Merry Christmas! (PS You can still comment on Liam’s Wells until Dec 31st.)
[little tree]
by e.e. cummings
little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don’t be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads ,
put up your little arms
and i’ll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won’t be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you’re quite dressed
you’ll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they’ll stare!
oh but you’ll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we’ll dance and sing
“Noel Noel”
As we bid adieu to National Poetry Month and gear up for summer, I wanted to share this short poem from Wendell Berry. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little series this month. I’ve neglected to many great poets. It’s criminal, really. We’ll have to do this again next year. Remind me to share my favorite Imagist poem then. Do yourself a favor and read this poem slowly, then read it twice more. Enjoy!
Obviously I can’t let National Poetry Month end without paying homage to The Bard. And since today is Prince William and (now Princess) Kate’s wedding day (though noting that may mean I’m unpatriotic), a love poem is appropriate. This poem isn’t about new, fresh, love, though, so it’s not really directed at wedding day exuberance. It is, perhaps, more about golden years love. Read it and let me know what you think.
"The Eternity of Morning" by Vaughn Teegarden
Sonnet 74
But be contented when that fell attest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee.
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My sp’rit is thine, the better part of me.
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered.
The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.
Even if you read poetry now and then, you probably have not heard of Eaven Boland. That’s a shame. She’s basically amazing. I would not have known her poetry either except for a friend’s intrepid academic interest in all things Irish. Here’s a poem of Boland’s that I enjoy. Let me know what you think.
So, last week sometime, I asked my facebook friends what they thought of fictional characters who swore. The results were mostly as I expected: religious people tended to either dislike it or hate it, people without strong ties to faith thought it shouldn’t be a problem, and people invested in critical analysis or artistic production landed somewhere in between (out of maybe nine respondents). During the discussion, I asked if it was possible to swear a prayer, or to “pray a swear,” so to speak. Now, I am not a Calvinist, and I don’t think all of humanity is inherently evil, BUT– I do recognize that we all have faults, and God has none. So, being imperfect, our speech is necessarily imperfect, and yet we use this imperfect speech to address Perfection. Profanity, it seems to me, is extra-imperfect speech (I will spare you Susan’s Grand Theory of Inappropriate Language Usage right now, but perhaps it would be worth discussing in the future). However, our inherent imperfection doesn’t, I think, excuse us from addressing Deity as perfectly as we can. Neither should our imperfection be used as an excuse to avoid interaction with the Divine altogether. If only perfect people could pray, then no one could. Also, why would perfect people need to? Only the sick need The Physician.
So, in light of all that, a friend directed me to this poem. What do you think the speaker’s relationship with faith/God/religion is? I have substituted one teeny swear word with a less offensive word, because I don’t want to confuse profane-ity with profanity. I hope you know what I mean.
Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk.
Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks.
I ought to start with praise, but praise
comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you
about the woman whom I taught, in bed,
this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form
keeps things in order. I hear from her sometimes.
Do you? And after love, when I was hungry,
I said, Make me something to eat. She yelled, Poof! You’re a casserole!— and laughed so hard
she fell out of the bed. Take care of her.
Next, confession– the dreary part. At night
deer drift from the dark woods and eat my garden.
They’re like enormous rats on stilts except,
of course, they’re beautiful. But why? What makes
them beautiful? I haven’t shot one yet.
I might. When I was twelve, I’d ride my bike
out to the dump and shoot the rats. It’s hard
to kill your rats, our Father. You have to use
a hollow point and hit them solidly.
A leg is not enough. The rat won’t pause. Yeep! Yeep! it screams, and scrabbles, three-legged, back
into the trash, and I would feel a little bad
to kill something that wants to live
more savagely than I do, even if
it’s just a rat. My garden’s vanishing.
Perhaps I’ll merely plant more beans, though that
might mean more beautiful and hungry deer.
Who knows?
I’m sorry for the times I’ve driven
home past a black, enormous, twilight ridge.
Crested with mist, it looked like a giant wave
about to break and sweep across the valley,
and in my loneliness and fear I’ve thought, O let it come and wash the whole world clean. Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair–
whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer.
