Mayfly Day

Rosemary of Where Five Valleys Meet had an interesting post last week about mayflies and their final "dance" before laying their eggs (click here to read).  David of Travels With Birds also wrote last week about how British mayflies are currently seriously threatened by water pollution and climate change (click here). These posts got me thinking!

One summer many years ago, I spent a day in Gimli, Manitoba, on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, during its annual mayfly (or as we call them here in Canada, fish fly) infestation. MILLIONS of them EVERYWHERE, on every roadway and surface. Not particularly pleasant but a true natural phenomenon.

Mayflies have a notoriously short life span (approximately 24 hours at most). But everything is relative, isn't it, as seen in this beautiful and wise poem which contains a lesson for us all --

MAYFLY DAY

by Jeanne Willis

Here is Mayfly.

It is her first day on earth.

It is also her last.

Mayflies only live for one day.

But is she sad? Not at all.

She is happy to be alive!

This isn't any old day.

This is the best of days.

She lives for each moment.

She sees the world begin.

She hears the crack of dawn.

And bathes in its golden glow.

A billion buds burst open.

All for her!

She tastes their honey.

Mayfly sees eggs hatch.

Babies born.

Lambs learning to stand.

The business of ants.

The dizziness of children . . .

The loveliness of things.

She feels the sun's warm hug.

The kiss of summer rain.

The magic of the rainbow.

It is her wedding day.

Trees throw confetti.

There are games on the lawn.

Breezes blow, bells chime.

Birds sing! She dances

to the music of the universe.

Mayfly lays her eggs.

It is a peaceful night.

The best of nights.

She makes one last wish:

"Little ones, may all your tomorrows

be as perfect as my yesterday!"

Mayfly watches the moon come up

and the stars go out.

And is thankful for her wonderful life.

Voices From The Closet

The ability to live safely out of the closet is very much a modern phenomenon (still largely only possible in the Western world) that is within the living memory of the generation who first came out en masse, the Boomers. We must not forget the countless generations who preceded us and did not have that freedom, but who lived and loved as best they could under horribly oppressive conditions.

Here's a selection of those past voices from the closet --

 jarchivistsims

sometimes i think about gay people who lived centuries ago who thought they were all alone who imagined a world where they could live openly as themselves who met in secret spoke in code defied everything and everyone just to exist and i’m like..i gotta sit down. whew i gotta sit down

 l2g

this is why this sappho fragment hits me so hard

 mortuarybees

 phantom-tail

If this little book should see the light after its 100 years of entombment, I would like its readers to know that the author was a lover of her own sex and devoted the best years of her life in striving for the political equality and social and moral elevation of women.

“The Great Geysers of California” by Laura De Force Gordon, 1879, unearthed from a 100-year-old time capsule in San Francisco, 1979.

 katherinebarlow

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.”

Gordon Bowsher to Gilbert Bradley, 1940s

I couldn't find any publication data on that book but a good summary of Gordon and Gilbert's wartime love affair is available here.

Another voice from the distant past -- a poem written by medieval Christian mystic St. Hildegard von Bingen to her beloved nun and muse Richardis von Stade:

I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse

I have gathered my myrrh with my spice

I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey

I have drunk my wine with my milk

Eat, o friends

Drink, yea drink abundantly, o beloved

I sleep, but my heart waketh

It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh

Saying, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled

For my head is filled with dew

And my locks with the drops of the night.

And further to the Sappho fragment at the beginning of this post, there's a famous modern poem written in response to it which is the perfect way to conclude this post --

Sappho's Reply

My voice rings down through thousands of years

To coil around your body and give you strength,

You who have wept in direct sunlight,

Who have hungered in invisible chains,

Tremble to the cadence of my legacy:

An army of lovers shall not fail.

-- Rita Mae Brown

Updating a Favourite Classic Poem

[illustration by Theo Gayer-Anderson]

Ozymandias 

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

["Ozymandias of Amarillo, Texas"

sculpture by Lightnin' McDuff]

OZZY

by Mitchell Thompson

@leonsbuddydave

I met a traveller from way the hell off

who said: two gigantic, fucked-up rock legs

be out there in the middle of goddamn nowhere

right next to them covered in shit some kinda big face

looked pretty pissed & upset & whatnot

all damn covered in words

“yo ozymandias here, this my shit”

“better than your shit, get fucked buddy”

not much else tho, just sand

shitloads of sand all over the place

A Frosty Friday in July

Earlier this week, Ol'Buzzard of Ol'Buzzard's World View entertained us all with an interesting post about his favourite poet, Robert Frost. So today's collection of LOLs is for you, OB, and your lovely wife too as she kicks cancer's ass to the curb! You both rock!

