Jeff & Akbar & Akbar

How many Akbars are there out there?

Funny Book ~ Matt Groening

Funny Video ~ Jeffery Dallas

The Obligation of a Child

From the poet W. S. Merwin
(September 30, 1927 - March 15, 2019)
writing about his father
in his memoir Summer Doorways:

“He had punished me fiercely for things I had not known were forbidden, when the list of known restrictions was already long and oppressive. I was told regularly that I loved him, as I was told that I loved God and Jesus, and I did not know at the time that the names for much of my feeling about him were really dread and anger.”

*********************

From the novelist Delia Ephron (b July 12, 1944)
writing about her mother
in the essay "Why I Can't Write About My Mother"
in her memoir Sister Mother Husband Dog:

". . . I was always wary around my mother. She was unpredictable. She could be mean. . . . I was always trying to read the signs, the looks between them, the jerky movements: Were they angry? What was coming? Would tonight be one of those nights?

. . . These are, I should point out, the things that children of alcoholics are sensitive to. Minutiae. Subtle details. Meanings that might sail over another child's head. I was always decoding. I was hyperalert.

Being hyperalert is a lasting thing. Being a watcher. Noticing emotional shifts, infinitesimally small tremors that flit over another person's face, the jab in a seemingly innocuous word, the quickening in a walk, an abrupt gesture -- the way, say, a jacket is tossed over a chair. [*See comment below from Shuggie Bain.]

. . . I believe having an alcoholic parent is not only something to write about, but that there is an obligation to do it. Growing up as that child is lonely, isolating, confusing, and damaging. There are lots of us. If I have the power by telling a story to make an isolated person less alone, that is a good thing. Besides, I don't believe in protecting parents who drink -- sympathizing, forgiving, but not protecting. . . . Tell everyone. you might never get past it otherwise. The obligation of a child is not to protect their parents. Obviously. Obviously. A mom is supposed to protect her kids. Which doesn't happen when she drinks.

. . . But even with all the knowledge we have today, children are still keeping the secrets their parents want them to keep. Children are loyal.

. . . She never apologized. . . . My mother had created a version of herself that she sold to the world: She was completely pulled together. . . . Superiority was part of her identity.

. . . I remember having to summon up the nerve -- I must have always been intimidated by my mother, because otherwise why would I remember that this took nerve? . . . She never said or confided; she distilled and proclaimed. I lived my life by the Book of Mom.

. . . This staggering myopia resulted in the lifelong belief (I'm sure shared with other children of alcoholics) that, when I am looking left, something is coming at me from the right. I am always trying to look in two directions at once, which is impossible.

. . . How could I ever understand that? I was a kid. Children of alcoholics are always in over their heads. . . . Have I done something wrong? Have I said something wrong? I'm sorry -- whatever happened must be my fault. Is everyone all right, and if they aren't, how can I step in?

. . . Facts were not easy to come by at our house.

. . . was she simply scattershot mean, or did she just not really like me?"

[Disclaimer: As mentioned previously, I have not experienced alcoholic distress firsthand, but I know all about trying to put a good spin on a bad story. Ephron's essay brought it home to me as no previous description ever has that some families are emotionally poisoned by parental behaviors that uncannily mimic alcoholism even without the alcohol. No surprise then that these children grow up to behave very like adult children of alcoholics.]

*********************

From the psychologist Jordan Peterson (b June 12, 1962)
speaking on the topic of
When Is It Right to WALK AWAY From Your FAMILY?

“Take a look at the people that are around you, and if they’re not on the side of what’s good for you, then walk away. Because, well, first of all that’s best for them too. If you put up with that, all you’re doing is enabling it: it’s like [you are saying] 'Well, it’s okay that you mistreat me in a way that’s harmful to me and everyone else.' Well, actually, no that is not okay. It’s not the least bit okay."

Instead, you have to say to the
dysfunctional friend or family member:

"'You’re aiming down so hard [being so negative, hurtful destructive], I’m not coming along with you, and the reason I’m not is to tell you in no uncertain terms that what you’re doing is so terrible that I will even violate our kinship to oppose it. . . . You tell me the story that you use to justify your own idiocy to yourself, and then . . . you demand that because I’m compassionate I accept it and therefore validate your excuse.'”

