8 Count

from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.
one flies
off.
then
another.
one is left,
then
it too
is gone.
my typewriter is
tombstone
still.
and I am
reduced to bird
watching.
just thought I'd
let you
know,
fucker.

-Charles Bukowski

I know things are getting bad when I start losing concentration. When things like the phone ringing, emails or even people asking me how my day is going start making my head spin in a fit of rage. Relationships during the brighter periods become entanglements I need to extricate myself from. Sleep becomes an obsession.

It becomes apparent in my writing when the prose becomes dull or flat. When I speak, I screw up word order and often substitute one homophone for another. Eventually, I'll have a hard time reminding myself to pay bills, wash, even eat.

I've crashed pretty badly four times in my life, the last being two years back at around this time. It was maybe 1/2 a year ago that I was convinced to try medicine. The stuff has had a pretty good effect thus far but I'm scared to death of it.

Having it Out with Melancholy

"If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure."

-A P Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

1 FROM THE NURSERY

When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.

And from that day on
everything under the sun and moon
made me sad -- even the yellow
wooden beads that slid and spun
along a spindle on my crib.

You taught me to exist without gratitude.
You ruined my manners toward God:
"We're here simply to wait for death;
the pleasures of earth are overrated."

I only appeared to belong to my mother,
to live among blocks and cotton undershirts
with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes
and report cards in ugly brown slipcases.
I was already yours -- the anti-urge,
the mutilator of souls.

2 BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.
The coated ones smell sweet or have
no smell; the powdery ones smell
like the chemistry lab at school
that made me hold my breath.

3 SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND

You wouldn't be so depressed
if you really believed in God.

4 OFTEN

Often I go to bed as soon after dinner
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away
from the massive pain in sleep's
frail wicker coracle.

5 ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT

Once, in my early thirties, I saw
that I was a speck of light in the great
river of light that undulates through time.

I was floating with the whole
human family. We were all colors -- those
who are living now, those who have died,
those who are not yet born. For a few

moments I floated, completely calm,
and I no longer hated having to exist.

Like a crow who smells hot blood
you came flying to pull me out
of the glowing stream.
"I'll hold you up. I never let my dear
ones drown!" After that, I wept for days.

6 IN AND OUT

The dog searches until he finds me
upstairs, lies down with a clatter
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing
saves my life -- in and out, in
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .

7 PARDON

A piece of burned meat
wears my clothes, speaks
in my voice, dispatches obligations
haltingly, or not at all.
It is tired of trying
to be stouthearted, tired
beyond measure.

We move on to the monoamine
oxidase inhibitors. Day and night
I feel as if I had drunk six cups
of coffee, but the pain stops
abruptly. With the wonder
and bitterness of someone pardoned
for a crime she did not commit
I come back to marriage and friends,
to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back
to my desk, books, and chair.

8 CREDO

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being. Unholy ghost,
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can't
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can't sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can't read, or call
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.

9 WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light
I wake at four,
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air
presses through the screen
with the wild, complex song
of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly
all my life until this moment?
How I love the small, swiftly
beating heart of the bird
singing in the great maples;
its bright, unequivocal eye.

-Jane Kenyon

***

This probably is the best description of the pain or lack of feeling and eventual rejeuvenation I've seen since Millay's Renascence. Actually, this might be better, as it addresses the cyclical nature of the sickness, the momentary well-being tempered by the ever-present fear of the slipping into that other awful, awful world. (I also love the image of the wood thrush in the last verse; it reminds me of the chickadee who brought me back to the world of the living years ago.)

I guess right now I feel myself slipping and am trying to figure out how to shore myself up. I have so much that needs to be done but am getting so tired again. The meds aren't meant to be a cure, I don't think. They just help the symptoms. The illness is something that needs to be lived with. I need to figure out how to either expand the good periods or reduce the depth/length of the bad periods. How, though?

A resurrected post on the insights of a thoughtful friend:

I ended up with two classics. They may bore you because although I did search long, they were easy to find and not very original or different. I picked them because they speak of spring in a way that I have never considered. I found it actually fascinating that I had never thought this way or even read of men, or women for that matter, thinking of spring in a negative light because of jealousy or bitterness. And this is coming from a man who has never been accused of being overly optimistic.

The first is a passage from Love’s Labors Lost (Act V, Scene 2)

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the me adows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are plough men’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their sum me r smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.

The next is by Wordsworth. Again, he speaks of the beauty of spring but can’t take it for what it is. I’m not sure why these two struck me like they did. I’m going to have to think more on that. Once again, thank you for making me think.


Lines Written in Early Spring

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot me asure:--
But the least motion which they made
It see me d a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

***

I'm sorry it took me so long to post this. I always learn something from this person.

Last Snow

Although the snow still lingers
Heaped on the ivy's blunt webbed fingers
And painting tree-trunks on one ide,
Here in the sunlit ride
The fresh unchristened things appear,
Leaf, spathe and stem,
With crumbs of earth clinging ot them
To show the way they came
But no flower yet to tell their name,
And one green spear
Stabbing a dead leaf from below
Kills winter at a blow.

-Andrew Young (from The Century's Poetry 5: Bridges to the Present Day; compiled by Denys Kilham Roberts)



Crocuses in my yard.

Harbinger of Spring.

Yes, today was the first time this year that the Bluebird of Happiness woke me up. At a quarter of four in the morning. Even the cats give me 'til about 6:30.

I Heard a Linnet Courting

I heard a linnet courting
His lady in the spring:
His mates were idly sporting,
Nor stayed to hear him sing
His song of love.—
I fear my speech distorting
His tender love.

