Carpe Diem

Butterflies

 

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Butterflies

“Poetry gives permanence to the temporal forms of the self.”
Miguel de Unamuno.

… butterflies … temporal forms … fluttering …
existing for one sweet day … they perch … spread
their wings … fan us with their beauty … flourish …
catch our attention … then caught by a gust
tear their wings on a thorn … and perish … blink
your eye and they are gone … yet reborn … they
cluster and gather in dusty ditches …
congregate on bees’ balm … smother Black-Eyed
Susan and Cape Daisy … shimmer in shade …
butterflies by day … fireflies by night …
terrestrial stars floating in their forest
firmament … dark tamarack … black oak … bird’s
eye maple … silver birch … impermanence
surrounds us … dances beneath stars … sings with
robins … echoes the owl’s haunting cry …
eternity held briefly in our hands …
then escaping like water or sand … black
words on white paper capturing nothing …
… my dialog … my time … my place … butterflies …

Comment: This is another golden oldie that gains in meaning day by day as the lock down continues. Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) was a respected academic, philosopher novelist, essay writer, story-teller and powerful poet. He is probably most famous internationally for the philosophy he espoused in The Tragic Sense of Life. Other works of his include Our Lord Don Quixote and Niebla / Mist. The photo shows one of the butterflies that adorn the garden by my kitchen window each summer.

Funny Old World

 

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Funny Old World

It’s a funny old world,
this word-world of mine,
where one day
I am whirled off my feet
and the next
my toes seem to be set
in concrete.

Meaning?
I throw the question out,
a bone to the dog,
wet food for the cat,
sun-flower seeds for the chipmunk,
but there’s no reply.

Only the crows,
black-winged monarchs
destined to wear
a weighty crown,
cry out their anguish,
longing for the day
when they’ll come back to earth
and rule again.

Comment: A golden oldie, really. What indeed does it all mean and is survival the only thing that matters? For many of us, including the cats and the dogs and the birds in the garden “munchies in and munchies out, that’s what life is all about.”  And indeed it is. Some days I just look at the crow’s feet on the lawn or those growing beside my own and my beloved’s eyes and “What’s it all about, Alfie?” I ask myself.  It’s certainly a time when I question so much: my values, my life-style, my memories, the whole of my life, where I have been, where I might be going, the things I have done and left undone. My thoughts err and stray like lost sheep and then I realize that really, deep down, it doesn’t matter. Whether I am here, or not, the crows will continue to fly over the garden. The crows will leave their little footprints in the snow, and whether they like it or nor, crow’s feet will continue to grow in the corner’s of the old folks’ eyes, in spite of all the beauticians and all the rejuvenating lotions in the snake oil promises of this oh-so-beautiful world.

Fire and Flame

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Fire and Flame

The world is on fire.
Someone, somewhere
lit a match.
The world exploded.

Someone, somewhere
sneezed into their sleeve.
the world collapsed.

A match in the lungs:
the whole world burning.

Intelligence, give me
the exact name of things:
corona virus, vaccine, air
that’s pure,
drinkable water,
a new, fresh world
for my daughter
and her daughter.

It isn’t the cough
that carries you off.
It’s the coffin
they carry you off in.

I wish I could spare them
from all this slaughter.

Bed Time

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Bed Time

Supper’s over.
I’m ready for bed.
I want to put a pillow
underneath my head.

‘Sleep, my child,’
the raindrops said,
falling gently
on my head.

Rain, rain,
on the window pane,
on the pleasant land
of counterpane,
and yes, it’s raining
yet again.

I listen in wonder
to the thunder,
hearing it crash,
seeing the frightening
lightning
flash.

I listen to it rolling
round again.
This crazy life
drives me insane.

Oh when can I
go out again,
walking free
beneath the rain?

Comment: Most days are good. Some days the incessant indoor routine gets to me. This is one of those days. On Friday, we had a foot of snow. Today, Monday, it’s rained all day and it will rain all night. The skies are grey and the river’s rising. That’s not what we like to hear at this season of the year, for this is when the rivers flood and fill the streets with filth and mud. There’s enough happening around us without the necessity of folk in low areas being forced from their homes by rising waters. All we can do is hope and pray and send bright and hopeful thoughts your way.

