They flee from me…

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

They flee from me that Sometime did me Seek

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small;

Therewithall sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, “dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.

But all is turned thorough my gentleness

Into a strange fashion of forsaking;

And I have leave to go of her goodness,

And she also, to use newfangleness.

But since that I so kindly am served

I would fain know what she hath deserved.

I just came across this poem on my new favorite website.  The language/culture/history barriers aside, I think, at first reading it is at least interesting.  More interesting with this sexier picture of Sir Thomas.  Really, wikipedia and Representative Poetry online, you make it hard to love a man!  And, btw, he was over 6′ tall, if that helps.

The comentary by Ian Lancashire is very helpful.  But I am still a bit scandalized.  I mean, look at the date up there!  The man was alive in a time that conjures up some very strong imagery for me.  But none of it includes a culture of diverse sexual affairs.  Which is very niave of me, I know.  I realize that for the species to survive, people were having sex.  I just never imagined that they were…writing about it.    Even if, very subtly writing about it.  Was this the type of poetry people talked about in polite company?  I’m dying to know.  And how was it that this kind of adultery was so widely accepted that poetry like this survived?  And who was this woman, in the 1500s that was taking on a man who “lay broad waking” without any agenda aside from… recreation?  Ian Lancashire tells us that this type of poetry is very rare.  (I should think so!)

“Courtiers, like Henry, wrote love lyrics in pursuing a woman’s sexual favours, but once seduced, unmarried women lost their power. Few men would complain, in lyrics, about being rejected by someone they had successfully bedded because they usually were fully prepared to move on to new sexual partners…”

So, what catagory of litterature is this?  Was it the 1500s version of Cosmo?  Its so very subtle, I have no idea if this is something people would giggle about in intimate company or if this would have been in the restricted (through time) to only men?

As for the mystery bird, that wild unfettered creature…  I’ll tell you what she deserved, Sir Thomas, she deserved some fragment of history to have preserved what it was like for a 16th century woman in the Court of Henry the VIII!  Because apparantly, there really is nothing new under the sun.  I find it facinating to find how people have always slipped into the margins of history.  The things we know about Sir Thomas Wyatt are dry and boring speculation inside dates and facts.  Judging by his poetry, he seems like a very complex and sensative character.  I am fascinated.

Gangotri (The place where The Ganges flows to earth from heaven)

In the thin air at Gangotri, I hover like a ghost.
Every breath is poison.
I fall through a sky of fire
and fade from view.

You hover over me like a halo of mercy.

Palaces, and legacies of
civilizations pass through my eyes
to yours.

Together we purify these bones.
Together we burn and scrape them clean.
And when the stars align,
we shine.

The poet of my adolescent dreams

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

The first time I read those words, it was like they were emblazoned on the shield of the absolute warrior-hero of my dreams.  Anyone who could put rage and gentle together in a lyrical poem to his dying father was a ROCK STAR in my book.  Imagine my heartache when my 12th grade English teacher snidely remarked that this man, the one who so earnestly plead with his dying father to fight and rage against death walked into the White horse tavern on November 9th 1953 and drank himself to death.  It wasn’t enough to stop me from adoring this poem, but I was so utterly disappointed that the rock star went out that way.  That he just gave up.

Poetry is important to me at the moment, so I’m revisiting all the masterpieces of my youth.  I decided to look up my old flame and a quick Google search may have restored my admiration of the rock star who was Dylan Thomas.  What if he didn’t drink himself to death?  What if he was sick before he went in to the bar?  I am so bored of celebrity who-done-it access Hollywood exclusives about the doctors responsible for killing off celebrities.  Yeah, doctors screw up, they are human.  When they screw up with someone famous, we all get to hear about it.  But according to author David Thomas the personal physician of Dylan Thomas likely misdiagnosed a bronchial infection and proceeded to administer the worst possible drug, morphine, assuming that Dylan Thomas’ condition was the result of his heavy drinking.