More from
Ephron, Merwin, Peterson
&
Duo Dickinson
"And we were broken.
Because our parents were broken.
Because children have no repair when hurt."
(also on facebook)

*********************

A bit of bitter humor from
Haiku U: 100 Great Books in 17 Syllables
by David M. Bader

The Social Contract
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
All vote. All consent.
It's like a big family.
Not mine, but someone’s.

Golden Anniversary

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

~ William Shakespeare

Renewal of Vows for Marion W. & David J. Carriker
Led by our brother The Rev. Bruce L. Carriker
Someone once said that the only thing required for a marriage to work is two people too stubborn to give up on each other. Anyone who has known Dave and Marion for any length of time knows they both have a stubborn streak. And we're here tonight because, for fifty years, they've been too stubborn to give up on each other.

The 13th Chapter of Paul's 1st Epistle to the Corinithians is often read at weddings. It is a challenge and a charge to newlyweds, laying out what love requires. But, when we read it tonight, not for newlyweds, but for a couple renewing their vows after fifty years together, we read it as a testimony to their life together; an explanation for how they've made it this far:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is slow to anger and quick to forgive; it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

There is a scene in the movie Parenthood where the husband, whose marriage is going through a rough patch, is talking to his grandmother; and the grandmother says this:

“You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again!
You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all at the same time!
Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing to it.
I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.”

Dave and Marion will both agree that their marriage has been a lot more like a roller coaster, than merry-go-round. But, they're here tonight to say, in front of all of us, “Oh, what a ride! I want to go again!”

(Dave, Marion join hands. David first, then Marion.)

(Marion/David), 50 years ago I promised to love you, honor you, comfort you, and keep you;
To be by your side in sickness and in health, for better or worse, for the rest of our lives.
Together, we have created a family, a home, and a lifetime of shared memories.
Today, in the presence of God, our family, and our friends, I affirm to you that I love you more now than I did then; that all those promises are still true; and that I will be here for you, for the rest of my life.

Prayer: Gracious and loving God,
We give you thanks for fifty years of blessing Dave and Mation's life together; for the love, joy, strength, support and happiness they have brought to one another; and to those of us lucky enough to be their family and friends.

We ask your continued blessing on them, individually, and in the life they have built together and will continue to build together, all the days of their lives.

You May Kiss the Bride!

The Pact: Sailing Right Behind

Happy
Belated Saint Patrick's Day
& Early Vernal Equinox,
& Thanks to my friend Mumbi
for this beautiful Friendship Rock!

I've been listening to a lot of golden oldies on the
car radio this week, including these two favorites:

Bridge Over Troubled Water
When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes,
I'll dry them all
I'm on your side
Oh, when times get rough
And friends just can't be found

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I'll take your part
Oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Sail on silver girl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine

Oh, if you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind

By Paul Simon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll Be There
You and I must make the pact
We must bring salvation back
Where there is love, I'll be there

I'll reach out my hand to you
I'll have faith in all you do
Just call my name and I'll be there

I'll be there to comfort you
Build my world of dreams around you
I'm so glad that I found you

I'll be there with a love that's strong
I'll be your strength
I'll keep holdin' on

Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter
Togetherness, girl, is all I'm after
Whenever you need me, I'll be there

I'll be there to protect you
With an unselfish love that respects you
Just call my name, I'll be there

I'll be there to comfort you
Build my world of dreams around you
I'm so glad that I found you

I'll be there with a love that's strong
I'll be your strength
I'll keep holdin' on

If you should ever find someone new
I know he better be good to you
'Cause if he doesn't
I'll be there

Don't you know baby
I'll be there, I'll be there
Just call my name, I'll be there
Just look over your shoulders honey, ooh!
I'll be there, I'll be there

Whenever you need me,
I'll be there, I'll be there
Don't you know baby
I'll be there, I'll be there
Just call my name, I'll be there

By Hal Davis, Berry Gordy,
Willie Hutch, Bob West
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Esther ~ Kitti ~ Mumbi ~

He Said She Said

Odysseus & Calypso

He Said:

I know very well, goddess, she is not beautiful
As you are: could not be. She is a woman,
Mortal, subject to the chances . . .