Easter Sunday

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Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday: such a joyful day.
Last night the deer came out to play.
Good Friday’s snow is going away.

The Queen’s ‘Happy Easter’ was said at home.
The Pope held mass all alone in Rome.
I’m writing this poem and I’m home alone.

We’re locked down at home and so is the cat.
This morning she threw up her food on the mat,
three hoicks and a yuck and then a wet splat!

The snow is melting. The sun’s in the sky.
Rain is forecast and the river is high.
Let’s hope I stay well: I don’t want to die.

I know that I’ll die, sooner or later,
but if at all possible, let it be later,
‘cos I’m not quite ready to meet my creator.

Maybe he’s like me, with a tear of sorrow
for all things undone and left till tomorrow.

I do hope he’s a procrastinator
not a ‘do-it-right-now’ style of dictator.

 

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Life is a Dream

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Life is a Dream

This life is nothing but a dream.
I cannot see the far side of the stream.

Life is a frenzy, a fiction, a story,
sometimes a romance filled with glory,
often a nightmare, bloody and gory.

We seek for answers, no confusion,
but all of our life is an  illusion.

We are but shadows in Plato’s Cave:
reality is what we crave,
but all we get is an early grave.

I’m not the first person who has said it,
but I’d love to take full credit.

Comment:  So many things here. My photo of Jan Hull’s carving that adorns my web page. It is carved in stone, Old Welsh red sandstone, unlike these ephemeral words. Thank you Jan. It links to Segismundo’s soliloquy from Calderón de la Barca’s La Vida es Sueño. I have adapted that piece to the current pandemic because Spain has instructed its people to wash their hands in time with this soliloquy.

¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño,
porque toda la vida es un sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son.

What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? An illusion,
a shadow, a fiction,
and the greatest good is small,
because life is a dream,
and dreams are nothing
but dreams, after all.

 

Beachcombing

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Beachcombing

What’s this I see upon the shore?
A pile of books by Roger Moore.

What funny things the tide brings in:
to leave them there would be a sin.

All About Angels, Stepping Stones,
grinding down like old fish bones.

Broken Ghosts and Dewi Sant:
That’s enough to make me rant.

One Small Corner, Nobody’s Child:
I must choose between riled and wild?

But they are ordered carefully
with titles set so we can see.

Books at low tide by the sea?
Someone’s trying to tease me.

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Fundy Lines and Sun and Moon:
the Fundy tide will rush in soon.

The Oaxacan Trilogy, the Obsidians too,
what on earth can an author do

when all those books are floating free
like a Granite Ship on a rising sea?

Comment: with many thanks to my friend Geoff Slater who organized this sea-side exhibition of my books and sent me the photos so I could choose which I liked. The exhibition took place on the beach by his home in Bocabec, incidentally. What fun we have when we are in isolation. There is so much to do and artists like us work hard to keep ourselves amused!

 

Hibiscus

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Hibiscus
Day 26 CV-19

The hibiscus lives downstairs. We bought it years and years ago. A tiny plant in the florist’s shop, we brought it home. When we placed it here, by the window, we were horrified to see it was covered with tiny spider mites. Gradually, in spite of all our efforts, it lost its flowers and then, one by one, its leaves. After Clare had magicked the spider mites away, she nourished that one last leaf. “If that goes, the plant goes,” she told me. “It cannot survive without leaves.” It took time and daily care and attention, true TLC, but a second leaf appeared, and then a third. Now, each winter, it puts out flowers and fills the room with joy and light.

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More important, in these dark times it fills us with hope and the knowledge that however bad things may appear to be, we can hang on, we can survive. We can be present in every second that we are given and that we can, and must, enjoy every moment to the full. Condemned to a certain death, our hibiscus survived to remind us of the miracle of life, for life is stronger than death, and hope is stronger than despair, and spring and summer are stronger than winter, even if it seems to be ‘our winter of discontent’.

