Grief

Carved in Stone 51 & 52

Carved in Stone
51

Time, shape, and location –
the Templars’ Castle
in Ponferrada,
considered impregnable,
but it had no water works,
no moat.

Napoleon placed his cannon
on the hills above
and fired down into the bailey,
shattering walls, gates, and doors.

Again, only the ruins remain
inhabited by choughs
that nest in the walls,
and rise up in stormy clouds
when visitors disturb them.
 
I go there on a sunny day
and wonder when the castle drowses
if it dreams of its former glories,
ground down into the dust.

52

I climb a ruined wall
and watch white clouds
as they gather over the hills,
then roll down into the valley –
a cavalry charge of plunging horses.

So easy to see
Santiago Matamoros,
St. James the Moor Slayer,
descending from the clouds
to rescue the Christian army.

I study the skies
and see something secret,
almost mythical,
carved from the mists of time.

But this not my land
and these are not my people
nor my legends.

I sense I am not welcome here,
that I can never belong,
and I decide to move on.

Commentary:
“I sense that I am not welcome here, that I can never belong, time to move on.” Sad words – but we live in a world that, all too often, has turned its back on people. More, it has turned them into numbers and statistics, and number sand statistics are not flesh and blood. Tragic really. And doubly tragic the labels that are stuck on people. So hard to get off, those sticky labels, for they are designed not to come off easily, but to linger, like sticky plastic wrappers in the grocery store.

James Bond – 007 – interesting – but I am not a number, though I have had numbers attached to me all my life, as have you and all the people you know. Number plates on cars, telephone numbers, Medicare numbers, dental care numbers, bank account numbers, driving license numbers, student numbers, graduate student numbers, library card numbers – and now passwords, a mixture of numbers, letters (small and capital), and signs, all jumbled in such a way as to make things inaccessible for those who do not know the numbers. An alien world, my friends, for the numbers, those numbers, are much more important than we are, and each of us, like it or not, is reduced to a number, or a label, or a recognizable feature or nick-name.

So, how do we belong? How do we fit in? How do we survive? If we are lucky, we have small communities that thrive around us and look after us. But sometimes we are left alone. All alone. And then we have nothing to belong to, no sense of being, of belonging, no sense of a valued place in life, of being worthy. And when our worthlessness sinks in, then we sink lower, and lower, and we wake up one day and realize that it is all over and that the end is near, for we have nothing, not even the desire to live on.

Fire Storm

Fire Storm

Yesterday, it was difficult to breathe.
We inhaled dust and ashes as smoke
from forest fires scuttled towards us,
carried piggy-back on a strong west wind.

Today, the wind herds clouds into aerial castles,
pinnacles and pyramids piled upwards,
tall ships’ canvases painted dark, thundery,
raised by fierce wedges thrust beneath them,
lofting them into darkening skies.

Beyond a certain height, water becomes ice.
Particles group together. Hail stones form,
small at first, growing ever larger
until the very air can no longer bear
their weight. Golf ball big, they tumble down
the sky’s steep ladder and fall to earth.

The dry drum roll of distant thunder rumbles.
A scissor-slash of light shreds black skies.
An executioner’s hay wain rolls towards us,
a runaway train destined to tear our lives
apart. It leaves us helpless, clamoring for safety,
our world torn apart, our earth sore wounded.

Death scythes away, downing rich and poor alike.
Who now knows which way thrown dice will fall?
The dye’s sharp edge, once cast, cuts like a blade.
Hail stones clatter on the roof, battering us down.

Carved in Stone 48 & 49

Carved in Stone

48

Moats. Everywhere.
Defensive, offensive,
and the mote
in the other’s eye
much more offensive
than the beam in your own.

49

Caerphilly Castle –
the largest water defenses
in the United Kingdom,
but unable to compete
with the changing times.

Cromwell’s cannons came,
destroyed the towers,
broke down the walls.

His army bridged the moat,
destroyed every one inside that castle
with fire and sword.

Only the desecrated towers,
vast, legless trunks of stone,
eyeless, toothless,
remain as a reminder.

Carved in Stone 45

Carved in Stone

45

No candles burned at that altar.
A single match, let alone
a candle flame,
would spell the end,
if gas leaked from the seam.

Only the canaries,
confined in their cages,
sang songs.

