dual personalities

Tag: poetry

November 13, 2013

The moon’s a balloon*

by chuckofish

The lunar phase on November 13, 2013 is Waxing Gibbous. The moon is growing bigger.

Take a look this afternoon. A waxing gibbous moon appears high in the east at sunset. It’s more than half-lighted, but less than full.

waxing_gibbous_featured

When I flew to New York last week, it was at sunset. We flew over the clouds in the dark. The lights of the cities twinkled below. Then I looked out the window and there was the big dipper (Ursa Major)!

BigDipper

The moon was a sliver then. What a beautiful world!

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

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

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

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

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

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

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

Psalm 8 (KJV)

* e.e. cummings

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November 6, 2013

Rest and be thankful

by chuckofish

restand be thankful

XIII. “REST AND BE THANKFUL!”
AT THE HEAD OF GLENCROE

Doubling and doubling with laborious walk,
Who, that has gained at length the wished-for Height,
This brief this simple wayside Call can slight,
And rests not thankful? Whether cheered by talk
With some loved friend, or by the unseen hawk
Whistling to clouds and sky-born streams that shine,
At the sun’s outbreak, as with light divine,
Ere they descend to nourish root and stalk
Of valley flowers. Nor, while the limbs repose,
Will we forget that, as the fowl can keep
Absolute stillness, poised aloft in air,
And fishes front, unmoved, the torrent’s sweep,–
So may the Soul, through powers that Faith bestows,
Win rest, and ease, and peace, with bliss that Angels share.

–Composed by William Wordsworth during a tour in Scotland and on the English border in the autumn of 1831

“Rest and be thankful” are the words inscribed on a stone near the junction of the A83 and the B828, placed there by soldiers who built the original military road in 1753, now referred to as the Drovers’ road. The original stone fell into ruin and was replaced by a commemorative stone at the same site.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The section is so named as the climb out of Glen Croe is so long and steep at the end that it was traditional for travellers to rest at the top, and be thankful for having reached the highest point. The current road no longer keeps to the floor of Glen Croe but steadily climbs across the southern slopes of The Cobbler, on the north side of the Glen, to the highest point of the pass. The westward descent to Loch Fyne is through Glen Kinglas, and from here the A815, the main road to Dunoon and the Cowal peninsula, branches off to the south.*

I have not been to this particular corner of Scotland, but I wish I had! Wow. And isn’t it great that they erected a stone inviting people to “rest and be thankful”?

Anyway, I thought this fit in nicely with my effort to be thankful this month–don’t you agree?

*Information and photos via Wikipedia

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October 28, 2013

To go with the drift of things

by chuckofish

I had a rather sad weekend, spending a good deal of it thinking about what I had been doing the weekend before when daughter #1 was visiting. I try not to do this, but it is hard.

I watched a depressing movie about Sylvia Plath (played by Gwyneth Paltrow).

And I read some sad poems.

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

― Robert Frost, Reluctance

I watched some stressful World Series games. But this guy always cheers me up.

matheny3

I will miss our skipper in the off-season. See, there I go again! Well, onward and upward this week and go Cards!

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October 14, 2013

Gathering leaves

by chuckofish

leavevs2

It is that time of year when the leaves begin to fall and we begin to think about cleaning them up.

Gone are the days when we had lots of free help.

leaves

Sigh.

The boy did come over on Sunday and he helped me achieve an ant apocalypse by destroying a giant ant hill that had been built over the course of some years in a low wall surrounding a tree in the front yard. He came over for brunch, but somehow he always ends up doing some much-needed man-work around the house/yard, for which I am most appreciative.

Here’s a poem to start off the week. Have a good one!

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?”

― Robert Frost

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October 8, 2013

You are here

by chuckofish

whitman-main

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

O Me! O Life! by Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass (1892)

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September 12, 2013

A caged bird sings

by chuckofish

Clasped Hands of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning by Harriet Goodhue Hosmer

Clasped Hands of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning by Harriet Goodhue Hosmer

On this day in 1846 Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning eloped! You know the famous story of their love. Six years her junior, the poet Robert Browning exchanged 574 letters with Elizabeth Barrett over a twenty-month period. Immortalized in the 1930 play The Barretts of Wimpole Street, by Rudolf Besier, their romance was bitterly opposed by her father, who did not want any of his children to marry. After they married, her father never spoke to her again. Gee whiz.

Anyway, she was a darn good poet, mostly known today for her famous How Do I Love Thee sonnet. But she wrote a lot more than that. Here is the beginning of Aurora Leigh (1850) and a link so you can read the whole thing.

OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others’ uses, will write now for mine,–
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.

You can read the rest here.

And if you feel like it, you can watch either of the film versions of the famous play:

1934

1934

or

Poster_of_The_Barretts_of_Wimpole_Street_(1957_film)

(They are both pretty good. I prefer John Gielgud (in anything) to Charles Laughton, but I was never a big fan of Jennifer Jones.)

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July 30, 2013

One more anniversary post

by chuckofish

Reblogged from Bless This Mess who reblogged it from somewhere else.

Reblogged from Bless This Mess who reblogged it from somewhere else.

Who knew July was such a month for wedding anniversaries? My dual personality’s. The boy’s. And our brother celebrated one back in June.

Well, it’s okay to be proud of some things.  I ran across this picture on a blog and I thought it was worth sharing with our readers. Something to aspire to, as it were–the long marriage, that is, not the shirts!

I know a couple who has been married for 70 years–they’re in their nineties! This is mind-boggling to say the least.  And awesome.

Likewise awesome is this poem by Anne Bradstreet (the 17th-century Puritan who was the first poet and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published.*)–To My Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

I better end this post before I get started on Puritans. Most the people who read this popular poem at their own weddings nowadays probably don’t even know who Anne Bradstreet was and that she was a Puritan! Zut alors!

*According to Wikipedia.

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July 11, 2013

Into each life some rain must fall

by chuckofish

richscarry

I was talking to daughter #1 yesterday–I was at work and she was walking down Columbus Avenue on her way to work in New York City. It started to rain and she had to run. There were no toadstools to wait under.

AP photo

AP photo

It was rainy as well in my flyover town, and I was reminded of this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882).

The Rainy Day

THE DAY is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

But you know, the sun always comes out again…and the tiger lilies are blooming!

lillys

lilys2

lillys3

Who can be sad for long when these wonderful flowers are blooming in our backyard and all along flyover byways?

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Quote | July 4, 2013

I am an American

by chuckofish

American-revolution

“I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.”

― Theodore Roosevelt

Have a great 4th of July–celebrate responsibly! Read some Emerson!

Concord Hymn

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

lexington-91

And last but not least…Happy Birthday to our dear brother!

sibs1967

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June 21, 2013

“I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.” *

by chuckofish

On Saturday I’m flying to Florida to meet up with “my girls” for a week on the beach.

On Tuesday my dual personality will leave for her biennual journey to England to visit her in-laws.

Posting will most probably be intermittent, but don’t worry, we’ll be checking in from time to time. My husband will be loaded down with all manner of laptop, iPad, iPhone, etc. so I will not be cut off from the world. God forbid.

Five years ago in Sanibel

In Sanibel: Team Skinnypants

While we are gone, the boy and his bride will move into their new (old) house. That worked out nicely, right?

*T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

You remember…

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

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