People have to take responsibility for their actions, I was appalled at this BBC article that lays blame for DT’s alcoholism at universities for not giving him a fellowship, or at the BBC for not giving him a job as a reporter, or on his reliance on American lecture circuits that kept him away from his wife and family.  Nope, I don’t buy the whole celebrity=victim thing.  Dylan Thomas was most likely an alchoholic, he had only himself to blame for that.  And his poor diet, heavy drinking and sleeplessness contributed to his poor health.  But I do take comfort in the new evidence.  I guess it isn’t that new, 5 year old evidence that the poet of my dreams did not lay his life down in a fit of drunkenness in a bar.  He arrived in New York feeling ill, cheated on his wife with the assistant of his agent and had some drinks.  After complaining to his physician that he couldn’t breath, his doctor gave him some morphine, which had the affect of further hampering his breathing.  He then colapsed and was admitted to the hospital where he lay comatose until his death.  His genius brain was deprived of oxagen and he died of swelling to the brain.

I feel assured that he lived, he strained against his poverty, he met his obligations (if not to his wife) with all the rage he could muster, he used up his life until it he intersected with a fatal series of mistakes, and learning too late, I think he must have grieved on his way to the dying of the light.

I guess it is strange to take comfort in that.  But I do.

To BJay, The Greatest Man that ever lived. ;)

Angels

Rainbows

The poet of my youth

I babysat a lot when I was an early teen… and younger.  I got a regular gig with this sweet family for bowling night or something, basically I just put the kids to bed and waited.  Usually I watched tv.  One night I started leafing through the set of Harvard classics on the bookshelf and fell in love with Alfred Tennyson.  I just remembered this recently.  My first favorite poem, was of course “The Lady of Shallot.”  An incredible poem in verse, I don’t think I really understood it but it was powerful, it was magic to me.  The Lady of Shallot is a magical creature who sits and watches in her mirror the goings on of Camelot.  And as she watches, she weaves a tapestry.  For some reason she is forbidden to actually look out the window.  (Medusa-esque?  I don’t know)  Anyway, everyone is aware of her, and she is aware of them.  But then, one day Lancelot comes riding in to town.  The Lady can not help it, she has to look at him after seeing him ride so confidently, like a shining Adonis.  And this of course, is her un-doing.  My favorite lines from the poem (remember I was an early teen and melodramatic was an understatement, then.)

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.

…

And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot.
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”

Do I have to explain why such a poem would appeal to an insecure adolescent girl?  Oh how vital every feeling was back then.  You could die from feeling something, admiring a handsome man… Knowing he’d never notice you.  Oh, and of course he’d notice if you did die.  And of course, Lancelot thought she was pretty.  Of course, now that it was too late.  I had forgotten Tennyson’s Lady until just the other night.  What a gem.  What a treat to find a lost love.

Sin and Salvation (100 word fiction)

My first husband was a narrowly-escaped disaster.  Walking in my sleep all hours of the day, I wandered.  Moments of content, interrupted by the chaos of rationalization for continuing to watch my body torn to shreds.  Each holy space invaded, ransacked and destroyed.  Deconstructing to the molecules until there was no hope of rebuilding.

My first husband was obliterated in the light of my second husband.  Gone in an instant.  Only shadows and echoes sometimes flash in the mounting darkness.

My second husband was my salvation.  He rose up from the ash and rubble of my soul.

(Just to clarify, this is fiction.  It came about after I read some obscure biblical refference about being married to sin first and then being married to Christ…)

My amazing Hila is 6 today!

Per her request, Hila woke up to a room full of balloons and had cake for breakfast.  She really enjoyed wielding the birthday girl authority over the day.  I adore my sweet little girl, she is so thoughtful, and very patient with me.

Hila, the summer of 2006 age 3

Hila, nearly 4

Hila, 4th birthday cake

Hila, first day of kindergarten last year.

Hila, self portrait summer 2009

Hila, with her build-a-bear unicorn on Hannah’s birthday.

Hila, blowing out the candles on her princess castle birthday cake.  Happy 6th birthday, Hila!!  I love you so much.

My Baby is 2!!!

Happy Birthday, you sweet, beautiful little rascal!  What a blessing it has been for you to grow up near all the people who love you.

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