Doomed,
like the blind pit ponies,
never to see the light of day,
they lived out their lives
down there.

So many died underground,
unable to get out,
buried alive,
before they were even dead.

Commentary:

“Only the canaries, confined in their cages, sang songs.” Yet the miners often sang, in their own cages, as they were lowered down from pit-head to seam. It wasn’t the songs that worried them, it was the silence. The men could rarely smell the gas, but when the canary stopped singing and toppled from its perch, then the men knew that bad news hounded their heels. As for the pit ponies, how did one get them out? Some of those mines, had been dug 5,000 feet deep and two or three miles out to sea. A pit pony should never be confused with a sea horse, and as for the white horses that surge in the waves in so many paintings, well, pit ponies need to be laundered before they can compete.

“Good-bye old friend.” I remember the photo from WWI of the dying horse, surrounded by crying men. The suffering of the animals is what men feared and pitied most. The animals are innocent. They do not ask to be sent underground, nor to be sent to war. They have no choice, poor things. So sad, when a dear, four-footed friend dies, so far away from the light of the sun. As for the men, there were no “safe rooms”, those reinforced rooms filled with food and water, not in the early days, anyway. A camaraderie, yes, but not many people went down to the mines willingly. Rita MacNeil summed it all up in her wonderful song that begins ‘It’s a working man I am.” – How many people, if they ever saw the sun, would ever go back underground again.”

Carved in Stone 44

Carved in Stone
44

The old man, withered,
last house on the left,
leaning on his garden wall,
coughing, spitting up
coal dust and blood.

He’s not old, when you get close,
just grown old, underground,
where emphysema
and pneumoconiosis
devour men and boys.

He spits on the side walk.
Mining souvenirs,
Max Boyce calls them,
and they appear
every time the young man,
turned suddenly old,
starts to cough.

He can’t walk far,
wearing carpet slippers,
soft and furry,
just leans on the wall.

He fell, or was pushed,
into the trap at an early age,
when the coal seams
had grown so thin,
that only a small boy
could kneel before
the coal black altar
of the underground god
and, with a pick and shovel,
he learned to carve and shape
the long, slow death
contained in those seams.

Commentary

Moo’s painting, Coal Face, adorns the front cover of Carved in Stone, Chronotopos II. Coal Face is not the denigration of Black Face, white men pretending to be black by dyeing their faces, although they have some similarities. In Welsh Mining, the coal face is where the men used to dig when, with their shovel and their pick and their little lamp and wick, they knelt to dig out the coal. Knelt, because there was no standing room, deep down underground. Then, when the seams grew thinner, and the men could no longer reach them, the young boys were sent underground.

A day underground left men and boys with coal dust seamed into their bodies, especially their hands and their faces. Hence the triple meaning of black face – where the coal is dug, what men and boys looked like after a day’s work, and the blackening of their faces by white men, for the fun of it.

Faces are one thing, coal dust in the lungs is another. The result – emphysema and pneumoconiosis devour men and boys. Black lung, some call it. “And every time he coughs, he gets a mining souvenir” – a black spot coughed up on the sidewalk – Max Boyce.

Child labor, minimum wage, living wage, work that kills, slowly and silently, – what can I say? Forgive me, for I can say no more.

Carved in Stone 43

Carved in Stone
43

Back home, in that little cul-de-sac,
the husbands are away,
working their night shifts,
while the wives are at home,
entertaining the truckers,
those long-distance drivers,
who park in that street and lodge there,
overnight, in the houses.

The children, boys and girls,
go out into the street,
climb into the trucks,
duck under the tarpaulins,
and, with all of us sworn to silence,
practice what their elders
are doing back home.

Commentary:
Monkey see, monkey do. And who knows what Monkey sees or does when the lights are turned out, darkness descends, and the honor of the blood cult takes control. Ask the animals, they will teach you. That was the motto of Bristol Zoo, where the Monkey Temple ruled, and Alfred the Gorilla and Rosie, the Elephant, were King and Queen of the beasts.

Knowledge – where does it come from? How do we attaint it? Is there a difference between knowledge, what is known, felt, and worked out for yourself, and education, when you obey orders and do what you are told to do (and how to do it). “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control.” I have always loved Pink Floyd and The Wall. So many walls, so many barriers, so many things to break down in order to build them up again. Songs – Frank Sinatra – “I did it my way!” And who teaches what and to whom, underneath the tarpaulin when the lights are out? “Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone.”