King Richard III (Part the Second)

Late last month, Richard's remains were reinterred at Leicester Cathedral in central England. However controversial or chequered Richard's history had been, the dignified ceremony befitted a king. The Poet Laureate of England, Carol Ann Duffy, wrote a beautiful, haunting poem for the event.

Richard
by Carol Ann Duffy

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.

The poem was read at the ceremony by Benedict Cumberbatch, himself a distant many-times-removed cousin of Richard's who will soon portray him in the BBC's Hollow Crown production of Shakespeare's Richard III (pictured above). And I can hardly wait -- it is my most favourite Shakespearean play!

Here is video of the poem being read:



So, King Richard, rest in peace while the battle continues on about your place in history. At least no one is driving over top of your grave and dripping oil on it anymore.

To See the Rabbit

To See the Rabbit

by Alan Brownjohn

We are going to see the rabbit.

We are going to see the rabbit.

Which rabbit, people say?

Which rabbit, ask the children?
Which rabbit?

The only rabbit,

The only rabbit in England,

Sitting behind a barbed-wire fence

Under the floodlights, neon lights,

Sodium lights,

Nibbling grass

On the only patch of grass

In England, in England

(Except the grass by the hoardings

Which doesn't count).

We are going to see the rabbit

And we must be there on time.

First we shall go by escalator,

Then we shall go by underground,

And then we shall go by motorway,

And then by helicopterway,

And the last ten yards we shall have to go

On foot.

And now we are going

All the way to see the rabbit,

We are nearly there,

We are longing to see it,

And so is the crowd

Which is here in thousands

With mounted policemen

And big loudspeakers

And bands and banners,

And everyone has come a long way.

But soon we shall see it

Sitting and nibbling

The blades of grass

On the only patch of grass

In -- but something has gone wrong!

Why is everyone so angry,

Why is everyone jostling

And slanging and complaining?

The rabbit has gone,

Yes, the rabbit has gone.

He has actually burrowed down into the earth

And made himself a warren, under the earth,

Despite all these people,

And what shall we do?

What can we do?

It is all a pity, you must be disappointed,

Go home and do something else for today,

Go home again, go home for today.

For you cannot hear the rabbit, under the earth,

Remarking rather sadly to himself, by himself,

As he rests in his warren, under the earth:

"It won't be long, they are bound to come,

They are bound to come and find me, even here."

I have loved this poem by the British poet Alan Brownjohn ever since I first read it more than 40 years ago in junior high school. I love how the poem unfolds -- the young narrator's excited enthusiasm, the disturbing realization that this poem occurs in a future dystopian England, the creepiness of the imagery and the heartbreaking plight of the last rabbit. What a powerful warning about social, environmental and political breakdown and its costs, all in a concise little poem.

For Mother's Day: "The Lanyard"

One of my favourite contemporary poets is Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001-2003. His poetry is always simple, direct and often very funny. Yet he also captures profound truths about human nature and life.

His poem "The Lanyard" is perfect for Mother's Day. In this video, following a very short voice-over intro by Garrison Keillor, Billy Collins reads his poem aloud at a poetry festival.



Happy Mother's Day to all Moms everywhere!

A Thanksgiving Celebration in the Garden of Friendship

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving, everyone! Today when we celebrate the bounty of the earth, we should also remember to celebrate the many blessings of friendship.

I hope you'll enjoy this seasonal poem written many years ago by a Unitarian Universalist minister named Rev. Max Coots. This version is slightly revised and condensed.

Let us give thanks for a bounty of friends:

For generous friends with hearts and smiles as bright as their blossoms;

For feisty friends as tart as apples;

For continuous friends who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we've had them;

For crotchety friends as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For good-looking friends who are as gorgeous as eggplants and elegant as a row of corn, and for other friends who are as plain as potatoes and as good for you;

For funny friends who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and for serious friends who are as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;

For friends who are as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see us through the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening time, and for young friends, coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, and who fed us in their times that we might have life today;

For all these friends, and for those friends of whom we have yet to partake, we give thanks.

Extreme Makeovers

This poem is by a contemporary American poet named Kenneth Pobo. I read it a few years ago on the Plum Ruby Review poetry site and thought it was absolutely right on! I hope you enjoy it too. It's getting more relevant with each passing day.

Extreme Makeovers

by Kenneth Pobo

In the early 70s I put

my hand in the hand of a

hippy Jesus who minced about

in flowers, a heavenly Donovan

with sad-puppy eyes.

The 80s Jesus farted

discreetly, bought a good suit,

worked for a company, carried

a briefcase, and said money

made his daddy happy.