O Father, thank you for all the birds and trees,
that nature stuff. I’m grateful for good health,
food, air, some laughs, and all the other things
I’m grateful that I’ve never had to do
without. I have confused myself. I’m glad
there’s not a rattrap large enough for deer.
While at the zoo last week, I sat and wept
when I saw one elephant insert his trunk
into another’s [behind], pull out a lump,
and whip it back and forth impatiently
to free the goodies hidden in the lump.
I could have let it mean most anything,
but I was stunned again at just how little
we ask for in our lives. Don’t look! Don’t look! Two young nuns tried to herd their giggling
schoolkids away. Line up, they called. Let’s go
and watch the monkeys in the monkey house. I laughed, and got a dirty look. Dear Lord,
we lurch from metaphor to metaphor,
which is — let it be so– a form of praying.
I’m usually asleep by now — the time
for supplication. Requests. As if I’d stayed
up late and called the radio and asked
they play a sentimental song. Embarrassed.
I want a lot of money and a woman.
And, also, I want vanishing cream. You know–
a character like Popeye rubs it on
and disappears. Although you see right through him,
he’s there. He chuckles, stumbles into things,
and smoke that’s clearly visible escapes
from his invisible pipe. It makes me think,
sometimes, of you. What makes me think of me
is the poor jerk who wanders out on air
and then looks down. Below his feet, he sees
eternity, and suddenly his shoes
no longer work on nothingness, and down
he goes. As I fall past, remember me.
Relatively speaking, anyway, because Kim is more likely to read the whole thing if it’s short. 🙂 I love e.e. cummings, and I know many people who love this poem. If I’m going to be honest, I have to say this poems creeps me out a little. I’ll tell you why after you’ve read it. Or you could just scroll down to the end. Enjoy!
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
***********
Did you enjoy that? Did you like the puddle-wonderfulness and the mud-luscious-osity? Me too. But you know what creeps me out? The balloonman, who starts out as lame, then becomes queer, and ends up goat-footed. Why is he goat-footed, folks? *shivers* Spring is a wild time for wild creatures, but I’m just saying. Creepy. What do you think?
Always sprinkle pepper in your hair,
Always sprinkle pepper in your hair.
For then if you are kidnapped by a Wild Barbazzoop,
Who sells you to a Ragged Hag,
Who wants you for her soup,
She’ll pick you up and sniff you,
And then she’ll sneeze “Achooo,”
And say, “My tot, you’re much too hot,
I fear you’ll never do.”
And with a shout she’ll throw you out,
And you’ll run away from there,
And soon you will be safe at home a-sittin’ in your chair,
If you always, always, always,
Always, always, always, always,
Always, always sprinkle pepper in your hair.
I am discovering, this year, that I am kind of terrified of Easter. It is, perhaps, a sinner’s fear, though I don’t feel like I’m any more sinful than usual. I don’t celebrate Lent or Palm Sunday or Holy Week, but typically Easter is my favorite holiday. Normally I revel in the triumph of Christ over sin, death, and infirmity of all kinds. However, as I think about tomorrow’s services (lovely) and celebrations (sweet), I find myself reluctant to engage as wholeheartedly as I have in the past. To get to Easter, you see, you have to have the despair of Good Friday. I think of Mary at the tomb, trembling and raw: “If thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” I think of the faithless despair of the disciples, of Peter’s “wondering in himself” when they receive the news that Christ has risen. I think earlier to the desolation of Mary and Martha, weeping over the death of Lazarus. I think of Christ’s own cry to His Father: “Why have You forsaken me?” The moment before the eucatastropheis inevitably a broken-hearted one. My hesitancy to embrace Easter this year, I think, comes from a wounded place within myself. I am already broken. Do I dare engage with this most broken act, this intense wrongness, that comes from the torture and death of the only sinless mortal to ever walk the Earth?