The phrases of his pleading
Were full of young delight;
And she that gave him heeding
Interpreted aright
His gay, sweet notes,—
So sadly marred in the reading,—
His tender notes.

And when he ceased, the hearer
Awaited the refrain,
Till swiftly perching nearer
He sang his song again,
His pretty song:—
Would that my verse spake clearer
His tender song!

Ye happy, airy creatures!
That in the merry spring
Think not of what misfeatures
Or cares the year may bring;
But unto love
Resign your simple natures,
To tender love.

-Robert Seymour Bridges

(Full disclosure here: this was not what I was thinking at the time. Slingshots and clear paths were more what was coming to mind then.)

This little delight comes from Dr. Bob who uses it in his course to talk about social exclusion:

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people's gardens
and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickles for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

-Jenny Joseph

***

(Didn't realize that she was a Birmingham native as well...thanks Dr. Bob!)

One of my favorite people in the world turned 40 today. I'd like to give him the gift of looking forward in hope rather than being unhappy about the past. (Somehow, though, I think that that's something only he can give himself.)

Crossroads

The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and who
my friends are. I will dress for the
occasion, and my hair shall be
whatever color I please.
Everyone will go on celebrating the old
birthday, counting the years as usual,
but I will count myself new from this
inception, this imprint of my own desire.

The second half of my life will be swift,
past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.
The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
fingers shifting through fine sands,
arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
There will be new dreams every night,
and the drapes will never be closed.
I will toss my string of keys into a deep
well and old letters into the grate.

The second half of my life will be ice
breaking up on the river, rain
soaking the fields, a hand
held out, a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up.

-Joyce Sutphen

***

Happy Birthday, Pablo.

Tomatoes don't really bother me that much. Mine always grow, though I may end up with more pickled green ones than reds for salads by the end of the season. Where I've been finding disappointment lately has been with the so-called hardy "native" plants.

Three years back, I planted lupines and they never came up. My thyme and mint both disappeared last year. Then there was the year of the one, anemic zucchini. The biggest frustration to date, though, has to be the strawberries. A couple years back, I planted three runners which, to my delight, turned into about 50 plants. Given how productive the three little originals were, I'd figured that by the next season, there'd be enough berries to make at least a few pots of jam. No such luck, as, though I got lots of lush greenery, not a single flower appeared.

Maybe this year will be better.

Vespers

In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.

-Louise Glück

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

***

I am happy for Spring and I still do view April as a long-held, much-needed exhalation. However, this year is feeling strange. I'm tired. So, so tired. Not only emotionally but physically.

Maybe it's loneliness. Maybe it's the depression I'm said to be suffering from. Maybe I'm just getting old and need to face up to that.

In any event, it IS the time for new growth. For coaxing peas, lettuce, radishes out of the semi-frozen earth. If I keep working hard enough at it, maybe I'll find sustenance in the sun and air just like my little garden vanguards.

Swan Song

Benjamin Britten (whose birthday fell on St. Cecilia's Day) composed this piece both to honor an important English musical tradition and as a nod to Henry Purcell, with whom he felt he had a particular kinship. W. H. Auden wrote the words, which are listed below.

One cannot, however, just read the text. This piece, one of my favorite choral works, and arguably some of the best vocal music of the 20th century, needs to be listened to to get the full impact.

HYMN TO ST. CECILIA

I
In a garden shady this holy lady
With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,
Like a black swan as death came on
Poured fourth her song in perfect calm:
And by ocean's margin this innocent virgin
Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,
And notes tremendous from her great engine
Thundered out on the Roman air.

Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,
Moved to delight by the melody,
White as an orchid she rode quite naked
In an oyster shell on top of the sea;
At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing
Came out of their trance into time again,
And around the wicked in Hell's abysses
The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

II
I cannot grow;
I have no shadow
To run away from,
I only play.

I cannot err;
There is no creature
Whom I belong to,
Whom I could wrong.

I am defeat
When it knows it
Can now do nothing
By suffering.

All you lived through,
Dancing because you
No longer need it
For any deed.

I shall never be
Different. Love me.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

III
O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,
O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,
Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all
The gaucheness of her adolescent state,
Where Hope within the altogether strange
From every outworn image is released,
And Dread born whole and normal like a beast
Into a world of truths that never change:
Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.

O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,
Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,
Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,
Weep for the lives your wishes never led.

O cry created as the bow of sin
Is drawn across our trembling violin.

O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.

O law drummed out by hearts against the still
Long winter of our intellectual will.

That what has been may never be again.

O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath
Of convalescents on the shores of death.

O bless the freedom that you never chose.

O trumpets that unguarded children blow
About the fortress of their inner foe.

O wear your tribulation like a rose.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

W. H. Auden

***

And so ends Poetry Month for this year.

What Is Man?

The big highlight of my monthly trip to Mt Auburn (aside from seeing my doctor; he's a hoot!) is the leisurely walk along the Charles and bit of lollygagging in Harvard Square I indulge myself in afterwards. For some reason yesterday, I felt particularly drawn to Harvard Yard, to Emerson Hall, to this line from the psalms:



1 O Jehovah, our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth, Who hast set thy glory upon the heavens!

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength, Because of thine adversaries, That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him but little lower than God, And crownest him with glory and honor.

6 Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet:

7 All sheep and oxen, Yea, and the beasts of the field,

8 The birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, Whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

9 O Jehovah, our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth!

(More pictures of Cambridge if you're interested.)

My dad, ever the good sport and a patron saint of Patience sent this along both for Poetry Month and to cheer me up:

"I thought of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem for the April blog:

Laugh and the world laughs with you
Weep and you weep alone
For this grim old Earth
Must borrow its mirth
It has troubles enough of its own.

These lines begin "Solitude," first published in the Feb. 25, 1883, issue of the New York Sun.