The 90s Jesus reviled the poor,

fumed about gays

and lurid TV. Currently,

Jesus says his FATHER

is a Republican, and if you don't

like that, get fucked,

you won't be entering our kingdom,

we'll see to that. I miss

my silly hippy

and his lemon meringue backbone,

love wasn't an attack dog to him,

and when he held my hand

he meant it.

Dinner Party Challenge!

Thank you, Dark Mother Goddess, for tagging me with the Dinner Party Challenge. The rules are simple -- choose six people who you would like to invite for dinner. They can be living or dead, real or fictional, friends or family, famous or infamous. Tell why you want these people at your dinner party. And what would you serve them for a meal?

Because April is National Poetry Month in Canada and the USA, I decided to invite six of my favourite poets to my dinner party. I tried to get a good mix of genders, historical eras and poetic styles.

Of course, my first pick is Sappho, lesbian poet extraordinaire of ancient Greece. I'd love to hear all about her many loves and the young women's academy she founded on the Isle of Lesbos. I bet she has a few choice words too for the Christian religion that subsequently destroyed almost all copies of her poetry and tried to erase her from history.

Next is my favourite Japanese haiku poet, Issa (1763-1827). His poems are noted for their simplicity, ruefulness, humour and respect for all living creatures. I would love to discuss "the haiku moment" with him.

My third choice is William Wordsworth (1770-1850) who wrote much deathless poetry in his time and rose to be Poet Laureate of England. Plus he had an intense and perhaps romantic relationship with his sister Dorothy that I'd love to hear more about.

Speaking of intense relationships, what dinner party would be complete without William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), passionate Irish nationalist, poet, playwright, mystic, Nobel laureate? What was it like to pursue Maud Gonne for a single night of sex after 19 years of unrequited love?

The American poet Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) helped to create modern free verse poetry. He'd probably have a lot to discuss with Issa because some of his best poetry can be very haiku-like. What intrigues me about Stevens is that he was an insurance lawyer. Yet he had such a wildly creative soul! Surely that dichotomy must have produced some profound conflict in him?

My sixth guest is the living American poet, Mary Oliver. I love her introspective poetry with its intense connection to nature, spirituality and the truth of women's lives. I'm sure she'd like to meet Sappho too.

So what does one serve poets at a dinner party? Endless coffee, cigarettes and booze leap to mind, although that's probably just an unfounded stereotype. I think I'd serve a variety of finger-foods and tapas. Catered, of course. I want to spend all my time asking questions and listening to them talk.

Okay, all you bloggers reading this, consider yourself tagged! If this challenge sounds interesting to you, do a post -- I'd love to read it!

Beannacht (Blessing)

On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets in to you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green,

and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.

--John O'Donohue

Many pagans don't like to celebrate St. Patrick's Day because St. Pat christianized pagan Ireland and quite frankly, we still resent it. So instead of lionizing the auld saint today, I'm featuring this poem by the brilliant and sensitive contemporary Irish mystic, poet and Catholic priest, John O'Donohue, author of Anam Cara.

And here's an extra treat -- a video of John O'Donohue himself reciting this poem shortly before his untimely death in 2008. He had the most beautiful Irish brogue and musical lilt to his voice. I could listen to him forever.

Raising the Tone of this Blog

Hello. Her Royal Highness here. Like the rest of you, I can't help but notice that the tone of this blog has degenerated lately into superficial fluff, adolescent sexual fantasies about Colin Firth and descriptions of gastrointestinal distress. Therefore, I am intervening in order to post something with more literary merit -- an extract from the greatest medieval poem ever written, Beocat. You're welcome.

Brave Beocat, brood-kit of Ecgthmeow,

Hearth-pet of Hrothgar in whose high halls

He mauled without mercy many fat mice,

Night did not find napping nor snack-feasting.

The wary war-cat, whiskered paw-wielder,

Bearer of the burnished neck-belt gold-braided collar band,

Feller of fleas fatal, too to ticks,

The work of wonder-smiths, woven with witches' charms,

Sat upon the throne-seat his ears like sword-points

Upraised, sharp-tipped, listening for peril-sounds,

When he heard from the moor-hill howls of the hell-hound,

Gruesome hunger-grunts of Grendel's Great Dane,

Deadly doom-mutt, dread demon-dog.

Then boasted Beocat, noble battle-kitten,

Bane of barrow-bunnies, bold seeker of nest-booty:

"If hand of man unhasped the heavy hall-door

And freed me to frolic forth to fight the fang-bearing fiend,

I would lay the whelpling low with lethal claw-blows;

Fur would fly and the foe would taste death-food.

But resounding snooze-noise, stern slumber-thunder,

Nose-music of men snoring mead-hammered in the wine-hall,

Fills me with sorrow-feeling for Fate does not see fit

To send some fingered folk to lift the firm-fastened latch

That I might go grapple with the grim ghoul-pooch."