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Deer

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Deer
CV-19 Day 24

I woke up this morning, looked out of the window at a grey, sunless day, and saw this deer at the foot of the garden, abut 50 feet away. I couldn’t believe it. Thirty years we have lived in this house, and I have never seen a deer sleeping in the yard before. Well, it wasn’t sleeping. It’s eyes were open, the head was turning, and the ears flickered with every step I took. What a way to start the day.

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Then I did a double-take and blinked. What I thought was a rock, to the first deer’s left, was another deer, also lying down. I realized it wasn’t a rock when it wiggled its ears. Behind the first deer and above it, scarcely visible among the trees is a third deer. You’ll have to look hard to see it, but it’s there. I apologize for the qualities of the photos, but grey day, early morning light, and shooting threw fly netting at a well camouflaged deer does not guarantee high artistic quality, as you will understand.

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Actually, the third deer is more clearly visible in this photo. It also shows a little bit more of the late-winter / early spring landscape. Then, when I got downstairs, lo and behold, a fourth deer underneath the fir tree. From a lower angle, I could only just sight it through the bars of the porch.

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Again, my apologies: but what a morning … four deer, ‘nesting’ in the garden, where I have never seen deer before, except wandering through.

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Self-Isolation Day 22 / Ducks

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Self-Isolation Day 22
22 =Ducks, Patos in Spanish.

Ducks, because the 2 and the 2 seem to float together like a pair of ducks or a pair of Swans. How did Swansea get it’s name? Some say it was because handsome white swans used to swim on the salt waters of the bay: Swan+sea. Other’s say that  was on account of a battle where a man called Swain lost his eye: Swain’s Eye = Swansea. Oh dear, it’s so much easier in Welsh: Abertawe, the mouth of the river Tawe.

Speaking of Welsh, this is the 290th consecutive day that I have done my Welsh lessons. I guess the pandemic has helped over the last few weeks. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, and all those Welsh memories bringing a fresh light to enlighten the darkness that is Corona Virus aka Covidis-19.

Language Teaching: never easy. And I should know after 43 years of teaching Spanish in Canadian universities (1966-2009). Relevance and irrelevance: how do we teach meaningful things? Good question. Dw i eisiau prynu’r crwban ddu fach / I want to buy the little black tortoise. Very useful. I bet they use that phrase on the streets of Llanelli and Abertawe every day of the week. How about Mae’r ddraig coch yn callu smwddio bob wythnos / The red dragon is able to do the ironing every week. Well, well: I suppose I did remember these two wonderful phrases. I am sure I will use them the next time I go to Cardiff.

I much prefer the Welsh of St. David: Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd / Do ye the little things in life or Byddwch lawen a chadwch eich ffyd a’ch credd / Be joyful and keep your faith and creed. These two quotes from the patron saint of Wales are full of meaning, especially at this oh-so-difficult juncture in all our lives. Funny really: I laugh at the first two, the dragon and the tortoise, but without them, I would probably never have arrived at the Original Welsh of St. David / Dewi Sant.

Languages: they say that to learn another language is to gain another soul and another set of eyes through which to view the world. We view the world through our languages. Limit the language and we limit the world. Reduce the language, any language, to its lowest common denominator, and we reduce and diminish the world around us. Sparrows, juncos, chickadees, Cedar Waxwings, robins, mourning doves, crows, hawks (Cooper’s Hawk, Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Marsh Hawk) are all reduced to birds. Mountain Ash (Russian or European), Birch, Hackmatack, Tamarack, Spruce … all these are reduced to trees, nothing more and nothing less than trees.

Think about language. Savor language. Roll it round your mouth. Taste it on your tongue. Use the correct names for things. Expand your vocabulary. Do not be satisfied with Grade 9 English. Learn. Advance. Develop. Carry a dictionary (Y geiriadur Gymraeg newydd) and look up words, learn their meanings, learn how to spell them. Never give up. Do not be satisfied, ever, with the lowest level of existence. Flower, flourish, rise up and fight for your own self-education, for your own language, for your own destiny, for your own rights!