I did a search on Google to find the date and among other things came across the stuff below. It is almost better than the poem."

Thanks, Dad.

Shakespeare's Birthday fell on a Monday (the 23rd) this year. It also fell a day after my having to say difficult goodbyes to a dear friend, to give him back to his land, his world, his life across the ocean.

XXIX. Remembrance

WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before:

—But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

Yin Accounting.

I don't know that I've ever mentioned this before, but I work in financial reporting for a fairly large not-for-profit. It was kind of a stretch at first, as when I first started, I couldn't identify an income statement if it jumped up and bit me on the nose. To say that I was intimidated by my colleagues, not to mention upper management, would be an understatement.

After a while (and a few finance courses at the local community college), I became less intimidated (though no less confused) and actually quite fascinated by the universality of some concepts. Take nothingness, for example:

Thirty spokes converge on a single hub,
but it is in the space where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the cart lies.

Clay is molded to make a pot,
but it is in the space where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the clay pot lies.

Cut out doors and windows to make a room,
but it is in the spaces where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the room lies.

Therefore,
Benefit may be derived from something,
but it is in nothing that we find usefulness.

From Victor H. Mair's translation of the Tao Te Ching.

This concept is sometimes called "negative space," I believe, in some visual arts, like painting for example. One way of looking at a musical composition is by imagining sounds as being arranged around silence (see John Cage). Little did I know that I'd be hitting upon this when being asked to do things like designing reports that looked at trends in variances, for example.

Curveballs

Sorry for being gone for so long. Sometimes life throws a succession of curveballs and you have to either duck or take some lumps. I've been doing plenty of both for quite a while, actually.

Hey: speaking of curveballs, I know that earlier this week I was supposed to be a good Bostonian and keep my eye on Matsuzaka (aka Dice-Kay)'s debut, but I ended up being transfixed by that crazy curveball Seattle's new pitcher throws. Wow.

End of Winter

Bare-handed reach
to catch
April's
incoming curve.
Leap higher than you thought you could and
Hold:
Spring,
Solid,
Here.

-Eve Merriam

Okay, so we dealt with one Northeaster yesterday, and there's another one predicted for the Marathon weekend. Still, we just had Opening Day, darnit. It's Spring.

***

Poetry on baseball, gosh darnit. How much better could it get than that?

We do
doodely do doodely do doodely do
What we must
muddily must muddily must muddily must
doodely do
doodely do doodely do doodely do
Until we bust
bodily bust bodily bust bodily bust.

-From Kurt Vonnegut's Wampeters, Foma and Granfaloons.

Life in a bureaucracy ain't all that it's cracked up to be.

***

Update: May he Rest in Peace.

Friends of the Cold



Detail from Three Friends of Winter by Zhao Mengjian, Chinese, 13th Century

On my wintry way to work this morning, I noted the sorrel and chives peeping out of the semi-thawed dirt in my garden patch. About a block away from the house, my peripheral vision caught a flash of gold: the first forsythia of the year. Arching overheard were maple buds on the verge of becoming bright red blooms.

Surely all these will survive the cold and the snow predicted for the rest of this week. They were bred to thrive in this adversity, to show us what a real stiff upper lip is, to pave the way for the tenderer harbingers of spring.

This brought to mind the Asian classic "three friends of winter," ume-plum, bamboo and pine. Here's a bit of poetry on that:

Peach and plum in springtime, don't be too proud of your blossoms;
Think instead of the faithful pine and green bamboo at year's end.
What season changes these noble stalks and their luscious evergreen?

-Kim Yuki, Korean, 17th century

Pure white plum blossoms
Slowly beginning to turn
The color of Dawn

-Yosa Buson,
Japanese, 18th century

My spring is just this:
A single bamboo shoot,
A willow branch.

-Kobayashi Issa, Japanese, 18th century

***

Also, there's an interesting exhibit which touches on this at the Sackler. I think it's only up for another week at the most, so sorry for the late notice. If you do have the free time, however, go see it. I really enjoyed it.

Pablo has been coming over for dinner several nights a week since forever, it seems. Sometimes he brings a bottle of wine. Other times, maybe some fruit or cheese and crackers. A few times, when I was dead broke (happens more times than I'm comfortable with - it's expensive to live here and no one gets into my line of work to become rich), he shopped for groceries. While I cook, he reads. While I do dishes afterwards, he reads. If it's not too late, we'll move from the kitchen to the living room, I'll take up my knitting, and he'll continue to read.

In this manner, we've made our way through quite a pile of books. Currently, we're alternating between excerpts from Twain's Life on the Mississippi and Herodotus's Histories. (This begs the question: was Twain an American Herodotus or was Herodotus a Greek Twain?)

Today is my dinner partner, storyteller and friend's 39th birthday. As always, I wish him much comfort and happiness, and I hope that his day is a pleasant one.

A Happy Birthday

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

-Ted Kooser

Though I enjoy fresh and new for this venture, sometimes it's nice to revisit old favorites. These three keep turning up in my spirit at about this time every year:

This, as, though technical Spring has been here for a couple weeks, a "winter mind" is necessary to make sense of an Easter that could very well be a snowbound one.

This, because when Spring *does* get around to making an appearance, it's a subtle one whose cues are unmistakable for us Northern Types.

This, because I'm starting now, with much help from my loves, to feel my way out of the earth like a seedling making its way towards the sun. (It's been a very difficult couple years, sickening, dying and now starting to come back. I couldn't do it without my army of 'tus'...you know who you are.)

(What looks like about the only translation of the Rodriguez. Go figure.)

April Fooled!