But this is the typical invitation of God, to exchange our pain for his mercy. We give up our burdens of sin, anxiety, pain, or oppression and receive instead His yoke, which is (comparatively) easy and light. It is a test of faith. There is security in anger. There is certainty in suffering. Who am I once I am not my sins? And do I really believe that, if I look away from my pain, there will be rest, and not more pain, in store? To celebrate the Resurrection, I have to be willing to relinquish much of myself that is flawed– and sometimes, it seems, I am only flaws. So at Easter, I have to look at that horrible place inside me where I keep all my badness (a hard enough task) and then I have to admit that God takes this stuff and spins gold from it. Sometimes I find the king’s prayer impossible: “O God . . . if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee” (Alma 22:18). To get to the glory of the Resurrection, we have to wade through the mess of Repentance. Otherwise, the Resurrection is just a pretty story that happens to other people. But I think you can see why I am a little intimidated this year. Everything before Easter just hurts.
*********************
Here is a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. You may just have to let it wash over you the first several times. The | indicates, I believe, a caesura, for which I give Hopkins mad props. However, caesurae are usually marked with //, not |, so it’s possible that this is punctuation unique to Hopkins. He kind of makes stuff up. Enjoy!
That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and the comfort of the Resurrection
Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows | flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
Built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs | they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, | wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle ‘in long | lashes, lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous | ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest’s creases; | in pool and rut peel parches
Squandering ooze to squeezed | dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches
Squadroned masks and manmarks | treadmire toil there
Footfretted in it. Million- fuel’ed | nature’s bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearest | to her, her clearest-selv’ed spark
Man, how fast his firedint | his mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark
Drowned. O pity and indig | nation! Manshape, that shone
Sheer off, disseveral, a star, | death blots black out; nor mark
Is any of him at all so stark
But vastness blurs and time | beats level. Enough! the Resurrection,
A heart’s-clarion! Away grief’s gasping | joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam. | Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; | world’s wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.
When I was a little girl, sometimes my mother would read to me from a collection of poetry that had been given to her when she was only 4. Poems of Childhoodby Eugene Field was first published in 1904, and contains many sentimental, almost fairy tale poems such as “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” “Little Boy Blue” (which always makes me tear up) and “The Duel.” Though he wrote other things, Field became known primarily for his poems for children. My very favorite of these poems is “The Sugar Plum Tree,” probably because there was a beautiful illustration accompanying this poem and maybe also because my grandparents had a large apricot tree. Anyway, it might not be e.e. cummings (we’ll get to him later), but it’s a sweet little thing to me. I hope you and the sweet little things in your life enjoy this one.
The Sugar Plum Tree
Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?
‘Tis a marvel of great renown!
It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;
The Sugar-Plum Tree, by Maxfield Parrish
The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet
(As those who have tasted it say)
That good little children have only to eat
Of that fruit to be happy next day.
When you’ve got to the tree, you would have a hard time
To capture the fruit which I sing;
The tree is so tall that no person could climb
To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!
But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,
And a gingerbread dog below —
And this is the way you contrive to get at
Those sugar-plums tempting you so:
You say but the word to that gingerbread dog
And he barks with such terrible zest
That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,
As her swelling proportions attest.
And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around
From this leafy limb to that,
And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground–
Hurrah for that chocolate cat!
There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,
With stripings of scarlet or gold,
And you carry away of the treasure that rains
As much as your apron can hold!
So come, little child, cuddle closer to me
In your dainty white nightcap and gown,
And I’ll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.
T. S. Eliot - If you think he looks frightening, wait until you see his poetry.
In honor of Good Friday (and Earth Day– there’s environment in this poem!), I’m posting section V., “What the Thunder Said,” from The Waste Land.T.S. Eliot has a (well-deserved) reputation for being difficult, but I feel confident that you can get at least the basic gist of this. This section is one of my favorite pieces of poetry of all time. Google the stuff you don’t know and tell me if you think it’s either appropriate or inappropriate for the tone of the day.
V. What the Thunder Said
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop
But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
–But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumors
Receive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down Poi s’acose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ulti chelidon — O swallow swallow La Prince d’Aquitaine a la tour abolie The fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Something Worth Reading 