dual personalities

Category: Poetry

February 20, 2018

By night when others soundly slept

by chuckofish

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By night when others soundly slept

And hath at once both ease and Rest,

My waking eyes were open kept

And so to lie I found it best.

 

I sought him whom my Soul did Love,

With tears I sought him earnestly.

He bow’d his ear down from Above.

In vain I did not seek or cry.

 

My hungry Soul he fill’d with Good;

He in his Bottle put my tears,

My smarting wounds washt in his blood,

And banisht thence my Doubts and fears.

 

What to my Saviour shall I give

Who freely hath done this for me?

I’ll serve him here whilst I shall live

And Love him to Eternity.

–Anne Bradstreet (1647 or earlier)

The painting is by George Sotter (1979–1953)

2 Comments
February 14, 2018

“My husband and I have never considered divorce… murder sometimes, but never divorce.”*

by chuckofish

As you know, today is Valentine’s Day. We thought it would be fun to look at some of our favorite couples in history since we’ve already looked at favorite movie couples/kisses in years past.

  1. William and Mary, King and Queen of England, who rocked the Glorious Revolution together.

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2.  Simon and Ann Bradstreet, “questing puritans”…She wrote, “If ever two were one, then surely we/If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.”

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3. Calvin and Grace Coolidge, President and First Lady. He said, “I do not know what I would do without her.”

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Calvin was devoted to his wife; he never cheated on her like some presidents we will not mention! Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Edith would be another example of devoted presidential couples, as would Ulysses and Julia Grant.

3. Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poets. She wrote, “I love thee with the breath,/Smiles, tears, of all my life; and if God choose,/I shall but love thee better after death.”

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4.  Katie von Bora and Martin Luther, reformers, who famously said, ” There is no more lovely, charming and friendly relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.”

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5. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, actors, who proved that a long marriage in Hollywood is not impossible…unlikely, but not impossible.

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Well, our advice yesterday was to do your best in Lent, and that is good advice for love and marriage as well.

As for what to watch on Valentine’s Day, nothing tops The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland for romance. This movie turns 80 years old this year! All the stars were aligned when this movie was made. It is perfect.errol-flynn-435.jpg

Sigh.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

*Joyce Brothers

4 Comments
February 8, 2018

With gladness and singleness of heart

by chuckofish

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Let us, then, labor for an inward stillness,–

An inward stillness and an inward healing;

That perfect silence where the lips and heart

Are still, and we no longer entertain

Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,

But God alone speaks in us and, we wait

In singleness of heart, that we may know

His will, and in the silence of our spirits,

That we may do His will and do that only!

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from Christus: A Mystery

The painting is by Stanley Royle (1888–1961). Don’t you like it? That winter light is perfect.

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Boy, isn’t he great?

4 Comments
December 29, 2017

Come to rifle Satan’s fold

by chuckofish

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Twas much,
that man was
made like God before,
But that God should
be like man
much more

–John Donne (1572-1631)

Lest we forget.

This little babe, so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake.
Though he himself for cold do shake,
For in this weak unarmèd wise
The gates of hell he will surprise. 

With tears he fights and wins the field;
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns cold and need,
And feeble flesh his warrior’s steed. 

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall,
The crib his trench, hay stalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound,
The angels’ trumps alarum sound. 

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight;
Stick to the tents that he hath pight;
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly boy.

Christmas vacation is coming to an end. Sigh. It’s back to work on Tuesday. Still can’t believe how 2017 raced by. Here’s hoping you foil thy foes with joy in 2018.

1 Comment
December 18, 2017

“All kinds of weather we stick together, the same in the rain or sun”*

by chuckofish

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Today is my dear dual personality’s birthday! I will think of her often, as I do every day, and miss her.

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I hope that all the men in her life (one husband and three sons) take care to lavish her with the love and attention she deserves.

Anyway, I am glad to hear that her grades are in and that she is officially on sabbatical! Huzzah!

Although she is nowhere near her 71st birthday, I still like this poem by Walt Whitman, My 71st Year:

After surmounting threescore and ten,
With all their chances, changes, losses, sorrows,
My parents’ deaths, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing passions of me, the war of ‘63 and ‘4,
As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or as haply after battle,
At twilight, hobbling, answering yet to company roll-call, Here, with vital voice,
Reporting yet, saluting yet the Officer over all.

