Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
.
WH AUDEN

so, only yesterday

I was thinking about Dr Seuss. . .

. . .and it turns out that today is Dr Suess Day! he'd have been 105 years old today if he was still alive - that's pretty old

I once went to a great-grand-mother's birthday party, she was 95 and had 95 candles on her cake and I remember that someone - and uncle, I think - lit them, starting at the back of the cake, and by the time he'd reached the ones at the front those at the back had burnt right down onto the icing and singed the sugar flower decorations (now I'm a grown-up, I can see that the error was only to have the one person lighting the candles - as a child I just thought it was a terrible waste of icing and sugar flowers)

I digress. . .

. . .back to the good doctor - here's one I like (it's rather long, so this is a little shorter - kind of the edited highlights)

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Congratulations!
Today is your day.You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!
You have brains in your head.You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.
You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

.
*
.

I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.
And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.
.

*
.

You'll get mixed up, of course, as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3⁄4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
.
So...be your name Buxbaum or Bixby
or Brayor Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So... get on your way!

say what I feel? well, I have to admit that I'm not really liking the being alone on this journey of mine - and plenty of things along the way scare me. . .

. . .but! by some wonderfully bizarre coincidence, as I sit here doing this, Teen Too (previously known as Middle One, before he turned 13) is sitting at his desk asking questions about his art homework - he's studying Roy Lichtenstein. . .
.

. . .and I know I'm not all alone - I have my lovely children to look after; it's not the same as having someone look after me or having a Brad about (whether I'd choose to ask him to help me, or not) but there you go. . .

. . .or there I go. . .

. . .well, here I am, I guess. . .

and, actually, I oughtn't be here at all - there are chores to be done. . .
.

what is that old saying?
"no peace for the wicked"

one for sorrow, two for joy

one for sorrow, two for joy;
three for a girl, four for a boy;
five for silver, six for gold;
seven for a secret, never to be told;
eight for a wish, nine for a kiss;
ten for a bird that's best to miss
.
* .
the magpie (pica pica)
.

an overview:

Magpies seem to be jacks of all trades - scavengers, predators and pest-destroyers, their challenging, almost arrogant attitude has won them few friends. With its noisy chattering, black-and-white plumage and long tail, there is nothing else quite like the magpie in the UK. When seen close-up its black plumage takes on an altogether more colourful hue with a purplish-blue iridescent sheen to the wing feathers, and a green gloss to the tail. Non-breeding birds will gather together in flocks.

.

so, being a bit of a jack myself I scavanged a thought from Dave today. . .

and am revisiting Kahil Gibran's The Prophet. . .

.
Then a woman said,
"Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
.
needs must, eh

when to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,
.
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
.

WILL
.
it's all going to be alright, isn't it? I mean, it's been pretty crap for well over two years now, but that's not my destiny, just the circumstances of today - right? it's just where I am now, not at the beginning and not at the end. . . SHIT why does it do this every so often, too often still for my liking; I need to reread the helpful book about grief, don't I? I need to get the damp and the ceiling that's about to fall in fixed, so I can have that doctor's orders break for a while, don't I? find some sunshine. . . I always feel better in the sunshine. . . it can't be that bad if I have a roof and can even begin to think about having a break, can it - I do KNOW I'm lucky, in so many ways, three lovely healthy children who are happy to live with me (well, not The Teen, but he has no option right now). . . it's just sometimes the pretty crap seems far worse than the crap before and I do wonder. . . but hindsight is a curse, isn't it. . . or perhaps time really does heal and I've just forgotten - and do I really feel like this this evening or is it just because it's late and I'm exhausted from all the good stuff I've been doing with the children - I mean, good stuff can be tiring, can't it? I just want to switch off - not in the way I did this time last year, no, my children need me - I know that now - and I can look after them. . . perhaps I ought to just go to bed and see how everything feels in the morning? in which case, just ignore this - please; because I am blessed in so many ways, and I do KNOW that, it's just that sometimes it gets a little lost in amongst everything else; I never knew it would be this hard

The Trouble with Snowmen

'The trouble with snowmen,'
Said my father one year
'They are no sooner made
than they just disappear.
.
'I'll build you a snowman
And I'll build it to last
Add sand and cement
And then have it cast.
.
And so every winter,'
He went on to explain,
'You shall have a snowman
Be it sunshine or rain.'
.
And that snowman still stands
Though my father is gone
Out there in the garden
Like an unmarked gravestone.
.
Staring up at the house
Gross and misshapen
As if waiting for something
Bad to happen.
.
For as the years pass
And I grow older
When summers seem short
And winters colder.
.
The snowmen I envy
As I watch children play
Are the ones that are made
And then fade away.
.
ROGER McGOUGH

The more it snows
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
On snowing.

