Late August

“Let me enjoy
this late-summer day of my heart
while the leaves are still green
and I won’t look so close
as to see that first tint
of pale yellow slowly creep in.
I will cease endless running
and then look to the sky
ask the sun to embrace me
and then hope she won’t tell
of tomorrows less long than today.
Let me spend just this time
in the slow-cooling glow
of warm afternoon light
and I’d think
I will still have the strength
for just one more
last fling of my heart.”
- John Bohrn

Another goodbye

“While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.”

~John Taylor

Quotes that spoke to me today

“A garden you can’t see into is as unfriendly as a house with its blinds always drawn.” ~John Hartley

“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” ~Oscar Wilde

“A room should look like it evolved over time. It’s about traveling and collecting personal things. A house should not look decorated or predictable.” ~Amelia Handegan

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

“The opposite of faith is not heresy, but indifference.” ~Elie Wiesel

“I don’t understand such a ‘perfect’ world where everything in someone’s house is brand-new.” ~Courtney Tilinski

Mourning a loss

Learning of the tragic death of the brilliant and beautiful Natasha Richardson reminded me of the imminent anniversaries of my own family’s devastating losses. This time of year—being the Lenten season—is a somber one in general, but it is all the more so for my children and me. Their father died, unexpectedly, on Good Friday 2003, and two of their dearest friends lost their lives, just four days apart, in late March/early April of 2006. 

As the dates of these sad events creep ever closer, I find myself seeking solace in the comfort of words penned by others. How happy I was to discover this poem written by Keats called “Faery Song”. From what I gather, the words to this poem inspired David N. Childs’s haunting composition “Weep No More,” a beautiful rendition of which can be heard on this video clip.

Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! oh, weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.
Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies,–
Shed no tear.

Overhead! look overhead!
‘Mong the blossoms white and red–
Look up, look up! I flutter now
On this fresh pomegranate bough.
See me! ’tis this silvery bill
Ever cures the good man’s ill.
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Adieu, adieu–I fly–adieu!
I vanish in the heaven’s blue,–
Adieu, adieu!

    ~ John Keats

what best friends do

“When we honestly ask which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” ~ Henri Nouwen

St. Valentine’s Day Requiem

Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us so it’s all about love songs. I prefer the mournful kind, full of longing and loss, unrequited devotion and depleted passion. The you’ve-ripped-my-guts-out-and-now-I’m-just-a-wretch sort of love song. (People with melancholic temperaments are so much fun. No wonder we never get invited to parties.) So when I opened this morning’s email update from NPR’s Music Notes, my first impulse, naturally, was to click on the subheading titled “So Your Tiny Black Heart is Broken“. (The writer’s apt description: ”Each is carefully selected to provide a vivid soundtrack for those moments when alcohol isn’t even necessary, so drunk is the listener on his or her own misery.”) While most of the songs were unfamiliar to me, I was surprised and delighted to see one by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the soundtrack to “Once“, one of my favorite films of the decade. Now there’s an album to satisfy the sorrowful, soul-filled music lover in all of us.

I suppose everybody loves a love song, but for me the best love song is a sad love song.

 

“I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.” ~ George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

Rupert Brooke

The Soldier (1914)

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

~ Rupert Brooke

revisiting Mr Eliot

We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion. ~T. S. Eliot

Happy Birthday Rabbie!

 

 January 25 2009 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s best-loved poet (and sometimes scoundrel) Robert Burns. Scotland designed this year’s tourism extravaganza Homecoming Scotland around the event. Touted as “a year-long celebration of Scottish culture, heritage, and contributions to the world,” the folks at VisitScotland are hoping the romantic aura surrounding the famous Ayrshire bard will lure travelers to their bonny banks throughout the year. 

The British press are falling all over themselves to get in their fifteen minutes of Burns. The Times’ Brian Pedley takes us on a tour of Burns Country.  The Times Literary Supplement ran a wonderful essay in praise of Burns—a refreshing respite from the negative press he’s been receiving of late. Not to be outdone, Charles Moore puts in his two pence (and the reader comments don’t disappoint as the centuries-long English vs. Scottish ideological battle rages on). 

Burns was a prolific writer, and music lovers everywhere are grateful that many of his poems translated so beautifully into songs. My favorite version of “Ae Fond Kiss” is this one by Eddi Reader.

Of course, Scots, descendants of Scots, and wanna-be Scots everywhere will be celebrating this coming Sunday in a big way at Burns Suppers all over the world. The Independent’s John Walsh summed up the average Burns Night Supper thus:

“Wherever large, sentimental men in tartan skirts are gathered together with glasses of Talisker 18-year-old in their hands, someone will declaim Burns’s “Address to a Haggis” and whip a skean dhu from his sock and stab the inoffensive oatmeal pudding to death.”

For more on the bard:

Christopher Tait performs as Robert Burns here.

The Ultimate Burns Supper site.

Linn Records is offering a 12-volume set of the Complete Songs of Robert Burns.

Be sure not to miss the Celtic Zone episode in honor of the Bard at BBC Radio Scotland.

Will Gerard Butler ever finish filming the long-promised biopic of Rabbie’s life?

 

 

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye worthy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.

The groaning trencher
there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
‘Bethankit’ hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis.  

 

Shall I or shan’t I…?

“They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea.” ~Horace