Annotatus

I have always been an eclectic reader

Hungry for arcana of all stripes

From space flights to Shakespearean heights.

In my salad days, knowledge for it's own sake

was my less than noble intention

With maturity came a modicum of discernment

I annotate my books, a guilty pleasure,

Rather like de-crumbing a coffee cake,

Just a minor defilement

A phrase or word will strike my fancy

Or, not often enough, will touch something very deep,

ineffable yet indelible

One of the gifts of advancing age is

Greeting such bearers of grace as

Treasured guides on the journey home

Endnote: This is my first post in nearly four months. I allowed 'busyness' to creep up on me. What a sneaky little imp! With early December's bracing (read frigid) cold to pinch me, I promise to be more productive.

Emissaries

Like an autumnal shower of brilliant leaves,

butterflies float in a lush conservatory garden.

A winged emissary rests and caresses my hand,

wonder and quiet joy.

To the Celts they were renewal and transformation,

emissaries of the eternal

clothed in gossamer wings.

Ice Box, 1949

I remember the burly man with great metal claws

As he toted a huge diamond into the kitchen,

a chunk of ice for the box.

It glowed like a crystal chandelier,

but froze my small probing fingers.

Small items were on the top shelf,

A buttery slab, ruby hued strawberries, a lone ear of corn.

Sparkling glass bottles of milk with cream on top

filled the lower shelf.

They looked like snowy penguins

huddled by an Arctic sea.

The bottles felt as smooth and cold as polished stones

in a gushing stream.

In the summer I loved to touch their smooth coolness

and sip the creamy delight,

a taboo so delicious to breach

and not get caught!

Veil

Midsummer's relentless heat assails the flesh

Yet the desert saints were consumed by spirit

Extremes, I think, foster letting go

of nonessential things.

In the descending twilight,

A lone deer passed near a sanctuary window,

Celtic legend's guide to the Otherworld.

The evening's clouds were wine dark islands

Afloat in a vast serene sea,

Ever vanishing veil between time and the timeless.

Visit an Illuminating Blog

Linda, my fellow Iona pilgrim and friend, has a wonderful new blog. She and I must be kindred spirits because her poems reach a very deep place in me. Her blog address is: http://lindalouwakeupcall.blogspot.com.

I will be posting more poems soon. House renovations are not conducive to the Muse (the cats haven't quite recovered either).

Blessings,

Clare

Threshold by WS Merwin

Swallows streaking in and out through the row of broken

panes over the front door went on with their conversation

of afterthoughts whatever they had been settling

about early summer and nests and the late daylight

and the long-disused dwellings of swallows in the beams

let their dust fall from them as I brought in my bed

while the door stood open onto the stone sill smoothed to water

by the feet of others never known to me and when I

turned and looked back I did not recognize a thing

the sound of flying whirred past me a voice called far away

the swallows grew still and bats came out light as breath

around the stranger by himself in the echoes

what did I have to do with anything I could remember

all I did not know went on beginning around me

I had thought it was what would come later but it had been waiting.

Endnote: A lovely poem about early summer by Bill Merwin, our new poet laureate in the U.S.

Iona's Stone

An ancient stone fence encircles the Abbey grounds

where saints and pilgrims have walked for millennia

As a young islander repairs the wall,

he fingers a single small stone

as if it were a precious gem

He fits it into a small gap with great care

I am that small stone,

a part of the timeless fabric of this blessed place.

Pilgrimage to Iona

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Scotland on a pilgrimage to the holy isle of Iona, seat of early Celtic Christianity. This is something I have wanted to do for some time. I'll be away for about eleven days. Pictures and poems to follow.

Blessings,

Clare

Early Summer

As I drive past the median

Two blue jays dance on a lush grassy carpet

They squawk at each other as they hop,

One tries to outdo the other

"I am the king of the mountain!"

Childhood memories of

Summer's first days,

Exuberant, carefree, everything was possible

Summer seemed endless then

Metamorphosis

Shards of broken glass

polished into iridescent sea jewels

By the ocean's refining intensity,

A shifting relentless process,

Storm waves and placid waters

Crashing waves and lapping ones,

Nature's allegory for life's voyage.