And nobody knows
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
Are growing.

AA MILNE

what happens when you take The Teen and his

brother to the V&A on a Friday night? this:

he informs me that the quote. . .

"I am become death,
the destroyer of worlds"

is something said by Robert Oppenheimer in 1945 (a little bit of history here)

he didn't want to go (to the V&A) and neither did Teen Too. . . but they were with me for the evening, which was unusual, and I thought it would be fun to do something

obviously their idea of fun and mine differ somewhat - but I guess that the two different ideas don't really overlap, so somewhat begrudgingly they settled for my suggestion; we trudged around, a lot of the galleries were shut which was a shame, we spent ages chatting in the cafe and spent a small fortune in the gift shop; because they were so reluctant to go, I had told the boys that we'd only spend a couple of hours there and they might not see much that would inspire them (teenagers, eh) but hopefully they might see one thing that would make the evening worth while. . .
.

. . .they did

(-:

.
(well The Teen saw it and liked it, and that was good enough for Teen Too)

it was a huge Chinese woodblock print of ripples on water (subjects close to my heart, you might recall) (printing and water ripples)

I can't find it online, but here's a woodblock featuring water:

and this isn't Chinese, but I thought it was quite lovely:

Can it be a heron,
plum blossoms, or snow?
No.
Tonight it is the moon.

HASU MIDORI

and the ring? The Teen designed it in the Jewellery Gallery and then emailed it to me. .

. . .wonders will never cease. . .

(-:

poetry please! I have just received this

message from the good people at Radio 4:

"I just wanted to let you know that we'll be featuring the poem that you requested – 'St Agnes Eve' by John Keats- in Poetry Please on Sunday 18th January at 4.30pm on Radio 4. Apologies for the short notice. The programme will be repeated on Saturday 24th January at 11.30pm and is available via listen again on the Radio 4 website."

thinking about it, I have to cast my mind back to a long long time ago now, when I lived in The Village and

.
and

and

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

perhaps I won't go there. . .

suffice it to say that "everything comes to those who wait" (well, somethings do: poetry, seemingly, in this case) - I put in this request more than two years ago (but can still remember making it)

quite suitable for the weather, wouldn't you say:
.

St. Agnes' Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold. . .
.

KEATS

the song of a man who has come through

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!
If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed
By the fine, fine, wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world
Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge,
Driven by invisible blows, the rock will split, we shall come at the wonder:

We shall find the Hesperides.
.
Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.
No, no, it is the three strange angels...
.

...Admit them, admit them.

DH LAWRENCE

definitions of "ever"

Ever, ever
Stir and shiver
The reeds and rushes
By the river:
Ever, ever,
As if in dream,
The lone moon's silver
Sleeks the stream.
.
.
What old sorrow,
What lost love,
Moon, reeds, rushes,
Dream you of?
.
WALTER DE LA MARE

So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches.

Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands smooth as grapes.
And I watch my words from a long way off.

They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.
It climbs the same way on damp walls.

You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.

Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness than you are.
Now I want them to say what I want to say to you
to make you hear as I want you to hear me.

The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice.
Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.

Love me, companion.

Don't forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.
But my words become stained with your love.

You occupy everything, you occupy everything.
I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes.

PABLO NERUDA

St. Agnes' Eve--Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.
.
His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
The sculptur'd dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprison'd in black, purgatorial rails:
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.
.
Northward he turneth through a little door,
And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongue
Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor;
But no--already had his deathbell rung;
The joys of all his life were said and sung:
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve:
Another way he went, and soon among
Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.
.
(and so it goes on!)
.
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.
.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before.
.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day.
.
.
AE HOUSEMAN

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

NO!

