Author: richinaword

Dedication to Valerie and Documentary – T. S. Eliot

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A Dedication to My Wife

To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens my senses in our waking time
And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleeping time,
the breathing in unison.

Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech,
And babble the same speech without need of meaning.

No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours only

But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.

T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot wrote this dedication to his second wife Valerie. They are very personal words but also words he was willing to make public – as can be seen from the last two lines. Some of his most important words that he wrote when great care, thought and meaining is needed to reflect a deep personal relationship that they alone shared. Apt that he mentioned roses as he was known to give Valerie roses on  a frequent  basis.

For those interested in seeing an excellent documenatary on TSE the BBC Arena series is on YouTube in eleven parts, each about 8 mins duration … here are the links to the first six  –

Part 1 …

Part 2 …

Part 3 …

Part 4 …

Part 5 …

Part 6 …

Bat Intrusion – Reporting from Batemans Bay

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Currently there exists an invasion of bats in the Water Gardens at Batemans Bay, New South  Wales. It has been estimated that up to 100,000 bats are involved. They have been arriving each year but this year in unprecedented numbers. They are quite a problem especially for those living near the gardens because of the smell, droppings – not to mention the defoliation. I stayed safely in a bird-hide watching the twilight departure and it took over 45 minutes before the skies started to thin out.

There has been considerable discussion on what should be done. They are a protected animal and it would be a very expensive operation to try and move them elsewhere. Then they would become somone else’s problem. Personally I think a waiting game is the only option for they will move on with colder weather. Some have thought global warming might be a cause as we have had a very warm autumn. Below is an image and a prose type poem in response – waiting for the ‘spell’ to end so to speak.

 

BatsWaterGardens

Bat Intrusion
Water-gardens, Batemans Bay

A Macbeth ingredient to a massive brew
annual arrival, unprecedented numbers
spell a discord in the local population.

The defoliation exhibits the hangout.
They settle clipping in early morning light,
so many smelly bags of washing.
The continuous gabble groom or sleep
eyes grounded on the dung-spat path.

With evening the crepuscular cauldron
stir into mass movement for forage.
The insidious cloak-flight of the night feed
dark sweep in the disappearing light
with ultrasonic echo into insect-prey.

The sickened water-gardens must wait
for a change in the season, this spell to end,
for fresh air, for the chance for restitution.

Richard Scutter 18 April 2016

Yes – Brian Patten – Analysis

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Yes

Last night I dreamt again of Adam returning
to the garden’s scented, bubbling cauldron.
Eve was beside him.
their shadows were cut adrift
and the hum of bees was in their blood,
and the world was slow and good and all
the warm and yawning newness of their flesh
was fixed forever in the glow of “Yes”.

Brian Patten

Yes, Yes Yes ! – a poem in the strong affirmative … religion can often to be a No, No, No and a restriction on life

… in a way this is a full circle poem, the beginning and the end … similar to birth-death … remember TSE’s memorial words … in my end is my …

… Jesus is often thought of as the second Adam … providing the transformation from the negative to the positive … with the emphatic statement …Yes! … JC came to give life! … and as by-product – joy!

… interesting that since ‘the fall’ (or just the imperfect world) the state of life is a bubbling cauldron = indicating to me an on-going mystical transformation

… so the second garden scene may see the unification of Adam and Eve … perhaps as depicted by the image above … a great change from the original and that apple! … and the much misaligned Eve … a touch of heavenly permanence

… and I like the significance of the shadows cut adrift. The difference between shadow and shade (Dante). … a spiritual union taking place – a higher order marriage in the after-life

Re shadow and shade : – The Italian word ombra in Dante’s lexicon means both “shadow” (as in the shadow cast by a body) and “shade” (a term for the form of the soul in the afterlife). On the terrace of lust, as Dante’s very real body prepares for its most challenging test, the poet shows–via a lecture by Statius–how the two meanings of ombra combine to encapsulate the fundamental relationship between life and afterlife. When the soul leaves the body, Statius explains, it “impresses” the body’s form on the surrounding air (as saturated air is adorned with colors of a rainbow), and the resulting “virtual” body follows the spirit just as a flame follows fire. This new form therefore goes by the name of “shade” / “shadow” (ombra): as a “shadow” follows–and repeats the form of–a real body, so the “shade” takes on all bodily parts and functions
(Courtesy – http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/textpopup/pur2501.html )

Brian Patten on Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Patten

Brian Patten’s Poetry Site – http://www.brianpatten.co.uk/poetry.html

Richard – Carol Ann Duffy

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Richard

My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil,
a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown,
emptied of history. Describe my soul
as incense, votive, vanishing; your own
the same. Grant me the carving of my name.

These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie
a broken string and on it thread a cross,
the symbol severed from me when I died.
The end of time – an unknown, unfelt loss –
unless the Resurrection of the Dead …

or I once dreamed of this, your future breath
in prayer for me, lost long, forever found;
or sensed you from the backstage of my death,
as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.

Carol Ann Duffy

When a poem has to be written for a special event it is not often that a brilliant piece of work materialises such as the above poem written by the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy for the reburial ceremony of Richard the Third after the discovery of his bones underneath a carpark near Leicester cathedral in 2012.

