Jared Carter Poetry

Journey of Darkness

Talent perceives differences, Genius unity.
—Yeats

It is an ancient story, one that for some of us goes back to the beginnings of memory—to a time when fables and tales were told by the fireside, or at bedtime, or read aloud from old books on rainy days.

It is a tale of danger and despair, and of eventual triumph and reward. We have heard it many times, and yet we seldom stop to ask ourselves what it might be telling us. Listen to it now—not at the beginning, but midway, when we are already caught up in its magic, and no longer wonder whether such things can be, but only wish to find out what happens next:

The day after, Morgiana went to an old cobbler near the gates of the town who opened his stall early, put a piece of gold in his hand, and bade him follow her with his needle and thread. Having bound his eyes with a handkerchief, she took him to the room where the body lay, pulled off the bandage, and bade him sew the quarters together, after which she covered his eyes again and led him home.

The funeral and the attendant acts of grief and mourning convince the townspeople that Ali Baba's brother, Cassim, has died of natural causes. Meanwhile, the robber chieftain sends one of his men into town to "discover whom we have killed, and whether men talk of the strange manner of his death." This brave volunteer, having disguised himself,

happened to enter the town at daybreak, just by Baba Mustapha's stall. The thief bade him good-day, saying: "Honest man, how can you possibly see to stitch at your age?"

"Old as I am," replied the cobbler, "I have very good eyes, and you will believe me when I tell you that I sewed a dead body together in a place where I had less light than I have now."

The robber was overjoyed at his good fortune, and giving him a piece of gold, desired to be shown the house where he stitched up the dead body. At first Mustapha refused, saying that he had been blindfolded; but when the robber gave him another piece of gold he began to think he might remember the turnings if blindfolded as before. This means succeeded; the robber partly led him and was partly guided by him right in front of Cassim's house, the door of which the robber marked with a piece of chalk.

These strange events, rendered less disturbing by the matter-of-factness of the narrative, still stand by themselves as something quite different from the story of intrigue and violence that surrounds them. Examined carefully, they appear to be nothing less than an account of the creative process—an instance of the way in which traditional wisdom, cloaked in a simple but enduring tale, may sometimes be offered up to us. As such, these two encounters in the marketplace deserve a closer look than we may have given them during our more innocent years.

Morgiana the slave, the cleverest person in the entire story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, may here be taken to be—in elemental terms—that which comes unexpectedly and unpredictably to the one who has learned the craft and practiced it faithfully. In short, she is the Muse, or the moment of inspiration, the goddess or genie who cannot be summoned but who has the power, when she wishes, to appear before certain mortals.

Baba Mustapha is no brash, rebellious apprentice. He is an artisan, a master cobbler, an old man who has traveled to distant cities and seen many wondrous things. Without hesitation he surrenders himself to this strange woman. He has no idea of their destination or of the task awaiting him. He agrees to become even more helpless than a child, to be led through streets and along narrow passageways he cannot see. He allows the external world to be concealed from view.

Thus prepared—as initiates are invariably led through maze-like turnings, to disorient them, to separate and disengage them from everyday preoccupations, and convey them into a darkness where nothing will be familiar—they reach Cassim's house at last, and the blindfold is removed. Baba Mustapha sets to work, in the dim light, at a most unusual task—sewing the parts of a body together, restoring it to its original human form.

Cassim does not come back to life, for this is not some sort of monster or Golem the old man has been summoned to reactivate. It is simply a body cut into quarters. Once it has been reassembled, however, the mourning can proceed as expected, and Cassim's funeral, with the help of Morgiana, can be conducted in an ordinary manner. By this strategem, for a few days, Ali Baba's identity will be protected.

Baba Mustapha does not create life but rather the semblance or illusion of a life lived. No poet or sculptor does more. Neither does he reassemble Cassim in such a way that his stitching would not be apparent to the careful observer. Examine any work of art up close, and it breaks down into isolated words, separate brush strokes, volumes and surfaces.

But Cassim's body, sewn together by a master craftsman, is sufficiently convincing for the funeral to be held without arousing suspicion that he had in fact met a violent end. Similarly, the painting, when one steps back far enough, or the poem, when one has learned it by heart, assumes a momentary vitality which parallels the life force, while not strictly reproducing it.

When the task is finished, Morgiana blindfolds the old man once more, to lead him back to the marketplace. If the Muse appears mysteriously, she must disappear in the same way. For the truly creative act there can be no re-tracing of the journey. Works of art come out of the darkness and mist: they are inherently remarkable. Later, one does not consider whether to summon them again, for one cannot will such manifestations. Rather, one listens and watches for their return. One continues to practice and perfect one's craft, attendant upon the next opportunity that may be offered.