March does not have and never did have 32 days. Being caught with my head in the clouds and my pants down, I don't have much planned for the moment, save for an a propos bit by Emily Dickinson:

It's all I have to bring today –

This, and my heart beside –

This, and my heart, and all the fields –

And all the meadows wide –

Be sure you count – should I forget

Some one the sum could tell

–This, and my heart, and all the Bees

Which in the Clover dwell.

I just learned recently that my next-door neighbors (separated from me by a chain-link fence) have bought a house and are moving south. No more conversations and plant seedlings to pass over that fence (for the time being, anyway). No more puppies to run around the fence and sniff about while I weed or plant.

If 'good fences make good neighbors,' then this fence is a very good one. Hopefully it'll help conjure up new neighbors who are just as nice.

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

-Robert Frost

First Fig

MY CANDLE burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Yup, that's about right. Lots going on right now and I'm most certainly not as young as I used to be. (oh well).

When the big picture is too much to handle, I find that the incremental approach to living works pretty well.

Each Day A Life

I count each day a little life,
With birth and death complete;
I cloister it from care and strife
And keep it sane and sweet.

With eager eyes I greet the morn,
Exultant as a boy,
Knowing that I am newly born
To wonder and to joy.

And when the sunset splendours wane
And ripe for rest am I,
Knowing that I will live again,
Exultantly I die.

O that all Life were but a Day
Sunny and sweet and sane!
And that at Even I might say:
"I sleep to wake again."

- Robert Service

Oh, come on now. You knew that this was coming:

Paul Revere's Ride

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
>From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

***

Happy Patriots Day! Happy Marathon Monday!

"And It Goes Like This: 0-1-1-2-3-5-8"

My friend Anna Maria (yes, Pablo's little sister - they're a family of mathematically-inclined types) sent not a poem, but a link to a poetic structure based on Fibonacci numbers. Enjoy!

(You bet I'm going to give this a try...if anyone else has the urge/courage to do so, why not send in your results? Would love to see them.)

Forsythias

My birch-swinger friend didn't start out that way: he began as a city boy. City flora is a bit different from country flora, but that doesn't mean that one might wax less poetical about it:

"...When I think of spring, I think of a few things. I
think of baseball. I am sure I could find some good [poetry] there but I
didn't know if you'd like them or your readers would as much. I think of
dirt. Digging in it, to be specific. I didn't have a lot of luck there.
I think of flowers, of course, but that is just too broad a subject so
I went with the flowers that say spring to me the most, forsythia. I
had no real appreciation for them when I was a kid, or so I thought.
But this poet reminded me that I did as I had more than one Forsythia
Fortress myself back in the day(s). Thanks for inspiring me to look. It was neat to figure out that this shrub has been a part of me for all this time.

FORSYTHIA FORTRESS
Tenth Poem of Merit

Yes, I remember
My forsythia fortress
A summer sanctuary
That berry bakery
And many muddy smiles.

Occupied for hours
In a heavenly haven
Always wildly wondering
About the planes passing
And worldly wiles.

So many feelings
In the damp daylight
Feet feeling fingers
Drawing vain Van Gogh's
To rhythm and rhyme.

How can I forget
So many mysteries
The lifting laughter
That privileged privacy
In my forsythia fortress.

-Brooke Umstead Good, Ocean View, Delaware

(This was printed in a book called Windows, Rainbows, and Salt Spray II,
the Anthology of the Ocean City Poetry Chapter and the Ocean City
Museum Society. This one was published in 1985.)"

***

I will always associate forsythias with my Danish grandma and love them because of that. She lived in the city and had a huge, rank bush practically flush with her front porch. How I enjoyed holing up with my little brother behind its densness, shaded by stray, arching branches laden with gold blooms.

We're a bit late in getting the first hike up Pumpelley/Cascade this year. It's an easy (albeit longer) hike up, but it's also very scenic and about what the knee can handle nowadays. We've hiked it enough now that my body can just about feel its way up.

Of course, I pay attention to where I'm going; am very vigilant (of course I am! Lack of focus is what caused me to fall and hurt myself two falls ago) now. Just comfortable as well. That's a rare feeling for me, and it's funny to feel so with such an imposing-looking mountain.

Monadnock in Early Spring

Cloud-topped and splendid, dominating all
The little lesser hills which compass thee,
Thou standest, bright with April's buoyancy,
Yet holding Winter in some shaded wall
Of stern, steep rock; and startled by the call
Of Spring, thy trees flush with expectancy
And cast a cloud of crimson, silently,
Above thy snowy crevices where fall
Pale shrivelled oak leaves, while the snow beneath
Melts at their phantom touch. Another year
Is quick with import. Such each year has been.
Unmoved thou watchest all, and all bequeath
Some jewel to thy diadem of power,
Thou pledge of greater majesty unseen.

-Amy Lowell

On Vamps and Vampires

Monsieur Co-lihn sends some more Kipling, along with a woman's response to it:

"Kipling's "The Vampire" has always been a guilty pleasure of mine, and I
found this retort to that poem in an old collection of poems published circa
1941:

A Woman's Answer To "The Vampire"

A fool there was, and she lowered her pride,
(Even as you and I!)
To a bunch of conceit in a masculine hide-
We saw the faults that could not be denied,
But the fool saw only his manly side,
(Even as you and I!)

Oh, the love she laid on her own heart's grave,
With care of her head and hand,
Belongs to the man who did not know,
(And now she knows that he could never know),
And did not understand.

A fool there was and her best she gave,
(Even as you and I!)
Of noble thoughts, of gay and grave,
(And all were accepted as due to the knave).
But the fool would never her folly save-
(Even as you and I!)

Oh, the stabs she hid, which the Lord forbid,
Had ever been really planned,
She took from the man who didn't know why,
(And now she knows he never knew why),
And did not understnand.