Ablution

Gusty winds toss lush leafy limbs,

Like sea plants in turbulent ocean waters.

They remind me of a young woman washing

Her waist length hair,

Vigorous but graceful fluidity,

Young boughs clarified by refining winds.

The Sentinel

A single dandelion stands in a sea of splendor,

Her neighbors, clad in myriad and variegated hues,

Release their floral, woody perfumes

Into the moist welcoming air;

Pinks, magenta, deep reds, and

More shades of green than I have ever seen.

An exuberant bush with shimmering pale green leaves

Compels one to linger and finger it.

Silvery green lamb's ears

rest very close to the earth,

Furry leaves are hands as soft as velvet,

Beckoning to be caressed like

Those of a child.

One flawless golden sentinel keeps watch.

Endnote: Revised on 5/13/10.

Gaman

Forgotten, unlamented, lost in the dusty corners of time,

An extraordinary story, shameful and long ignored,

A blot on our nation's soul,

Laden with latent racism

Sanctioned by our government,

Finally emerges in the form of exquisite art,

Giving voice to the gaman from which it came.

During a world war Americans born in Japan were interned,

An egregious euphemism for imprisoned,

As their neighbors watched and applauded

Their government betray its' essential core,

While the internees responded with gaman.

Stripped of their cherished possessions,

Forcibly removed to hastily built desert camps,

Their living quarters little better than stables,

They bore an undeserved and cruel fate

With gaman.

The cauldron of psychic and physical pain,

An alchemy of loneliness, despair, and boredom,

Transformed the detritus of quotidian life

Into the extraordinary art of gaman.

Delicately fashioned bird pins, furniture from scrap lumber,

Intricately woven baskets of twine, musical instruments,

Toys, teapots, a Noguchi sculpture, and poignantly evocative paintings,

Created from the ephemera of exile

With gaman, enduring the unendurable with patience and grace.

Endnote: Written after viewing "The Art of Gaman" at the Renwick Museum, Washington D.C. in April 2010. The exhibit features more than 120 objects, most of which are on loan from former internees and their families. These were produced between 1942-1946 when 120,000 Japanese Americans in California were forcibly relocated to internment camps for the duration of WW II.

False Advertising

Our concept of beauty has been lost.

Advertising distorts and labels;

The pseudo ideal life haunts our days.

Feminine distortions overflow,

Women's bodies have become things.

Models starve, strike vulgar poses,

Air brushed photos mask variations.

The ideal lacks pores, poundage, split ends,

But never cleavage or a tight butt.

Young girls learn this fact prematurely;

Walls of impossible perfection

Induce angst, depression, anorexia.

Women viewed as things become victims,

A dangerous climate infiltrates

And poisons our collective psyche.

Violence against women abounds,

Tearing at society's fabric.

There are many other such victims,

Those perceived as old, ill, or obese.

Reverse mortgage ads for mature folks,

Also power chairs and incontinence aids;

Don't forget high priced diet products

And male enhancement during prime time.

Our swan song is 'Killing Us Softly.'

Oops

I backed into

the car

that was near

my driveway

It was

your sporty

pretentious

new one

I should be sorry

It looked so fine

with an iridescent

shine

But, in fact,

I don’t care

Your car

was blocking mine

Endnote: This is a parody I wrote of an apology poem by William Carlos Williams. In it, he sincerely apologizes to his wife for eating all her breakfast plums. I decided to be brutally honest instead.

Avian Lament

I watched you afloat on autumnal skies,

Welcome spectacle, epic and bitter sweet.

Your plangent notes,

an ancient promise keep.

In Spring the homebound birds all doubts belie.

As time's passage, with ersatz progress flies,

Your homes, your food, your very breath compete

With techno marvels sterile, venal, bleak.

As ever more encroach, doubts and fears arise.

I mourn untold futures lost and betrayed.

Silent dawns, fishless waters pervade.

I mourn diminished hope and wonder's loss.

Deranged nature speaks in many voices.