This initial incident in the marketplace would have been forgotten had it not been for the chance greeting of the thief, a few days later, who shrewdly grasps the significance of Baba Mustapha's assertion about his keen eyesight. At first, even when handed a coin equal to that which served as the catalyst for the previous journey, Baba Mustapha does not believe he could re-trace his steps. Promised a second piece of gold, however, "he began to think he might remember the turnings if blindfolded as before."

It is a brilliant stroke: what cannot be found again, even in broad daylight, what seems lost forever, as the present irretrievably slips into the past, may still be resurrected in the twilight world of memory. Rationally, Baba Mustapha doubts his ability to locate the right house. At the starting point, sitting in a stall in the marketplace, conversing with the thief, it does not seem that the way he followed, when Morgiana took him by the hand, can be regained or reconstructed.

During that original journey he could see nothing. Furthermore, the decision to turn this way or that was given over to the woman. It was she who led the way, after he had lost all sense of direction, and had surrendered to her governance. There was no recollection of sequence, only the experience of being outside succession and intent, guided by a power beyond the self.

Yet being blindfolded again, surrendering to that much of the initial experience, Baba Mustapha overcomes the haziness and unreliability of memory. This time, holding to the thief's hand rather than to Morgiana's, he is able to re-capture the sensory cues that accompanied the original turnings. These did not concern him the first time; they do now. Proceeding in this way—no doubt with numerous false starts and re-tracings—he manages to reach the original destination. "The robber partly led him," the story explains, "and was partly guided by him right in front of Cassim's house."

Think for a moment how, unable to see, especially on this second journey, Baba Mustapha was able to orient himself—not by the roofs and cornices and archways he passed under, which he had not seen in the first place, but by remembering. By remembering the direction from which he heard the cry of the muezzin in his tower, calling the faithful to prayer; by remembering, beneath his bare feet, the feel of stones worn smooth by the passing of innumerable camels and donkeys; by remembering the plash of a fountain in a tiled courtyard, the smell of bread fresh from the oven, the scent of a particular rose.

We must step back from this account and consider what it suggests for those of us who remain far removed from such an immediate and sensuous world. On the first journey Baba Mustapha is guided; on the second he himself leads, but is also guided by his own recollections. Two different processes are at work here— the way of the imagination, and the way of the rational mind.

(We must not ask, incidentally, why such profound things came to be shown in a popular tale first set down at the beginning of the eighteenth century, or why it has now become, to the modern sensibility, little more than a bedtime story for children. While walking alongside a remote country stream, one is not prevented from looking down and noticing a nugget of rare ore washed free by the waters.)

Baba Mustapha is the maker, the creator, the one who brings together—in short, the artist. In his lifelong career of assembling and synthesizing, the artist himself does not know what he has wrought, or where he has been. He knows only that, when summoned and guided through uncertainty and darkness, he occasionally accomplishes something rare and difficult.

Notice, too, that the work of art is not his to keep. Whatever he might earn in monetary terms, the achievement itself is the primary reward. Others will marvel at the feat of the dismembered corpse sewn back together. Someone else will own and enjoy the painting; generations hence will admire the poem, the symphony, the casting in bronze.

But in the next moment someone comes along who asks, "How did you do that? What was the path? What steps did you take in order to get there? I can double the material reward if you will show me." This, then, is the theorist, the rationalizer, even the critic with the best of intentions, but in all instances the one who analyzes, who disassembles and takes apart. He goes by different names in different cultures, but his purpose is the same.

This is one who can neither submit to darkness nor fabricate illusion from inert parts, but who wishes nonetheless to know what happened, from beginning to end, in the hope of extracting something useful from the inquiry. He seeks, inevitably, to reduce the mystery to a quantified, manageable state— something that the artist did not do, nor was interested in doing.

Thus, on the second occasion, the blindfold is donned not for the sake of creation but of re-creation. It is put on as a way of knowing rather than of giving up knowing. There is no scattered body to be reassembled at the end of this journey; if anything, the violence originally visited upon Cassim will, if the robber is successful in locating the right house, also be perpetrated on his brother, Ali Baba. There will be no peaceful ending to this second stroll through the town.

We cannot fault those who seek to re-create the journey as way of arriving at some rational knowledge of the finished work. The attempt to understand such a phenomenon, however, is all too often accompanied by the wish to gain power over it. That Cassim was sewn back together is remarkable, but it is far less important to the thief than the need to find out where Cassim lived. Such information can in turn can lead him to Ali Baba's house. To rationalize and explain art, then, is to go not beyond it but past it—to trade a journey of mystery and inspiration for a goal of calculated intent.