Happy Day! It’s a week ’til Christmas!

*Irving Berlin

 

5 Comments
December 13, 2017

Just a reminder

by chuckofish

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Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat.
But how about the children, have you taken thought of that?
What about the little boy that lives down the lane,
Ragged in the snowstorm, whistling in the rain?
What about the little girl the other side of town?
There’s no one she can run to, and her world is falling down.
Dead father, drunken father, father gone away,
Sick mother, no mother, think of them today.
These are the lost ones, little ones alone.
These too are Maryland, these are our own.
Christmas is coming, and shall they be dismayed?
Send a Merry Christmas check to the Children’s Aid.

–Ogden Nash, a former president and longtime board member of the Children’s Aid Society of Maryland, wrote this poem in 1942.

Well, this is just a humble reminder that we should all think of others at this time of year and not just ourselves and our own loved ones. It is easy to get carried away with all the hoopla, isn’t it?

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One of the charities I support is the Episcopal City Mission, which was started back in 1894 when Charles Holmes, a lay person at Christ Church Cathedral here in my flyover town, organized volunteers from the cathedral to minister at City Hospital, the City Jail, the City Workhouse, and the Asylum. Thus was born the House Missions, which was known under various names until it became Episcopal City Mission in the 1950’s. With the establishment of juvenile facilities in the city, the ministry grew to include pastoral care for children.

Eventually, other Protestant denominations joined in this important ministry to those confined in the public institutions of St. Louis.  In 1953 the decision was made to divide the ministry to these institutions among various denominations. The Episcopal Diocese chose to work with troubled youth and asked to continue the ministry to children in detention under the name of Episcopal City Mission (ECM). Its ministry to youth was firmly established in the Juvenile Detention Centers and recognized by the Family Court System. ECM became the agency authorized by the Court System to provide for the ongoing spiritual needs of detained children in St. Louis City and County.

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Current chaplains at ECM

Small world department: The chaplain on the right was a youth leader when the boy was active in K-Life back in middle school. He has definitely stepped up. Good to see him still walking the walk.

Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have none to care for them. Help us to heal those who are broken in body or spirit, and to turn their sorrow into joy. Grant this, Father, for the love of your Son, who for our sake became poor, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

–BCP, Prayers and Thanksgivings

3 Comments
November 21, 2017

If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven

by chuckofish

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If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven,

Then, to the measure of that heaven-born light,

Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content:—

The stars pre-eminent in magnitude,

And they that from the zenith dart their beams,

(Visible though they be to half the earth,

Though half a sphere be conscious of their brightness)

Are yet of no diviner origin,

No purer essence, than the one that burns,

Like an untended watch-fire on the ridge

Of some dark mountain; or than those which seem

Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps,

Among the branches of the leafless trees.

All are the undying offspring of one Sire:

Then, to the measure of the light vouchsafed,

Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content.

–William Wordsworth, 1832

The wee babes would probably prefer to shine in place contentedly at home, but their adoring parents are always dragging them hither and yon to experience LIFE. Sunday night they went to see the Christmas lights at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.

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Little Lottie was, per usual, not impressed. The little bud was more game,

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but, yikes, it was cold out there! I’m sure we did the same thing ourselves back in the day. ‘Tis the season after all…

Personally, I am looking forward to watching the Macy’s Parade from the comfort of my couch.

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Daughter #1 will join us this year. For 5 years she watched the famous parade from various windows on the UWS or on the actual street. Indeed, when she would walk home late Wednesday night after her show aired, she saw the giant balloons gathered on Central Park West.  Life is decidedly less glamorous back in flyover country, but mimosas will be served.

Tonight I shop for the feast. Huzzah.

6 Comments
October 18, 2017

Merely bearing witness

by chuckofish

Did you read that the poet Richard Wilbur died? You will recall that he was the Poet Laureate of the U.S. for awhile. He taught at Smith College when I was there.

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He was much honored in his lifetime, but, of course, the NY Times obit tends to focus on the negative, stating snidely, “By the early 1960s, however, critical opinion generally conformed to Mr. Jarrell’s oft-quoted assessment that Mr. Wilbur ‘never goes too far, but he never goes far enough.'”

Well, I rather liked him.