Eccentric rains, demonic winds rage across

A wounded earth, the victim of our choices.

Driving in Perverse

The key to success is mind over matter

I cannot unlock the car's jammed door

I wish I wasn't anywhere near this blighter!

If doors open, I have to start the piker

The key is stuck like Arthur's Excalibur

The key to success is mind over matter

Its' engine sounds like choking crows aflutter

My humor descends to depths below rancor

I wish I wasn't anywhere near this blighter!

It's brakes convulse with random grabs and falter

The fender bender wasn't my fault, señor

The key to success is mind over matter

Its' tires are tired of movement's brisk canter

All four are flat as mats on parquet floors

I wish I wasn't anywhere near this blighter!

I walk away from 'rent a wreck,' a biker

My driving sojourn's torture I abhor

The key to success is mind over matter

I wish I wasn't anywhere near this blighter!

Endnote: The vilanelle is a 19 line poem related to the sonnet. I wrote this one in iambic pentameter.

Eating Meditation, a Quatrain

The rain pelts down with winter's cutting harshness

A squirrel slowly turns her morsel round

She savors all her melded senses' wholeness

Absorbed in Nowness simple and profound

Mornings at Eleven

I find my place in the geriatric parade.

We limp, creak, sidle, prop each other up,

Rather like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.

The pool looms as water aerobics class begins.

Our instructor, Vivian, glares at those who slowly immerse.

She never gets in the glacial water herself, however.

The dominatrix snaps staccato orders like a demented woodpecker.

“ Balance, Balance, Balance!”

I wear a flotation belt, which further distorts my center of gravity.

Balance isn’t an option.

“Noodle, Stand” she commands.

One attempts to remain upright on this contrivance.

Of course, the belt accelerates the downward spiral.

A chemical cocktail floods all one’s orifices.

“Barbells, Stand” she bellows.

I pass on this one as the bobbing ‘bells’ drift away.

We are then bidden to run laps in the water.

I encounter the second lappers whilst still on my first.

This elicits unbridled scorn.

She is too exercised to speak.

Why, you may well ask?

Exercise is good.

Corporate misery fosters friendship.

And, irritating Vivian is such bliss!

The Poetry Reading

The ancient rocking chair sways back and forth like an eccentric pendulum.

Three moppets catapult into the kitchen.

They’re followed by a frenetic puppy who skids into her food dish.

The room smells of freshly cut flowers and dog food.

Mom squats on the lurching chair appropriated by assorted tykes and the dog.

It’s time for “Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight!”

The tale of Bessie and her beloved, Basil Underwood, in Cromwell’s England is our favorite poem.

Well, it’s one of our favorite poems.

The dog squeals as her tail gets squeezed.

We all yell ‘hot dog! because we’re young and not too vociferous.

Little CC tells everybody what to do.

We shout in unison “Curfew must not ring tonight” after each stanza.

We love the sound of it sans meaning.

The multicolored feathers of strange words and flowing rhyme tickle our imaginations.

We’re as excited as crows waiting for trash pickup.

With Bessie we hang on to the large bell’s ringer to stop the sound.

If the big bell rings, Basil will be executed,

“Curfew must not ring tonight!”

Bessie stops the capricious bell.

Basil is pardoned.

The ponderous bell thinks “Omnia vincit amor.”

The old chair continues to rock.

Reference: Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight, published in 1870 by Rose Hartwick Thorpe (1850 – 1939), an American poet. This poem was one of Queen Victoria's favorites.

Martha Incognito

Brief glimpse of a Hermes scarf

As an impeccably coifed and garbed figure

Ducks into McDonald’s back door

She ingests her Big Meal with gusto

Using her Hermes as a chador

Martha developed her fast food craving

During her confinement at Bedford Hills

Being Martha she mulls over potential profits,

Surreptitious silent partner or outright take over?

As she considers more and more scenarios

She indulges in another order of fries and a sundae

This repast stimulates my creative flow

I must get more of this to take out!

Who can venture a guess as to what she might do next?

So far, there has been no M and A activity

Capitalistic machinations, or

hopeless Big Mac addiction?