The fool was loved while the game was new
(Even as you and I!)
And when it was played, she took her cue,
(Plodding along as most of us do),
Trying to keep his faults from view
(Even as you and I!)

And it isn't the ache of the heart, or its break
That stings like a white-hot brand-
It's learning to know that she raised the rod,
And bent her head to kiss the rod
For one who could not understand.

-Felicia Blake


Here's the original, in its mysoginistic glory:

The Vampire

A FOOL there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
(We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair
(Even as you and I!)
Oh the years we waste and the tears we waste
And the work of our head and hand,
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand.

A fool there was and his goods he spent
(Even as you and I!)
Honor and faith and a sure intent
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(And it wasn’t the least what the lady meant),
(Even as you and I!)

Oh the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
And the excellent things we planned,
Belong to the woman who didn’t know why
(And now we know she never knew why)
And did not understand.

The fool we stripped to his foolish hide
(Even as you and I!)
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside—
(But it isn’t on record the lady tried)
So some of him lived but the most of him died—
(Even as you and I!)

And it isn’t the shame and it isn’t the blame
That stings like a white hot brand.
It’s coming to know that she never knew why
(Seeing at last she could never know why)
And never could understand.

-Rudyard Kipling

A little bit of old movie trivia: this poem was sort of turned into a silent
flick called "A Fool There Was", starring Theda Bara as the screen's
first "Vamp". I saw this movie years ago, it wasn't bad."

I actually have a copy of it: it's pretty darn melodramatic and one can see very well how Theda Bara got her nickname from it.

Avril, j'écris ton nom!

Mon ami du loin (who I'm trying hard not to call Madame Defarge) felt inspired to create a bit of concrete poetry:



"Avril, le mois de la nature, de la poésie, des mots, des verbes, des fleurs des champs, des espoirs, des rêves du futur et du passe...Avril, j'écris ton nom!"

(April, month of nature, of poetry, of words, of verbs (actions), of flowers in the fields, of hopes, of dreams of the future and the past...April, I write your name!)

Silly Little Moth.

Harry paid a visit this morning and left me with this gem that he heard on the David Lee Roth show:

Silly little moth:
Drawn into the flame for warmth,
Stupid idiot.

It really captures the feeling of coming into work on a Monday morning, now, doesn't it?

Purple Cows (and Pink Elephants?)

I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!

-Gellett Burgess, 1895

Apparently he regretted penning those lines, as can be seen in this followup:

Ah yes, I wrote The Purple Cow,
I'm sorry now I wrote it;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'll kill you if you quote it!

My dad tells me that Burgess and his friends were quite the pranksters. One incident in San Francisco apparently caused him to lose his job:

"He would lose his job, shortly, when he and some of his fellow members of
the writing circle known as Les Jeunes would commit an outrageous act of
prankersterism. Cogswell, a noted teototaller, had given the City of San
Francisco several statues of himself holding a glass of water. A concealed
pipe kept the glass filled. Burgess and his confederates altered one of
these monuments in a way which no biographer has found fit to describe."

-Thanks, Dad, for remembering this one!

Aimee downstairs, though a writer, absolutely hates poetry. "I only do prose," she once told me.

How funny to find her in her cubicle reciting this in her best Sco?ish accent:

To a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an' strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither'd rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro' blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned,
Like taps o' trissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer
Gie her a haggis!

-Robert Burns, 1786

***

Never tried Haggis before, but anything that's had an ode penned to it by a bard has to be food of the gods. The foods claimed by my forebears, kishka and lutefisk, don't have quite the cache, but are still quite good (if you ignore what's in them).

Another Friday in Lent.

Should I get myself oysters or fried smelts for dinner? Maybe I should see if the market up the street still has any yellow pike left. Freshwater fish is somewhat of a rarity on the seacoast, so this childhood favorite would be a real treat.

Fish Crier

I KNOW a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with a voice like a north wind blowing over corn stubble in January.
He dangles herring before prospective customers evincing a joy identical with that of Pavlowa dancing.
His face is that of a man terribly glad to be selling fish, terribly glad that God made fish, and customers to whom he may call his wares, from a pushcart.

-Carl Sandburg, from Chicago Poems

Losing and finding one's self in love; loving for the sake of love...better than sex in my book.

The whole world is a marketplace for Love,
For naught that is, from Love remains remote.
The Eternal Wisdom made all things in Love.
On Love they all depend, to Love all turn.
The earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars
The center of their orbit find in Love.
By Love are all bewildered, stupefied,
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.

From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
What do all seek so earnestly? "Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer "Thou" and "I" exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find that the secret of them both is Love.

-Farid ud Din Attar



-"The Concourse of the Birds" from Attar's The Conference of the Birds, painted by Habib Allah, ca. 1600.

Résumé

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

-Dorothy Parker

Most of the time it's only by sheer force of will that I get myself out of bed in the morning and drag me into work.

I really do have to get my résumé updated.

Warmed by the glow of a star that may or may not have died on him, Pablo decided to learn the Romanian Language. Here is one of the fruits of his translation efforts along with a bit of explanation:

I mailed a “La mulţi ani” to Stefan in Singapore. He is two years younger than I. He sent back likewise.

Now one more time, my submission for the (poetry) blog. A poem I like intellectually for the sense of paradox that it builds up and reiterates in a few short lines, but also for the ambiguous conclusion. Is it about hope? Or regret? Or just about making the most of pleasant memories?

La Steaua

La steaua care-a răsărit
E-o cale-atât de lungă,
Că mii de ani i-au trebuit
Luminii să ne-ajungă.