To claim, at a dead party, to have spotted a grackle,
When in fact you haven’t of late, can do no harm.
Your reputation for saying things of interest
Will not be marred, if you hasten to other topics,
Nor will the delicate web of human trust
Be ruptured by that airy fabrication.
Later, however, talking with toxic zest
Of golf, or taxes, or the rest of it
Where the beaked ladle plies the chuckling ice,
You may enjoy a chill of severance, hearing
Above your head the shrug of unreal wings.
Not that the world is tiresome in itself:
We know what boredom is: it is a dull
Impatience or a fierce velleity,
A champing wish, stalled by our lassitude,
To make or do. In the strict sense, of course,
We invent nothing, merely bearing witness
To what each morning brings again to light:
Gold crosses, cornices, astonishment…

(Read the whole poem, “Lying,” here. BTW, “velleity” is a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action. I had to look it up.)

Wilbur’s papers are housed at his alma mater Amherst College.

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I like this photo of Wilbur by Tsar Fedorsky (AC 1982)

Here’s an article about the archive.

While we are musing on Berkshires themes, don’t forget that today is the anniversary of the first publication of Moby-Dick in 1851, in Britain. Its publication in America followed on November 14, 1851.

“Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”

And this struck me as very sad.

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Yes, Country Curtains, a Berkshires favorite that started off selling a simple unbleached muslin curtain by mail order, will shut down by the end of the year in the face of unrelenting online competition.

I remember when they were a little mom-and-pop operation in Stockbridge and we would see their ads in the old Yankee magazine. I remember looking at their catalogs with my mother.  And I bought some of those plain muslin curtains–the ones with the pompoms–for our first apartment after the OM and I were married. I bought some curtains there just last year–they have elephants on them. Sigh.

But this was funny:

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Onward and upward. Hang in there and join me in a toast tonight to Richard Wilbur, Herman Melville and Country Curtains.

4 Comments
October 13, 2017

Fly sideways FRIYAY

by chuckofish

Just as I unpacked my turtlenecks and black tights, they are predicting broken records for heat this weekend! Good grief! No matter what people say about global warming, it has always been thus in flyover country.

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Que sera sera.

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This weekend I plan to finish Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes which I started last weekend. It is a straight up detective novel which someone left in the giveaway basket at work. I am enjoying it. Next on the docket is This House of Sky by Ivan Doig, which came highly recommended by someone whose opinion I value.

I have a work event on Sunday afternoon that I have to attend, and after that, the boy and daughter # 3 will come over. Can’t wait to see the wee babes, especially Lottie who decided to stand up this week!

Unknown-6.jpegShe has hitherto been reluctant to put her weight on her feet, but seems to have decided it is okay now. You go, Girl!

Unknown-7.jpegHer brother has been very encouraging.

BTW, on a historical/literary note, 138 years ago today Walt Whitman came to St. Louis to visit his brother, Thomas Jefferson Whitman, who was the city water commissioner. How about that? He liked the great river town, but wasn’t fond of the smog. In honor of his visit, and because it seems appropriate, here is a little bit of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry:

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These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
The men and women I saw were all near to me,
Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them,
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)
5
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.

…

9
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sunlit water!
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!

Have a great weekend! Try to get out and look at a river and “people watch”. What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? Not much, I think.

6 Comments
October 12, 2017

Life is real! Life is earnest!

by chuckofish

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
   And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
   Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
   Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
   Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
   And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
   Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
   In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
   Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
   Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
   Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
   Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
   Learn to labor and to wait.

–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life

The fall season always brings me back to New England–not literally, but in my imagination–and a poem by Longfellow seems appropriate. It is good to read these old poems, so out of fashion these days, but full of good stuff!

I would like to join the throngs of leaf-peepers, but I will have to be satisfied with flyover landscapes this year.  Here are a few paintings of New England landscapes to whet the whistle, so to speak.

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Eric Sloane

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Winslow Homer

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Robert Wesson

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Alden Bryan, 1955

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Luigi Lucioni, Village of Stowe, 1931

And here’s a little Thoreau to wind things up:

Minott is, perhaps, the most poetical farmer–who most realizes to me the poetry of the farmer’s life–that I know. He does nothing with haste and drudgery, but as if he loved it. He makes the most of his labor, and takes infinite satisfaction in every part of it. He is not looking forward to the sale of his crops or any pecuniary profit, but he is paid by the constant satisfaction which his labor yields him.

—A Writer’s Journal

And read this from the Big Surprise file…

6 Comments