You are immortal and will never change
And can make me immortal also . . .

Nevertheless I long . . . for the island
Where the grass dies and the seasons alter:

Where that one wears the sunlight for a while.

~ from Calypso's Island *
~ by Archibald MacLeish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She Said:

Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury. . . .

She is more than that. She is your have to have . . .

I give you back your heart.
I give you permission . . .

As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

~ from For My Lover, Returning To His Wife *
~ by Anne Sexton

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To read the above poems in their entirety

see my latest post:

He Said She Said

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

* and click titles above
to hear the poets read their own work

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Old Letters & Notebooks

"Ribbons . . . pages of an old love letter . . ."

Burning The Letters

I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket
What did they know that I didn't?
Grain by grain, they unrolled
Sands where a dream of clear water
Grinned like a getaway car.
I am not subtle
Love, love, and well, I was tired
Of cardboard cartons the color of cement or a dog pack
Holding in it's hate
Dully, under a pack of men in red jackets,
And the eyes and times of the postmarks.

This fire may lick and fawn, but it is merciless:
A glass case
My fingers would enter although
They melt and sag, they are told
Do not touch.
And here is an end to the writing,
The spry hooks that bend and cringe and the smiles, the smiles
And at least it will be a good place now, the attic.
At least I won't be strung just under the surface,
Dumb fish
With one tin eye,
Watching for glints,
Riding my Arctic
Between this wish and that wish.

So, I poke at the carbon birds in my housedress.
They are more beautiful than my bodiless owl,
They console me--
Rising and flying, but blinded.
They would flutter off, black and glittering, they would be coal angels
Only they have nothing to say but anybody.
I have seen to that.
With the butt of a rake
I flake up papers that breathe like people,
I fan them out
Between the yellow lettuces and the German cabbage
Involved in it's weird blue dreams
Involved in a foetus.
And a name with black edges

Wilts at my foot,
Sinuous orchis
In a nest of root-hairs and boredom--
Pale eyes, patent-leather gutturals!
Warm rain greases my hair, extinguishes nothing.
My veins glow like trees.
The dogs are tearing a fox. This is what it is like
A read burst and a cry
That splits from it's ripped bag and does not stop
With that dead eye
And the stuffed expression, but goes on
Dyeing the air,
Telling the particles of the clouds, the leaves, the water
What immortality is. That it is immortal.

by Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coming across an old college notebook of American Poetry,
I rediscovered the above poem; my long - long lost favorites
from Joyce Carol Oates, and my hand - copied Larry Levis
selections, along with numerous others.
Additional Discoveries

For a few more examples, see my latest post:

He Said She Said

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Facebook

Daylight Loses

Amphoe Mueang ~ Samut Prakan ~ Bang Pu Mai
The slow and steady progress of the seasons never ceases to amaze! Way back on Januay 16th -- seven weeks ago! -- my friend Steven posted the cheering news:

"Tonight's the last time the sun will set before 5pm.
Spring's on its way!"
Not long after that, it was 6pm. Then, only last week, without even realizing that Daylight Saving Time was so near, I observed a few rays of fading sunlight lingering until as late as 7pm. Gradually, without doing a thing, we had gained two entire hours of evening light since the year's beginning!

Next thing you know, we Spring Forward and the very next night, it will be light until 8pm -- and not even offically Spring for another week! Of course, and somewhat sadly, the evening's gain is the morning's loss. I have never really understood the so - called advantage. Just be patient for another few weeks, and the extra hour will accrue naturally as we gain a few moments of light each and every day -- no intervention required.