Thus spoke the mouse-shredder, hunter of hall-pests,

Short-haired Hrodent-slayer, greatest of the pussy-Geats.

[From Poetry for Cats by Henry Beard (Villard, 1994)]

Divine Justice

"You're a thief!" the judge said. "Let's see

Your hands!" I showed my callused hands in court.

My sentence was a thousand years of joy.

--Robert Bly, excerpt from Stealing Sugar from the Castle

What is a Poem?

"[A] poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms."

--Stephen Dobyns

Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate

Carol Ann Duffy, Britain's first woman Poet Laureate, is a Scottish lesbian single Mom who is one of Britain's most accomplished and popular poets. She has won many prestigious poetry awards and is Director of Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.

I've only read one of her books -- The World's Wife (1999). Every sardonic (or occasionally angry) poem is written from the viewpoint of some famous man's wife or female relative. For example -- Mrs. Midas, Mrs. Aesop, Mrs. Faust, Queen Kong (!), Mrs. Lazarus, Frau Freud and Elvis's Twin Sister.

Here's one of the shorter poems in the book. In five apparently innocuous or even silly lines, it sums up every awful thing we know about women's historically overlooked contributions to, and devalued participation in, human intellectual progress:

Mrs. Darwin

7 April 1852.

Went to the Zoo.

Said to Him -- 

Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.

Finally, a Woman Poet Laureate in Britain!

For nearly 500 years, Britain has appointed exclusively male Poets Laureate, starting with Ben Jonson in 1617. Some of the greatest British poets have been appointed to this post, including John Dryden, William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Masefield, Cecil Day-Lewis (father of the marvelous actor, Daniel Day-Lewis) and Ted Hughes (husband of Sylvia Plath).

But there has never been a female Poet Laureate. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was considered for the post, but in the end Alfred Lord Tennyson was chosen over her. And after Tennyson's death, the post was deliberately left vacant for years rather than appoint a woman poet. Eventually Alfred Austin (who?) was named Poet Laureate. Today he is reviled as the worst Laureate ever -- but better him than Christina Rossetti was the logic of the times.

But the long drought is finally over! At the beginning of May, Britain appointed Carol Ann Duffy as Poet Laureate. More about her tomorrow. In the meantime -- another glass ceiling broken! Hooray!

[This photo is Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey where many of Britain's greatest poets are buried or memorialized by plaques, including some Poets Laureate of course.]

Happy Earth Day!

In honour of Earth Day today, here's a favourite poem. I love how it evokes Gaia's "motherly attitude" in a way that is not usually portrayed, but yet which is entirely truthful. I'm sure we've all experienced this particular tone of voice from our own Moms at some point or another in our lives! This poem is found in Marilyn Sewell (ed.), Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women's Spirituality (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991) at pp. 245-247.

Inventing Sin

by George Ella Lyon

God signs to us

we cannot read

She shouts

we take cover

She shrugs

and trains leave

the tracks

Our schedules! we moan

Our loved ones

God is fed up

All the oceans she gave us

All the fields

All the acres of steep seedful forests

And we did what

Invented the Great Chain

of Being and

the chain saw

Invented sin

God sees us now

gorging ourselves &

starving our neighbors

starving ourselves &

storing our grain

& She says

I've had it

you cast your trash

upon the waters -- 

it's rolling in

You stuck your fine fine finger

into the mystery of life

to find death

& you did

you learned how to end

the world

in nothing flat

Now you come crying

to your mommy

Send us a miracle

Prove that you exist

Look at your hand, I say

Listen to your scared heart

Do you have to haul the tide in

sweeten the berries on the vine

I set you down

a miracle among miracles

You want more

It's your turn

You show me

on reading an account of Virginia Woolf's death

I'm thinking of a woMan who walked

into the waters of a river

with stones in her pockets

thinking of the waters

of the rivers of my life

thinking of the stones

in My pockets

woMen are born

with stones in their pockets

eMpty them       eMpty theM swiM

--Karen Ethelsdatter, 2002

Another great poem and one of my favourites. It was published a few years ago in a We'Moon Datebook. I just love the concluding line in particular, with its clarion call to Life.

Graffiti Haiku

There are many creative graffiti artists (or vandals, depending on your perspective) working in the neighbourhood near our university. They inscribe their offerings in spray paint, stencils or magic marker on any number of handy surfaces belonging to others. One spring day as I walked in the area, I passed three separate graffiti statements painted by different people on a sidewalk, utility pole and green dumpster, respectively. Each statement stayed with me until later, when it occurred to me that I had inadvertently found, in the most unlikeliest of spots, a charming haiku of great wisdom. Thank you, unknown graffiti poets!

listen . . . don't wait
until tomorrow . . . grow