized his shortcomings as an artist, and he was tentative, even guarded about sharing his work in the public forum. And he may well have disliked promoting his poetry even more than he yearned for the approval of others. Moreover, he knew he was only one among millions who believe they have something important to say, and he never considered himself particularly interesting or gifted. No, Paris was realistic in that way. But in the nativity of his inmost faith, a magnificent case for hope had been made, and Paris was his whole life a reliable messenger.
Just before the last walk, we
would take together on Caswell Beach, Paris was moved to tell me how Pope
Francis had once confided to an atheist friend, that he too believed that hell
was a myth. I was surprised by the asperity in his voice when he said this. He seemed angry with the Holy Father, and
even a bit embarrassed to have shared the story with me.
Still, Paris was scarcely a dogmatist or “true
believer” in any body of religious particulars. He was primarily a generous and
open-minded intellectual. He may have proved willing to share his thoughts
about life on the physical plane, but he never sought converts to his way of
thinking. Consideration? Yes.
But the poet feared that his thesis might lead others astray, or even cause
them to despair over things that they can do nothing about. He would have much
preferred that his readers remain skeptical of his ideas and find their own
special way to an unknown afterlife or eternal state of nothingness.
The creation of Pilgrim Heart
was the defining activity of Paris Osowski’s old age. Although he wrote many of
its lines while he was in his sixties and still teaching college prep classes
in upstate New York, he completed what he called a “shareable version” of the
work only after retiring to Southport, North Carolina in 2015. There, he devoted an additional 15,000 hours
to its revision, periodically publishing it under various titles and
distributing it in libraries, book shops, and thrift stores along the Carolina coast.
It remained a “work in progress” until his death at age 72 in December 2021.
Early
on, however, the poet tried selling copies of his book for the benefit of St.
Jude Children’s Hospital and raised about $250. Later, he expressed regret in
having done so, as he was financially comfortable and could have easily written
a larger check and avoided the shame of having promoted his ambitions on the
backs of sick children. This is not to say that the poet’s intentions were
impure, but that he was often slow to recognize what his intentions were.
Perhaps only the truly vain are capable of appreciating the nuanced evils of
vanity. That was an uncomfortable lesson for Paris, but he recognized his error
and never again sought to exploit the charity and goodwill of others " At
least, in that way.
In later
years, the poet gave copies of his work to family members and friends,
as well as to interested scholars, and people associated with the Cape Fear
Poetry & Prose Society. He did a number
of public readings in the Wilmington/Southport area and made a vigorous effort
to share his work via the internet. With a handful of his posts “trending” on
America’s major poetry websites, Paris could proudly claim 112,618 “reads,” with
many hundreds of poets expressing admiration for his work. And it was in that
way, that Paris achieved the aims of a common poet. Indeed, a former member of
the BBC Poetry Corner referred to Paris as a “poet-comrade” whose work
“deserved to be read and remembered. “[2] [1] By 1970, Paris’s poems had found their way
into some American poetry journals, including the legendary Imprints
Quarterly, but by then the young poet had been swept up in a multitude of
less noble ambitions and no longer saw a future for himself as a writer or even
as an emotionally well-adjusted person.
[2] The poet’s last
literary activities involved founding the poetry society mentioned above and
serving as the host of its weekly entertainment get-togethers on Zoom. It was
during one of those meetings that Paris learned of a purveyor of antiquarian
collectibles who sold a copy of Pilgrim Heart on Amazon for $21 "
More than quadruple its production cost and a full year before the poet
departed the physical realm!
© 2022 Paris Hlad |
Stats
89 Views
Added on December 29, 2022 Last Updated on December 29, 2022 AuthorParis HladSouthport, NC, United States Minor Outlying IslandsAboutI am a 70-year-old retired New York state high school English teacher, living in Southport, NC. more..Writing
|