"Daylight loses to another evening . . . "
~ Jackson Browne ~

Last Day of February ~ Sunset in Bangkok, Thailand

Eye Contact

A couple of years ago, when my nephew Hans
was recovering from surgery, he wondered aloud,
"What the heck is wrong with people
who refuse to make eye contact?"

I am proud to see that none other than Maya Angelou (above)
agrees with my response to him (below):

Dear Hans --

Keep on striving for that eye contact and don't worry about those who don't acknowledge. A few will and it will make your day -- and theirs. Years ago, when email was first a thing, your dad [my oldest brother, Dave] and I had a correspondence going about this same topic.

He was up in Pittsburgh, KS, at the time, and I was in Philly. Our plan was that he would walk around campus all day civilly nodding to all who crossed his path, and I would do the same in my neighborhood -- which was typical behavior for us anyway, but this time we would keep track of how many would respond with eye contact. The disappointing result was -- very few! Sometimes not a single person in an entire day!

What's wrong with them? Somehow it just seems to pain many people to acknowledge that they are surrounded by fellow travelers on the planet. Something has made them afraid and tight in their hearts. But don't ever stop trying to share that smile! I'm still at it, and soon your energy will return and you'll be back at it too!

XOXO, Aunt Kit

Post Script from Dave:

"And it didn't stop me from continuing to nod in open acceptance
and truly enjoy the occasional return. Hang in there Son."

****************

Post Script from Tony ~ 2019

Small Kindnesses

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

Danusha Laméris

Silk Windfall

“According to an ancient Chinese legend, one day in the year 240 B.C., Princess Si Ling-chi was sitting under a mulberry tree when a silkworm cocoon fell into her teacup. When she tried to remove it, she noticed that the cocoon had begun to unravel in the hot liquid. She handed the loose end to her maidservant and told her to walk. The servant went out of the princess's chamber, and into the palace courtyard, and through the palace gates, and out of the Forbidden City, and into the countryside a half mile away before the cocoon ran out. (In the West, this legend would slowly mutate over three millennia, until it became the story of a physicist and an apple. Either way, the meanings are the same: great discoveries, whether of silk or of gravity, are always windfalls. They happen to people loafing under trees.)”

~ from the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
~ also, check out this tenderhearted essay!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silk Display at the Jim Thompson House
Bangkok, Thailand

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more from Thailand
see my recent post

Baan Suan Ampond Residence

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flora or Fish?

Hanging red flowers
Magically similar to
A floating red fish


"Whatever you think you are,
that's not what you are."
Ajahn Sumedho (b 1934)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more Thai Proverbs
see my recent post

Baan Suan Ampond Residence

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Day That's In It

Vickie Triumphant

Do what I just did:
read these ~ reviews,
and order an advance copy from amazon!
Congrats Professor Amador!

Victoria & Olivia
Having Champagne & Discussing the Memoirs

Not Who You Are

Joni & Hannah ~ Thanks for sharing this very honest article and definition of abuse. The list of "that's not normal" factors really brings it home. Of course, no woman wants to read out a list of those things because they are embarrassing and humiliating. If he criticizes you sexually, that's not normal (and it's NOT about you). If he won't stop ennumerating his previous relationships and making comparisons, that's not normal (and it's NOT about you). If he tells you that he wishes he'd married someone less (or more) intelligent than you, that's not normal (and it's NOT about you). If he wants to travel and leave you behind, that's not normal (and it's NOT about you). If it turns out that he is also married to someone else and you didn't even know about it, that's not normal (and it's NOT about you). And so forth.

Yet, it can still be so difficult to realize that "not normal" = "abusive."

Someone Else's Story

Long ago
In someone else's lifetime
Someone with my name
Who looked a lot like me

Came to know
A man and made a promise
He only had to say
And that's where she would be

Lately, although the feelings
run just as deep
The promise she made
has grown impossible to keep

And yet I wish it wasn't so
Will he miss me if I go?

In a way
It's someone else's story
I don't see myself
As taking part at all

Yesterday
A girl that I was fond of
Finally could see
The writing on the wall

Sadly, she realized
she'd left him behind
And sadder than that
She knew he wouldn't even mind

And though there's nothing left to say
Would he listen if I stay?