And beware of anyone who tells you that “we teach you to think outside the box.” That person will only give you a slightly bigger box, of his or her own making, inside of which you will be forced to think.

Of course, there are other ways in which we can think about education. How about this one? Filling empty heads with knowledge. How many ways are there to do this? And what is the exact content of the jug from which the knowledge will flow? And how many sows’ ears does it take to make a silk purse? “Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone.” Giddy up, Neddy I’m on my hobby horse now.

Carved in Stone 37

Carved in Stone
37

A great blue heron,
half-buried in the sand,
lies, covered in flies.

What words could I carve
in sand beside his grave?

What words would I carve
on mine?
What could anyone say?

I guess I could say
that I was happy,
in spite of the pain,
but would I do it
all again?

Commentary:

I guess I could say that I was happy, in spite of the pain, but would I do it all again? – Good question, and I have no answer to that question. Is life circular? Do we pass on from existence to existence, learning as we go? Some religions think so. Do the participants and believers have a choice? That I do not know.

Would we, like the English cricket team currently in Australia, make the same mistakes again and again, never learning from each dismissal, never learning from the blows given to another’s body or head? All good questions. Or would we learn from each life, each circumstance, slowly ascending a sort of Platonic Ladder until we climbed to the highest level of perfection? Who knows? I most certainly don’t. Nor do I know where the light and the flame go when I blow out the candle.

So many mysteries, as the fate of my little bird was a mystery, as the fate of the fish in the first photo was also a mystery. Albert Camus – meurtriers ou victimes? Are these the only choices that we have, to be the predator or the prey? I most certainly hope not. Libre albedrío – free will in the Calderonian world of the seventeenth century in Spain. But how free are we? What cultural and developmental chains bind us, pull us down, and are we surrounded by our childhood and our culture, and our education, in such a way that we have little or no choice in how we think and what we do?

Answers by air mail, please, and tied to the back of a great blue heron, preferably the one in the upper photo, not in the lower one!

Joy of Words

Joy of Words

If the words won’t come, don’t worry.
Sooner or later, they will arrive, driving
down in flurries. Think wind-driven leaves
or the soft white whisper of snaking snow.

There is a moment when all sounds cease
and you can be at one with your inner self,
there, where summer sunshine twinkles
and soft rains bring forth clarity and joy.

What are words anyway, but soap bubbles
emerging from an iron ring to rise in
child-hood’s skies, soaring, dying, around
the cloudy thrones of sun-kissed clouds.

We, their so-called creators, are left below,
building cotton-wool castles spun from air.

Commentary:
Moo suggested I use this painting of his to illustrate this poem. He called it originally The Olde Order Passeth, but the original phrase, from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, should really be The Olde Order Changeth, lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

And yes, things do change. Here we have a fourteen line sonnet. Structure giving order to chaos. And words change, the world changes, our thoughts change, the weather changes. Hymns Ancient and Modern – Age and decay in all around I see, oh thou who changeth not, abide with me.

And what do we do when we meet with change? Weather – I change my clothes. There is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing. It used to be a useful saying, that one, but not any longer. When change changes into disaster, it is a very different kettle of fish. Thoughts change – mine just did. A useful phrase suddenly becomes an inadequate reaction to a changing situation. The world changes – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, but how do we, each one of us, confront that change? How do we adapt to it?

I know far too many people who, like the ostrich, bury their heads in the sand and pretend that change is not all around us, that the world is the same as it always was. We humans are experts at adapting. We must adapt. But how do we adapt? Each one of us must answer that question in his or her own way. The alternative is to close our eyes, bury our heads, and pretend that nothing is happening.

Another alternative is to seek within for that moment when all sounds cease and you can be at one with your inner self, there, where summer sunshine twinkles and soft rains bring forth clarity and joy. Perhaps that is the world the ostrich discovers when he removes himself from this world and enters that other one beneath the sand. Who knows? Not even the ostrich, I would guess.

Carved in Stone 30 & 31

Carved in Stone

30

A well of beauty dwells within me,
not skin deep, but buried, arcane.

A flickering candle
tethered to an altar,
shimmers at midnight,
when the Latin mass is said,
bringing me light.