Vernal Equinox

Spring begins with the vernal equinox on March 20 at exactly 1:32 P.M. EDT. 

The word equinox is derived from the Latin for “equal night” and is used now because the days and nights are of nearly equal length. The vernal equinox is the point at which the center of the Sun passes over the celestial equator from south to north, signaling the start of nature's renewal in our hemisphere. 

After the equinox, the Sun will appear higher and higher in the sky, and length of day will grow longer than the length of night. (Farmer’s Almanac)

Here is a lovely poem welcoming Spring by Swinburne:

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green under wood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) Atalanta in Calydon (1865)

On St. Patrick's Day

On the feast of St.Patrick

Gael wannabes wax nostalgic

Hoisting pails of inferior brew

They spend most of the day in the loo

Whilst old Gaels sip Guinness among the copacetic

Endnote: Dedicated to Paul, my favorite cousin and Guinness connoisseur

Ides of March

The Ides of March has long been considered an ill-fated day. Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C. Historians note that it is likely that a soothsayer named Spurinna had warned Caesar that danger would occur by the ides of March. William Shakespeare included the phrase "Beware the ides of March" in his play Julius Caesar.

The ides were the 15th days of four months (Martius, or March; Maius, or May; Quintilis, or July; and October) in the ancient Roman lunar calendar; they were the 13th in all other months (originally, Aprilis, or April; Iunius, or June; Sextilis, or August; September; November; and December. Ianuarius, or January, and Februarius, or February, were added later). 

The word ides comes from the Latin word idus, which is possibly derived from an Etruscan word meaning "to divide." The ides were originally meant to mark the full Moon (the "halfway point" of a lunar month), but because the Roman calendar months and actual lunar months were of different lengths, they quickly got out of step. The ancient Romans considered the day after the calends (first of the month), nones (ninth day before the ides, inclusive), or ides of any month as unfavorable. These were called dies atri.(Old Farmer's Almanac)

Note: Rather than post an ominous 'Ides' poem, I chose this one by Hafiz on celebration.

Hafiz

Spring and all its flowers

now joyously break their vow of silence.

It is time for celebration, not for lying low;

You too - weed out those roots of sadness from your heart.

The Sabaa wind arrives;

and in deep resonance, the flower

passionately rips open its garments,

thrusting itself from itself.

The Way of Truth, learn from the clarity of water,

Learn freedom from the spreading grass.

Pay close attention to the artistry of the Sabaa wind,

that wafts in pollen from afar,

And ripples the beautiful tresses

of the fields of hyacinth flowers.

From the privacy of the harem, the virgin bud slips out,

revealing herself under the morning star,

branding your heart and your faith

with beauty.

And frenzied bulbul flies madly out of the House of Sadness

to unite with the flowers;

its love-crazed cry like a thousand-trumpet blast.

Hafez says, and the experienced old ones concur: all you really need is to tell

those Stories of the Fair Ones and the Goblet of Wine

Daylight Savings Time Begins

Today is the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, time for moving the clocks one hour ahead. The exceptions are Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Credit for Daylight Saving Time belongs to Benjamin Franklin, who first suggested the idea in 1784. The idea was revived in 1907, when William Willett, an Englishman, proposed a similar system in the pamphlet The Waste of Daylight. The Germans were the first to officially adopt the light-extending system in 1915 as a fuel-saving measure during World War I. The British switched one year later, and the United States followed in 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, which established our time zones. This experiment lasted only until 1920, when the law was repealed due to opposition from dairy farmers (cows don't pay attention to clocks). During World War II, Daylight Saving Time was imposed once again (this time year-round) to save fuel.

Daylight Savings Time


by Phyllis McGinley



In Spring when maple buds are red,


We turn the Clock an hour ahead;


Which means, each April that arrives,


We lose an hour 


Out of our lives.



Who cares? When Autumn birds in flocks


Fly southward, back we turn the Clocks,


And so regain a lovely thing--


That missing hour 


We lost last Spring.

Endnote: The history of daylight savings time comes directly from the Old Farmer's Almanac.