It's all very well to say
You fool it's now or never
I could be choosing
No choices whatsoever.

I could be
In someone else's story
In someone else's life
And he could be in mine

I don't see
A reason to be lonely
I could take my chances
Further down the line

And if that girl I knew
Should ask my advice
Oh I wouldn't hesitate
She needn't ask me twice

Go now!
I'd tell her that for free
Trouble is, the girl is me
The story is, the girl is me.

From the musical Chess
Lyrics by the incredible Tim Rice (b 1944)
Music by Benny Andersson & Bjoern Ulvaeus -- of Abba

Click here for another great song: The Ugly Truth
By Lucinda Williams

As one of Lucinda's fans comments: " . . . don't make the same mistake that I did! Take those ghosts out of the closet, hang 'em up on a clothes line and disinfect them with sunlight. Sit back in a deck chair with a cool beverage and watch 'em blow in the breeze! You gotta look at this 'truth stuff' or it'll haunt you forever . . . "

Nothing That My Hand Grasps

A Reading by Emile Verhaeren (1901)
by Theo van Rysselberghe (1862 - 1926)

Wearing red, with hand raised:
Émile Verhaeren (1855 – 1916)
Belgian poet, wrote in French
nominated six times for
the Nobel Prize in Literature

Sitting across from Verhaeren, with hand on head:
André Gide (1869 – 1951)
French Author
Nobel Prize in Literature ~ 1947

One should want only one thing and want it constantly. Then one is sure of getting it. But I desire everything and consequently get nothing. Each time I discover, and too late, that one thing had come to me while I was running after another.

from The Journals of André Gide

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I devoted myself to my business to the best of my ability — not taking much pleasure in it, but hoping by this semblance of work to give some stability to my disintegrated life.

Perhaps it was because the day had begun so badly that I felt so anguished. Oh, I thought, without a doubt, everything in my life is falling to pieces. Nothing that my hand grasps can my hand hold.

from Gide's novel, The Immoralist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And from Stéphane Mosès (1931 - 2007)
French-Israeli philosopher

Certain situations are so desperate that the only
way to escape them is through total ingenuousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more wise words from André Gide
see wikiquotes & goodreads

Additional portraits of Gide,
also by van Rysselberghe: 1907 & 1908

Flying Over Crosby

When Ben & Sam were small, we often read and sang and watched The Snowman as a favorite bedtime story. To add some local color, we liked to say that the Snowman was "flying over Crosby," the hometown of their British grandparents. Certainly, that's what the pictures made us think of!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more about why we love
The Snowman
see my recent post

Our Favorite Snowman

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Based on the picture book by Raymond Briggs

Walking In The Air

We're walking in the air
We're floating in the moonlit sky
The people far below are sleeping as we fly

I'm holding very tight
I'm riding in the midnight blue
I'm finding I can fly so high above with you

On across the world
The villages go by like dreams
The rivers and the hills, the forests and the streams

Children gaze open-mouthed taken by surprise
Nobody down below believes their eyes

We're surfing in the air
We're swimming in the frozen sky
We're drifting over icy mountains floating by

Suddenly swooping low on an ocean deep
Rising up a mighty monster from its sleep

We're walking in the air
We're dancing in the midnight sky
And everyone who sees us greets us as we fly

A Black Cat Comes

Snow in the Suburbs

Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
The palings are glued together like a wall,
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.

A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eye
And overturns him,
And near inurns him,
And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.

The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in.

by Thomas Hardy

Many thanks to Gerry's Auntie Jan for introducing us to
this great restaurant, the above poem by Thomas Hardy,
and "London Snow" by Robert Bridges

The Cat Inn & Pub in West Hoathly, England
Purr-fect for a pre-Christmas lunch on a sunny winter day!