No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day
No sky--no earthly view
No distance looking blue
No road--no street--no "t'other side this way"
No end to any Row
No indications where the Crescents go
No top to any steeple
No recognitions of familiar people
No courtesies for showing 'em
No knowing 'em!
No travelling at all--no locomotion
No inkling of the way--no notion
"No go" by land or ocean
No mail--no post
No news from any foreign coast
No Park, no Ring, no afternoon gentility
No company--no nobility
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds
November!
.
Thomas Hood

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved him, and sometimes he loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held him in my arms.
I kissed him again and again under the endless sky.

He loved me, sometimes I loved him too.
How could one not have loved his great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have him. To feel that I have lost him.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without him.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep him.
The night is shattered and he is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost him.

My sight searches for him as though to bring him closer.
My heart looks for him, and he is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I still love him, that's certain; how I love him.
My voice tries to find the wind to touch his hearing.

Another's. He will be another's. As he was before my kisses.
His voice, his bright body. His inifinite eyes.

I still love him, that's certain, I love him.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held him in my arms,
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost him.

Though this be the last pain that he makes me suffer
these will not be the last verses that I write for him.

with apologies to PABLO NERUDA

travelling by magic

.
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
.
WB YEATS

the cloth beneath my feet takes me all over the world,
out of this world and into others,
and far far out, into the depths of time and space. . .
.

you have all woven the cloth with me:
you helped me thread the warp, on my loom,
which is made from pure love

and sun beams

and shafts of light

and you helped me choose the strands of the weft. . .

some of the threads are pure spun gold
(stolen from Rumpelstiltzkin no doubt),
some silver filaments from the hair of witches,
some rusted iron wires from the needles in the haystack
.
and the iron bars surrounding emprisoned persons
whose only escape from their circumstances
is a journey like ours
.

some fibres are silk from the cocoons of insects
in places full of eastern promise,
and some cotton from those of western decadence;
some spun from the grass on the other side of the fence
. some spun from the carded hairs of polar bears,
who we brushed and groomed
while they gently slept under the Northern Lights
(difficult to spin, as they are hollow and snap easily
- but we spun them none the less);
some from the feathers of Emperor penguins,
which we picked up
from the Antarctic snows in the middle of a blizzard;
and some from the fallen feathers of angels
.
yet more from locks of mermaid hair. . .
.

the most wonderful thing about the cloth
(apart from its clueless camping corner with the jacuzzi)
is that it never ever ends. . .

. . .we are still spinning and weaving. . .

. . .adding pattern and texture,
patching and mending rips,
whilst mopping the tears that wash it clean
and smoothing balm onto our sore skinned hands

it goes on and on. . .
. . .like the journey

. . .like the view

.
what can I say?

re-reading

The 39 Steps (from my early teens) was fun; The Naive and Sentimental Lover (from my mid 20s) wasn't; now I'm going back (to my late 30s) to The Time Traveler's Wife. . .

.
LOVE AFTER LOVE
.
The time will come when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving at your own door,
in your own mirror and each
will smile at the other's welcome, and say,
sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger
who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back
your heart to itself, to the stranger
who has loved you all your life,
whom you ignored for another, who knows you
by heart. Take down the love letters
from the bookshelf, the photographs,
the desperate notes, peel your own image
from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
.
DEREK WALCOTT

more English lit

(I thought Mrs Dowdeswell's late husband
might have found that of interest)

I digress, onto the literature!

1913 A Boy's Will
My Butterfly
.

Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Save only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.
The gray grass is not dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago
--It seems forever--
Since first I saw thee glance,
With all the dazzling other ones,
In airy dalliance,
Precipitate in love,
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,
Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.
When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.
Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,
With those great careless wings,
Nor yet did I.
And there were other things:
It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:
Then fearful he had let thee win
Too far beyond him to be gathered in,
Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp.
Ah! I remember me
How once conspiracy was rife
Against my life
--The languor of it and the dreaming fond;
Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,
The breeze three odors brought,
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!
Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!
I found that wing broken to-day!
For thou are dead, I said,
And the strange birds say.
I found it with the withered leaves
Under the eaves.
..

ROBERT FROST