Notice that the artist is frequently tempted to become an active participant in this rationalizing process. Baba Mustapha accepts the two gold pieces. Furthermore, he himself, in his re-created darkness, willingly guides the robber toward the house. Caught up not simply in the shadowy recollection but the re-creation of those previous turnings, he does not consider where they are headed, or why the robber might wish to know where the body was reassembled.

Baba Mustapha has the courage and the pride to undertake the journey a second time, and in that same darkness is able to find his way, even though the purpose of their setting out has changed. Now, no difficult task remains to challenge his considerable skills; the process has been rationalized, and soon it will be explained, known, exposed. The thief marks the door of the house with a piece of chalk. There is additional violence in store.

Morgiana—the Muse, the goddess, the servant and slave whose master's welfare is of paramount concern—reappears at this moment in the story, ever watchful and observant. Rather than erase the mark, she makes identical marks on the doors of several houses along the street. When the Forty Thieves return in force, bent on destruction, they cannot tell which door to enter.

The secret of the dark journey is once again concealed; the thief who failed to locate the house is beheaded by his companions, and another tries in his place. This one marks the house in red chalk, and Morgiana again confounds the robbers, until the Captain of the Forty Thieves comes to the house, and studies it until it is fixed in his mind.

We leave the story at this point, having watched the cycle of risk, remembrance, and eventual abandonment that is at the heart of the process by which art comes into being. Part of this process is creative, part is analytical. Having prepared throughout one's life, one still submits to the moment of inspiration; where it beckons, one must follow, even into the darkness of winding streets and narrow passageways.

The task is always beyond the everyday self—it is always "out there," at the mid-point of the journey. It is never here, in the harsh light of day, where the crowd gathers in the marketplace, amid the noise and the jostling and the raucous cries of the vendors.

One approaches the task through surrender and submission, through giving up, through trust in the powers of darkness. One performs for the sake of doing, with no hope of understanding the larger picture, or the implications that lie beyond. And one must return as one came, having no thought of diagramming the path, or making a map of where one has been.

The audience—those who enjoy the poem, or admire the sculpture, or see the play, or read the tale—consists of those who attend Cassim's funeral, who hear Morgiana's weeping and the wailing of the mourners. Some are genuinely moved; others congratulate themselves on having known such a decent, forthright man. For most, the illusion is complete. May he rest in peace, that honorable soul.

The thieves, in contrast, still believe themselves to have been deprived of goods which they, in turn, took from others— richnesses that were never rightfully theirs, but were the property of humble, hardworking citizens such as those at the funeral. Compare their motives with those of the theorist or the aesthetician who, in his eagerness to grasp and to interpret, seeks to explain the work of art. Often, in attempting to lead the artist, to master the work, he himself is in turn led.

On his own, the theorist or the critic can go nowhere. Not once is he willing to submit to the blindfold, to the uncertainty of not knowing what lies ahead. He remains in daylight, in a brightness symbolic of his own blindness. Left to his analytical ways, he could not take the first step toward the goal he seeks. He is, at the beginning, if not lost, then still without direction.

For such an individual to submit to the darkness would be humiliating—unbearable, inconceivable. Such abandon is, nonetheless, the ground of the artist's being. Only by not knowing can he move ahead toward the holy and the wholly unimaginable task of genuine creation. Something leads him; but even that, he can never know, for he is in a twilight world now, trusting to the touch of an unseen hand on his wrist.

In one of the old books containing this story we are given engravings of certain scenes. In one of these, Ali Baba, from the safety of his perch in a tree, watches while the robber chief pronounces the password "Open, sesame!" and the door to the secret chamber yields to the mounted procession of thieves. It is a timeless moment.

In another, Morgiana, cloaked and in shadow, turns a corner into a darkened street while holding by the wrist the outstretched hand of Baba Mustapha. She is in touch not simply with his flesh but with his very pulse, the fundamental rhythm of his existence. Hunched over, with a ragged turban and a long white beard, his cobbler's tools in a sling on his shoulder, his eyes bandaged, Baba Mustapha follows barefooted over the rough stones, casting a shadow on the wall of the house behind him.

At the end of the street is a dim archway through which they will pass. Another, even darker passageway, with a gate, appears at the far end. This nameless town, somewhere in a Persia of the imagination, is but the immemorial labyrinth in another of its endless manifestations.

Already ventured into its shadows, Morgiana sees and knows the way. But she is, in essence, divine. Blindfolded, uncertain and unknowing, mortal, about to step from the warmth of the sunlit passageway, Baba Mustapha willingly follows. Together they will arrive at the door of the right house, and, in a shuttered room within, undertake the elusive and unfathomable task of making that which has been sundered whole again—of achieving unity.