An Overcast Scottish Morn

I debated whether to post this here or over on the Legacy blog.

In June of '97 I was a participant in a conference in the English countryside near Oxford. Afterwards, I managed to wangle 3 days of trout fishing with the retired dad of a colleague from Scotland.

The last morning was overcast, soft, cool--a glorious time to be out in nature. Due to the wonders of modern travel, I had freshly caught, never frozen Scottish trout for supper the next evening in Tucson, Arizona! :-)

The watercolor above is a quick sketch from memory of the first hour of light on the loch.

Just for Fun

And now on a very light note... I love limericks. So I thought I would share a couple of fun ones. The first is for all those apple cider fans in the audience.

There was a young lady from Clyde,

who ate some green apples and died.

The apples fermented

inside the lamented,

and made cider inside her insides.

The second is from a wonderful little book, Biblical Limericks: Old Testament Stories Re-Versed, by D. R. Bensen. As a linguist in my former life I especially appreciate this one.

Babel

Their tower's impressive statistics

Pleased architects, boosters and mystics,

But their excess of pride

Caused the Lord to decide

It was time that they studied linguistics.

Genesis 11:1-9

Notes from the Other Side

Today's post is from Jane Kenyon, one of my favorite contemporary American poets. Jane was born in 1947 and died in 1995 after a 15-month battle with leukemia.



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Notes from the Other Side

I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
one's own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course

no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.


Jane Kenyon

And one of my own...

And one of my own...

=========================

I am a dangerous man
fraught with hidden peril,
soul shoals, heart reefs,
riptides dragging spirits
from safe shores
to midnight depths
of prussian sea,

drowning you,
consuming me,
consuming you,
drowning me.


Dale

Laughter and love...

Another of my favorite poems by Neruda focuses on his lover's laughter and it's power to renew him in life's struggles.

"Your Laughter" ("Tu Risa") was written to Matilde Urrutia when she was his lover. As his wife, he wrote her 100 Love Sonnets (Cien Sonetos de Amor) which seems to dispel the rumor that marriage ultimately kills love.



====================================


Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lanceflower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in your joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.


Pablo Neruda

A lot of talk about relationship...

I've been seeing a lot of talk about relationship lately. Of course it reminds me of just what I eventually hope to find. And the poet, Pablo Neruda, captured the very thing in a few poignant lines of his Sonnet XVII.

For the movie buffs out there, it's the lines Robin Williams quotes to the "love interest" coming out of the med school library in Patch Adams--starting with, "I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where..." From there to the end. I hope I eventually find that with someone.





==============================================

Sonnet XVII

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.


Pablo Neruda