Poate de mult s-a stins în drum
În depărtări albastre,
Iar raza ei abia acum
Luci vederii noastre,

Icoana stelei ce-a murit
Încet pe cer se suie:
Era pe când nu s-a zărit,
Azi o vedem, şi nu e.

Tot astfel când al nostru dor
Pieri în noapte-adâncă,
Lumina stinsului amor
Ne urmăreşte încă.

-Mihai Eminescu

For the Star

For the star that just arose
There lies so long a way,
Thousands of years must come to close
That we might see its ray.

And very like it flickered out,
Out in the blue expanses,
Yet now its light has come about
To glimmer in our glances.

The image of the star that died,
A slowly climbing dot,
Though when it was, it wasn’t spied,
Is seen now, and is not.

Just so, when in the deepest dark
Our longings perished lay,
Extinguished love has sent a spark
Pursuing us today.

-My translation

Pablo, however, is alive and well and is celebrating his 38th April today. I wish him all the happiness in the world and send out about the best definition of this state I've come across:

Happiness

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

-Carl Sandburg

Missed Birthday.

I was in a bit of a panic this morning because I didn't get a birthday card out in time. Then I remembered: Vince would have been 92 today.

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots,
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Hard to believe, but I'm not the hugest fan of Poetry. I particularly hated it when I was younger and had to submit to it (along with its interpretations) being crammed down my throat like horse pills:

Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and

school-books'; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
'literalists of
the imagination'--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them', shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.

It's taken a fair bit of time for me to come around to enjoying it, much like it's been taking me some time to warm up to Marianne Moore. There's a lot to be said for poetry that works (for me), just like there's a lot to be said for a poet who loves baseball and animals, who writes of beautiful things she's dreamt of acquiring, who is so plain-speaking, and who just gets it.

We do take requests here, so drop a line if you'd like. Send a link if you have a blog. Let us know what sort of rhythmic word arrangements (from songs to favorite childhood rhymes) move you!

April Fool

April, 2006: My 35th year, year five of the poetry month escapades, the job, the current residence and the relationship. Eight years since I gave up the musical pursuits for more lucrative ones and 14 since I finished structured study. It's 18 years (half a lifetime) that I've been living in a place I'd only meant to stay in for four. To what end?

The Conundrum of the Workshops

WHEN the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Til the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

Wherefore he called to his wife and fled to fashion his work anew—
The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;
And he left his lore to the use of his sons—and that was a glorious gain
When the Devil chuckled: "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain.

They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,
Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?"
The stone was dropped by the quarry-side, and the idle derrick swung,
While each man talked of the aims of art, and each in an alien tongue.

They fought and they talked in the north and the south, they talked and they fought in the west,
Till the waters rose on the jabbering land, and the poor Red Clay had rest—
Had rest till the dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,
And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?"

The tale is old as the Eden Tree—as new as the new-cut tooth—
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?"

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, as the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"

When the flicker of London's sun falls faint on the club-room's green and gold,
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mold—
They scratch with their pens in the mold of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start
When the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it art?"

Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the four great rivers flow,
And the wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,
And if we could come when the sentry slept, and softly scurry through,
By the favor of God we might know as much—as our father Adam knew.

-Rudyard Kipling

This also comes to mind:

L'Horloge

Horloge! dieu sinistre, effrayant, impassible,
Dont le doigt nous menace et nous dit: «Souviens-toi!
Les vibrantes Douleurs dans ton coeur plein d'effroi
Se planteront bientôt comme dans une cible;

Le Plaisir vaporeux fuira vers l'horizon
Ainsi qu'une sylphide au fond de la coulisse;
Chaque instant te dévore un morceau du délice
À chaque homme accordé pour toute sa saison.

Trois mille six cents fois par heure, la Seconde
Chuchote: Souviens-toi! — Rapide, avec sa voix
D'insecte, Maintenant dit: Je suis Autrefois,
Et j'ai pompé ta vie avec ma trompe immonde!

Remember! Souviens-toi! prodigue! Esto memor!
(Mon gosier de métal parle toutes les langues.)
Les minutes, mortel folâtre, sont des gangues
Qu'il ne faut pas lâcher sans en extraire l'or!

Souviens-toi que le Temps est un joueur avide
Qui gagne sans tricher, à tout coup! c'est la loi.
Le jour décroît; la nuit augmente; Souviens-toi!
Le gouffre a toujours soif; la clepsydre se vide.

Tantôt sonnera l'heure où le divin Hasard,
Où l'auguste Vertu, ton épouse encor vierge,
Où le Repentir même (oh! la dernière auberge!),
Où tout te dira Meurs, vieux lâche! il est trop tard!»

-Charles Baudelaire

Why such darkness at the beginning of spring? Why all this self-questioning? I guess because with spring comes flight, and I never took wing like so many others did. I find myself frozen and aging in a city that's perpetually young; unable to move forward as I'm always questioning the footsteps and weighing one expert opinion against another conflicting one.

Thank you to Harold for this:

A New England poet often referred to as "the American Wordsworth".

"The world in which Bryant was at home is neither the dizzy mountainous terrain of Emerson nor the haunted midnight landscape of Poe. But, though it may never be a dazzling or romantic domain, after turbulent days we are glad for its quiet assurance. It may not be enchanted ground, but it has the comfort of good earth: it is sure haven."


Louis Untermeyer, Editor's Introduction,
The Poems of William Culllen Bryant,
Limited Editions Club, New York, NY, c.1947.