The following is a YouTube link to the ceremony of the reburial in Leicester Cathedral. Included is the reading of the above poem by Benedict Cumberbatch – a blood descendant on the female line … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvhLbqbVh24 – at 17m 10sec in the video.

Bones likened to human braille … braille = a writing system for the visually impaired … a very apt comparison for ‘Richard the Third’s bones lay hidden for more than 500 years and from and the ‘DNA language’ of his bones it was established that they indeed belonged to Richard the Third. And now he will be truly remembered with the carving of his name.

Votive = ritual. I particularly like the simple words ‘lost long forever found’ with the double meaning – his physical memorial in the cathedral and a biblical spiritual reference.

This link gives full details behind the text of the poem … http://genius.com/Carol-ann-duffy-richard-annotated including are references to a number of biblical texts and Christian philosophy.

Richard the Third died at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the last major battle in the war of the roses and he was the last English king to die in battle.

Here is the Wikipedia link to details of that battle … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field

And for those interested in the history of Richard the Third here is the Wikipedia link  to the king … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England

Gold Leaves – G. K. Chesterton – Analysis

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Gold Leaves

Lo! I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold;
Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out
The year and I are old.

In youth I sought the prince of men,
Captain in cosmic wars,
Our Titan, even the weeds would show
Defiant, to the stars.

But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.

In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.

G. K. Chesterton.

Nice iambic rhythm to the syllables with end rhyme in the shorter second and fourth lines.
Syllables in the first stanza …
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^^
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^
^ ^ ^ ^^ / ^ ^ ^
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^
S1 – the gold leaves of autumn equated to the silver hair of the aging … the aging year equated to the aging person
S2 – when young seeking to be a leader and associating with the strong and defiant even when in error (when the weeds were showing) … Titan strong and large force
S3 – but with age God is now found in any human nod and in the common place – in the street … I like the thought in the statement ‘the democracy of God’ … evident in all humanity
S4 – in youth there was a search in a hidden world – a search for meaning … finding gold or is that God – but in old age gold or God can be seen everywhere – it seems that there is a sense of contentment – the search and battle over – less energy and not so idealistic perhaps … more time to value all the gold in abundance that surrounds the beauty of life.

A link to G. K. Chesterton on Wikipedia.

Easter is for the optimist

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Sunrise

Sunrise, Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra

Easter Sunday

the world is charged with the grandeur of God
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Easter is for the optimist.
An extension cord
powered by imagination
connects to a caring creator
to glow in the mind
believing the unbelievable
that humanity has a bright future
and life is eternal.

For the pessimist
unseeing, the door closes
on such possibilities
the blind mind denies
darkness prevails
the switch not reached.

Richard Scutter

Poetic Words from Sir Douglas Mawson

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Below is a poem written by Sir Douglas Mawson (1882 – 1958) in his own hand in a book from the John King Davis Collection at the Australian Antarctic Division library, at the end of the poem he makes an apology to Robert Service – a poet he admired, showing some modesty in his own poetic words.

Perhaps when on my printed page you look,
Your fancies by the fireside may go homing
To that lone land where bravely you endured.
And if perchance you hear the silence calling.
The frozen music of star-yearning heights,
Or, dreaming, see the seines of silver trawling
Across the ships abyss on vasty nights,
You may recall that sweep of savage splendor,
That land that measures each man at his worth,
And feel in memory, half fierce, half tender,
The brotherhood of men that know the South.

Apologies to Service—
D.M.

seine = large fishing net

In a few words he defines the foreboding environment in the many months he endured such harsh conditions as home in that sweep of savage splendour. And the land that tests each man to the extreme of personal resource, a land exacting emotion both fierce and tender.

And for me Sir Douglas Mawson stands out of all the explorers that ventured into the Antarctica at the start of the last century. He was so lucky to have survived on three separate occasions, his survival story legendary.

He highlights the brotherhood of the small group of men that had that first-hand knowledge of Antarctica and he recalls the companionship essential for survival – never forgotten by him or by those that have only dim understanding when reader of his words.

Certainly a very worthy poem! It may have only been a draft and not meant for wide dissemination but now an invaluable part of the history of early Antarctica exploration.

Here is a link to those interested in reading more context … Sir Douglas Mawson on Wikipedia

Because I Liked You Better – A. E. Housman – Analysis

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There is great musicality in this structured lament on the unrequited homosexual love of A. E. Housman for Moses Jackson – a student he met at university. My comments are in italics after each of the four stanzas.

Because I Liked You Better

Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.

Not easy to admit homosexuality in Victorian times. There was no like response from Jackson – it irked him.

To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
‘Good-bye’, said you, ‘forget me’
‘I will, no fear’, said I.

Jackson went to America and Housman said he would forget him – later we see this is a somewhat cynical response.

If here, where clover whitens
The dead man’s knoll you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

There is only common ground clover on the ‘dead Housman knoll’ … a tall flower never bloomed – his love never came to fruition. The white flowering could indicate both purity and coldness.

Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say that the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.

Housman’s heart at last dead to his love … and it is only in death that Housman forgets him – and thus he kept his word.

A. E. Housman (1859-1936)