In the dark, canonical hours,
shadows move beside me
as I walk long corridors
from dormitory to a chapel
filled with heady incense.

31

I kneel, dumb-founded,
as candle flames wax and wane,
their brightness enhanced
by the midnight magic
that turns doubters into believers.

Spell and symbol, each candle a star,
shining, twinkling, in a galaxy of light,
and everywhere, the incense,
overloading my brain, releasing me
to revelations way beyond
muttered responses, mumbled words.

A world of inner darkness,
yet heart and soul soar together
up to the altar’s immortal light.

My shadow flickering
on the corridor walls,
as candle in hand, half-asleep,
I return to my cold bed
where the long, chill snake
of the bamboo cane
reminds me of tomorrow’s
flagellation.

Commentary:

Shadows on the wall or candles – with which should we start? Verbal and visual – how do they blend and knit together? Does my visual take away from your visual, or does it enhance it? To what extant does my verbal and the commentary on my verbal change the nature of your original thoughts when you re-create, within your own mind, my images, both verbal and visual?

Verbal and visual – now add the sense of smell. “The incense, overloading my brain, releasing me to revelations way beyond muttered responses, mumbled words.” And now remember that I was only six or seven years old when I experienced these things. Add the Latin mass, only half understood, the cold, damp feel of walls and wood beneath the hands. A world of inner darkness, yet heart and soul soaring together up towards the altar’s immortal light.”

My words are black print on white paper. My memories flare – an aurora borealis of senses sent crackling down the spine, in and out of the mind, tumbling the brain into a world … what sort of world? An unimaginable world. One never forgotten. One never re-recreated. One that never existed. One that never could exist. One for which the young child, six or seven years old, yearns for the rest of his life. His unsatisfied life. His unsatisfying life. His meaningless life. His absurd life.

Oh pity the poor puppy, not knowing what he has done wrong, not knowing how to put things right, always inadequate, whining and cringing at his master’s feet. And always, “that cold bed where the long, chill snake of the bamboo cane reminds me of the next day’s flagellation.”

Carved in Stone 21 & 22

21

Goodrich Castle – Civil War tore down
its curtain walls, fired its stables,
drove horses and people mad with fear,
all destroyed, a way of life, gone overnight.

I stand in the ruins of the solarium
beneath towering columns
empty now of the stained-glass
that would have kept out the rain
and retained the sun’s heat.

I imagine standing there,
speckled in sunshine,
coloured diamonds covering me.

22

I stop in the ruined quad
to sniff the air, to imagine the panic,
to smell the crackle of burning,
to hear the high-pitched screams
of dying horses, trapped in the stables.

Sometimes, at night,
fate mans the pumps of my blood,
and sends fire alarms surging
through my veins.

I do not want to die alone,
defenseless, besieged by memories
that gnaw away my remaining days,
like flames.

Commentary:

Memories burn away my remaining days, like flames. Fire controlled, stolen from the gods by Prometheus in Greek Mythology, by Zopilote, the Trickster, in Oaxacan Mythology. I will always recall those early mornings in Oaxaca, standing on the azotea (rooftop) doing my morning exercises in the half light. High above me, Zopilote slowly spiralled. His wings glowed red in the sun that had not yet penetrated to the earth below. As he descended, he brought the sun fire down with him and gifted it to humans.

Fire and flames, under control, in the candle on the table, on the birthday cake, in hearth and fireplace, a life-giving source of heat, light, and energy. Fire and flames, uncontrolled – wild fires in the woods, blazing out of control. It happened last summer. A severe drought, and the woods so dry. A lightning strike – and fire and flame soon raged, out of control. Smoke darkened the skies and the smell of burning hung around for days. So many people evacuated, moving out of their houses with three days, two days, one day’s notice. Sometimes it was so much less. Three hours, two hours, one hour … our community newsletter contained details of what to have ready to cover each of those situations. Very sobering and thought-provoking.

Back now to Goodrich Castle. The occupants trapped inside the walls with no place to go. Horses and livestock trapped in the stables, and those life giving flames now bringing death and misery. “Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can.” Hands up all of you who recognize the author of those lines, a great English poet who is possibly not as well recognized as he ought to be. I know who he is, but I’ll leave you guessing and googling! Go on, Google him. I know you want to!