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood

Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men,
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengance. God hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, Misery. Hence these shades
Are still the abode of gladness; the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit; while below
The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,
Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade
Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam.
That waked them into life. Even the green trees
Partake the deep contentment; as they bend
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wildflower seems to enjoy
Existence, than the winged plunderer
That sucks its sweets. The mossy rocks themselves,
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a causeway rude,
Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their roots upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquility. The rivulet
Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed
Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks
Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice
In its own being. Softly tread the marge,
Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren
That dips her bill in water. The cool wind,
That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass
Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace.

-William Cullen Bryant

I remember years ago, my friend Pavel reciting this poem to a Russian friend of mine who was a huge fan of poetry and Yevtushenko's work in particular. She was amazed to be talking about a long dormant love in her native tongue in her new home. I remember crying over the swan song of the lost brother. Anyway, let me leave the word to Pavel:

I found it by Googling the remembered refrain “dove-gray brother”. The Cyrillic didn’t appear correctly in my browser – it came out as a lot of funny accented Roman letters – until I fixed that by right-clicking in Windows Explorer and choosing Cyrillic under Encoding.

I heard Yevgeny Yevtushenko recite some of his poems at Princeton, in 1985 or 86 I think (my freshman year). He delivered some in English, others in Russian (these preceded by readings of the translations by a certain literature professor, from Queens College as I recall, who accompanied him on stage.) Yevtushenko was quite charismatic and expressive, even if you didn’t know the language. (It helped to have been told the content first.)

LAMENT FOR A BROTHER

To V. Shchukin

With blood still dripping from its
warm and sticky beak,
its neck dangling over a bucket's edge,
a goose lies rocking in a boat,
like an ingot
of slightly tarnished silver.
There had been two of them flying
above the river Vilyui.
The first had been brought down in flight
while the other,
gliding low,
risking his neck,
hovers over the boat,
cries over the forest:
"My dove-gray brother,
we came into the world
clamorously breaking through our shells,
but every morning
Mother and Father
fed you first,
when it might have been me.
My dove-gray brother,
you had this blue tinge,
teasing the sky with a bold similarity.
I was darker,
and the females desired
you more,
when it might have been me.
My dove-gray brother,
without fear for the return,
you and I flew away, over the seas,
but obnoxious geese from other lands surrounded
you first,
when it might have been me.
My dove-gray brother,
we were beaten and bowed.
Together we were lashed by the tempests,
but for some reason the water slid
more easily off your goose's back
when it might have been mine.
My dove-gray brother,
we frayed out feathers.
People will eat both of us by the fireside -
perhaps because
the struggle to be first
devoured you,
consumed me.
My dove-gray brother,
half our lives was a pecking match,
not treasuring our brotherhood, our wings, and our souls.
Was reliance really impossible -
I on you,
and you on me?
My dove-gray brother,
I beg at least for a pellet,
curbing my envy too late;
but for my punishment people killed
you first,
when it might have been me..."

1974

Translated by Arthur Boyars and Simon Franklin

This poem struck me particularly. He explained in English, before the English translation and his Russian recitation, that it was inspired by the event that made him gave up hunting. Once he killed a beautiful goose with unusual, striking bluish-grey plumage, and after that another goose flew overhead and cried. His imagination supplied the rest of the sad story of jealousy and regrets, and the poem.

Here is a transliteration, so you can have some sense of the dactylic meter and rhyme of the original. Also “you” and “me,” so often repeated, provide an internal rhyme in many lines. (Or at least have an assonance, “tebya” and “menya”). So I think it would better translate using “thee” and “me,” despite the spurious archaism in English. I suppose you will challenge me to make my own complete rhyming translation.

By the way, the Russian for “goose” happens to be “gus’” transliterated and almost the same pronounced! (Just palatalize the s.)

PLACH PO BRATU


S krov’yu iz klyuva, tyopel i lipok,

Sheyey motaya po krayu vedra,

V lodke kachayetsya gus’ budto slitok

Chut’ chernovatovo serebra.

Dvoye leteli oni vdol’ Vilyuya.

Pervyy ulozhen byl vlyot, a drugoy,

Nizko letya, golovoyu riskuya,

Kruzhit nad lodkoy, krichit nad taygoy:

“Sizyy moy brat, poyavilis’ my v mire,

Gromko svoyu skorlupu prolomya,

No po utram tebya pervym kormili

Mat’ i otets, a mogli by – menya.

Sizyy moy brat, ty byl chutochku sinii,

Nebo pokhozhest’yu derzkoy draznya,

Ya byl temnei, i lyubili gusyni

Bol’she – tebya, a mogli by – menya.

Sizyy moy brat, vozvrashchat’sya ne trusya,

My uleteli s toboy za morya,

No obstupali zamorskiye gusy

Pervym – tebya, a mogli by – menya.

Sizyy moy brat, my i bity i gnuty,

Vmeste nas livny khlestali klhest’mya,

Tol’ko skhodila voda pochemu-to

Legche s tebya, a mogla by – s menya.

Sizyy moy brat, istrepali my per’ya.

Lyudi s’’yedyat nas dvoikh u ognya.

Ne potomy l’, chto stremleniye byt’ pervym

Yelo tebya, pozhiralo menya?

Sizyy moy brat, my klevalis’ polzhizni,

Bratstva, i kryl’yev, i dush ne tsenya.

Razve nel’zya bylo nam polozhit’sya,

Mne – na tebya, a tebe – na menya?

Sizyy moy brat, ya proshu khot’ drobiny,

Zavist’ moyu zapozdalo klyanya,

No v nakazan’ye mne lyudi ubili

Pervym – tebya, a mogli by – menya.

Dale sent me some other works by W H Auden:

I was going to send you a couple of Auden favorites, but I see you've
already put him up, so if this is now only for your private pleasure,
so be it. The Yeats poem is well known. I believe the poem "The
Geography of the House" originally came from a book of the same name
of poems about rooms in a house; the phrase itself is also a British
euphemism, and I suppose few could describe the inelegant so
elegantly, or love so wistfully.