All Night It Fell

Lafayette ~ West Lafayette Pedestrian Bridge
Photo by Ben McCartney

Photos from Indiana . . .
poem from England:

London Snow (1890)

When we were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,
‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

by Robert Bridges (1844 – 1930)
Britain's Poet Laureate: 1913 - 1930

Another lovely poem by Robert Bridges:
"Noel: Christmas 1913" ~ sung by John Denver

An Eternal February Day

Children Skating by Percy Tarrant (1855 - 1934)
~ father of the artist Margaret Tarrant (1888 - 1959) ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few years ago, I wrote this note:
Dear Poetical Friends,

I've been trying to track down a poem that I've misplaced and thought and thought I'd check with you in case you recognize the reference. I'm almost certain that the title is "Feast Day." The narrator is a woman who is feeling sad on the first day of her period, and the concluding line is "languorous blood." Does that happen to ring any bells? I remember reading it back in the late 1970s, early 80s, but can't remember where.

I've looked through all my old anthologies and notebooks but can't find it; and I've tried numerous google searches with no luck. I can't remember the poet, but vaguely thought that it might be Joyce Carol Oates. It seems to me that in the middle of the poem, she is looking out of a large window, watching children ice - skating on a pond and feeling fearful of their safety, but it could also be that I've borrowed that skating image from another forgotten poem -- something else I need to find! -- and merged it with the "Feast Day" poem in my mind.

Any clues?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today I found the poems!
In New Letters: Volume 45 No. 2 (winter, 1978):
Feast Day

Today,
under the spell
of fat raindrops splattering the window
streaming down
blindly
with shameful eagerness --

Today, a feast
of rich overripe pulpy blood,
stagnant-smelling,
a swamp heaving tides of dragonflies and lichen
and fetid clots like exclamations

In disguise,
today,
as rusted blood,
thick and warm and sluggish,
your life begins to inch from you

Changed in the night
to liquid that trembles finely
in a jar of skin
eager to break
and flow to tarantula-sized shapes --
the unspeakable satisfaction
of the belly's hurt
wanting no love,
the thrumming ache of the womb
as it stirs to life
by dying

And the body's blush of fear
that it might this time bleed
away to death --

Still, you turn weak and selfish,
you want the sky to bleed black,
the rain to fall heavily
through the floorboards
where bits of straw and dirt
will float --
you are a scattering of noisy birds
drawn back suddenly to earth

a great beast of a bloodstain
lazy and sweetly - aching
sprawling across the sky

A woman, a fever: the sour hot bliss
of garbagey languorous blood

Winter Landscape: Children Teasing Death

Raucous as winter crows the children edge to the ice's rim
throwing fist - sized rocks of ice -- why? -- into the river
as their shrieks lead them out
their ignorance exploding like joy
their simple blunt souls steaming from their mouths

The sun, Heraclitus declared, measures one foot wide

The piano's note are waiting, tensed, in your fingertips
the lung filled to bursting with black water is waiting
beneath the ice

Overhead? A sky of blurred newsprint,
an eternal January day
that must be learned a syllable at a time

Well, if the ice cracks you are the only witness
you are the one who must save them
if the children fall screaming to their deaths you are the one
who must haul them back

The miracle won't happen --

Alone behind the steamy pane you stare, and listen
to their shouts
as death calls them and they inch outward
gay and raucous as the blackest of fluttery crows

You'll run out into the freezing air as unprepared --

The children are your own? Are you?
No. Nor are they metaphor: boldly, they are real
and the children of strangers
who don't even know your name.

The children will drown, then; it is their right
You are not their future, staring from your house
you might as well be King Pentheus, in women's clothes,
caught like a fool atop a tree

Death teases them out from shore and their cries mock death
and the day is anyway like every other
tundra-hard and dry and cruel
and it's pointless to fear disaster, a friend once said, since
the ones that happen are never
the ones you expect or deserve

both poems by Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our Reindeer Sleigh by Arthur Hopkins (1848 - 1930)
~ brother of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889) ~

Larry Levis & the Pepsi Ad Girls

Years ago, I was lucky enough to hear Larry Levis give a reading, when I was an undergraduate in Missouri. I wrote three of his poems down in my notebook (Fall 1976) and have never forgotten them.