In Memory Of W.B. Yeats

He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
The snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

W H Auden



The Geography of the House
(for Christopher Isherwood)

Seated after breakfast
In this white-tiled cabin
Arabs call the House where
Everybody goes,
Even melancholics
Raise a cheer to Mrs.
Nature for the primal
Pleasure She bestows.

Sex is but a dream to
Seventy-and-over,
But a joy proposed un-
-til we start to shave:
Mouth-delight depends on
Virtue in the cook, but
This She guarantees from
Cradle unto grave.

Lifted off the potty,
Infants from their mothers
Hear their first impartial
Words of worldly praise:
Hence, to start the morning
With a satisfactory
Dump is a good omen
All our adult days.

Revelation came to
Luther in a privy
(Crosswords have been solved there)
Rodin was no fool
When he cast his Thinker,
Cogitating deeply,
Crouched in the position
Of a man at stool.

All the arts derive from
This ur-act of making,
Private to the artist:
Makers' lives are spent
Striving in their chosen
Medium to produce a
De-narcissus-ized en-
During excrement.

Freud did not invent the
Constipated miser:
Banks have letter boxes
Built in their façade
Marked For Night Deposits,
Stocks are firm or liquid,
Currencies of nations
Either soft or hard.

Global Mother, keep our
Bowels of compassion
Open through our lifetime,
Purge our minds as well:
Grant us a king ending,
Not a second childhood,
Petulant, weak-sphinctered,
In a cheap hotel.

Keep us in our station:
When we get pound-notish,
When we seem about to
Take up Higher Thought,
Send us some deflating
Image like the pained ex-
-pression on a Major
Prophet taken short.

(Orthodoxy ought to
Bless our modern plumbing:
Swift and St. Augustine
Lived in centuries
When a stench of sewage
Made a strong debating
Point for Manichees.)

Mind and Body run on
Different timetables:
Not until our morning
Visit here can we
Leave the dead concerns of
Yesterday behind us,
Face with all our courage
What is now to be.

W H Auden



O Tell Me The Truth About Love

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

W H Auden

Pablo on his choice:

"Ronald Reagan borrowed phrases from the first and last lines when he eulogized the astronauts who died in the Space Shuttle. That must be the unremembered source of the phrase “surly bonds of earth” which was in my head and recurred to me while reading some of the early Lovecraft stories – like the ones with protagonist Randolph Carter -- which are more escapist fantasy than horror, treating of the dream-world travelers escaping from the mundane. But the poem itself is about the very real experience of an airplane pilot."

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless falls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew--
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God

-John Gillespe Magee

Let me leave today's word to Hal - New Englander, Printmaker, fan of J. J. Lankes:

***

Here are three poems my Maine author Robert P. Tristram Coffin, from
his collection "Saltwater Farm" (illustrated by JJ Lankes
incidentally). The poems have a regionalist or New England
sensibility about them, with references to working the earth, and a
keen perception of nature, much like in Lankes woodcuts.

THE FOG

He knew how Roman legions looked, for he
Had seen the Maine coast fogs march in from the sea
For many years now, in the August days.
They came in mighty columns up the bays,
Tawny and gray and silver in the sun;
They trampled out the seaports one by one,
The islands and the woods, with their high hosts,
And pushed the world back inland from the coasts.

This little house was lost, these hills and dells,
Cows in pasture faded into bells,
The world around a man closed in and in
Till nowhere was ten paces from this chin.
A man drew up and halted with a start
To be so close to his beating heart
And left so to himself and wholly blind
To everything but what was in his mind.

This was the peril and the comfort, too,
A man who lived in such a region knew;
On any Summer's day, within an hour,
He might be blind and naked to a power
So vast, it might have come from stars unmade,
Undreamt of, even, making him afraid,
So mightier than the night that he could guess
How life was but a name for loneliness.


FOOTSTEPS OF FLAME

His father had explained it all to him;
How rockweed in November at the rim
Of ebb tide showed a phosphorescent mark
When you stepped upon it in the dark.
That was all the story. Just the same,
The boy still thought the footprints were still a flame,
And he believed their feet must give out light,
Which made them show up plain there in the night.

You could not get around it. There they lay,
Footmarks you could see as plain as day
Coming up from behind as they walked,
The big ones and the little. While they talked
Of things of everyday, the steps came on,
There must be something to them so they shone.
It was simplest to believe 'twas so
And not trust things a small boy could not know.

That was the beginning. But it spread,
Until it got into the small boy's head
That always when his father was along
Something burned inside them that was strong
As sunlight, fierce and hot and clean,
Something very lovely though unseen,
And sometimes he had hard work no to stare
As though a wing had stirred his father's hair.



TAKING THE TURN

The best time on a farm is when
Sleep lies on the most of men.

It is when you rise and go
By starlight, through the dew or snow,

With your lantern by your side,
To see that all is right outside.

You take your turn to see all the housed;
The cows with velvet eyeballs drowsed.

The hens grown gentle as the dove,
Bunched all together in their love.

The utter peace of sleeping pigs,
Strange lacework of the maple twigs.

The fairy world that spiders spin
Along the corners of the bin.

The house's gable high with night,
Familiar things made strange by light.

Undulant beauty in a plow,
A pitchfork's shadow on the mow.

Wings out of homely things that soar
When your lanterns on the floor.

The shadow that a staple throws,
Hay chaff like an airy rose.

All is gentle, slow, and sure,
Peace behind each fastened door.

All is quiet, hunger done,
Peace beyond light of the sun.

A J.J. Lankes illustration from Coffin's "Saltwater Farm"