1. First, you may remember this one from a previous blog post:

We'll go on as always harvesting walnuts
on our hands and knees,
and die voicelessly
as a sedan full of cigar smoke
sinking under a bridge.
We'll turn slowly, flowers
in the mouths of drowned cattle
In a dawn of burned fields,
the sun disappoints you,
and the blight you begin to remember
is me.
Like an Alp overlooking a corpse
I explain nothing.

2. Next comes the second half of a poem entitled "Rhododendrons." For the entire poem, check out this essay, and this poetry blog which, like mine, strives to make connections.

Levis wishes he could offer a helping hand. Though he would have been only 30 when I heard him read this poem, he thinks back to himself at 20 and longs to connect with that ghostly young man, in need of money and sleep:

As I write this,
some blown rhododendrons are nodding
in the first breezes. I want
to resemble them, and remember nothing,
the way a photograph of an excavation
cannot remember the sun.
The wind rises or stops
and it means nothing.
I want to be circular;
a pond or a column of smoke
revolving, slowly, its ashes.
I want to turn back and go up
to myself at age 20,
and press five dollars into his hand
so he can sleep.
While he stands trembling on a street in Fresno,
suddenly one among many in the crowd
that strolls down Fulton Street,
among the stores that are closing,
and is never heard of again.

3. Finally, in "The Double," Levis evokes "the elderly drunks" and "the girl in the Pepsi ad," all "dead now." Sadly, very sadly, the poet who wrote those words is dead now too, for Larry Levis died young, in 1996 at age 49. In a poem filled with ghosts, the poet says, "This poem so like me / it could be my double":

The Double

Out here, I can say anything.
I can say, for example, that a girl
disappearing tonight
will sleep or stare out
fixedly as the train moves her
into its adulthood of dust
and sidings.

I remember watching wasps
on hot evenings
fly heavily over chandeliers
in hotel lobbies.
They’ve torn them down, too.
And the elderly drunks
who seemed not to mind anything,
who seemed to look for change
in their pockets, as they gazed
at the girl in the Pepsi ad,
and the girl who posed for the ad,
must all be dead now.

I can already tell that this
is no poem to show you,
this love poem. It’s so
flat spoken and ignorable,
like the man chain smoking
who discovers he’s
no longer waiting for anyone,
and goes to the movies
alone each Saturday, and grins,
and likes them.
This poem so like the hour
when the street lights turn
amber and blink, and the calm
professor burns another book,
and the divorcee waters her one
chronically dying plant.

This poem so like me
it could be my double.

I have stood for a long time
in its shadow, the way I stood
in the shadow of a dead roommate
I had to cut down from the ceiling
on Easter break, when
I was young.

That night I put my car
in neutral, and cut the engine
and lights to glide downhill
and hear the wind rush over
the dead metal.
I had to know what it felt
like, and under the moon,
gaining speed, I wanted to slip
out of my body and be
done with it.

A man can give up smoking
and the movies, and live for years
hearing the wind tick over roofs
but never looking up from
his one page, or the tiny
life he keeps carving over and
over upon it. And when everyone
around him dies, he can move
a grand piano into
his house, and sit down
alone, and finally play,
certain that no one will
overhear him, though he plays
as loud as he can,
so that when the dead come
and take his hands off the keys
they are invisible, the way air
and music are not. [emphasis added]

"Rhododendrons" and "The Double"
can be found in The Selected Levis

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For further analysis of these poems
see my recent post

Ghost of the Girl in the Pepsi Ad

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

1910 Pepsi Calendar Girls

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

The Holy Family is like me --
they don't want to take down their Christmas decorations yet!

And I don't want to put away The Nativity Scene
or take down any of the trees.

But, hey, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it's time!
It's Candlemas ~ the Fortieth Day of Chistmas!

Nativity Scene Puzzle ~ 1975
Everyone in my family was already too old
for a 100 - piece kids' jigsaw, but I saw this at the
Hallmark store & thought it would make a fun family present.

Previous Candlemas Posts
Also Groundhog Day & Imbolc & James Joyce's Birthday