Hiraeth

In Place of Grief

In Place of Grief

A double meaning of course / wrth gwrs. (a) to be in a place of grief and (b) to do something in place of grief i.e. instead of grief. Take your pick. One of my close friends immediately called it Chains. I replied – Ray Charles – “Take these chains from my heart and set me free.” Sometimes, with a great effort, we can do that ourselves. But, if the hole we have dug for ourselves, or that has been dug for us, is too deep, then we may need help.

Creativity is always a help. Painting and poetry, for me. And sometimes the hand of friendship, reaching out from the anonymity of hyperspace – the space beyond the space in which I live and with which I hold my Bakhtinian Dialog what he calls my chronotopos – my dialog with my time and place. Alas, sometimes it is a monolog – and then, when I get not reply, either from time nor from place, I feel an existential grief.

Door

A door slammed shut
          in my heart.

That closed door
          left me outside,
shivering in the cold.

Now I no longer know
          who or what I am.

The shadow of nothingness
          wraps its black shroud
around my shoulders.

Dark night of the heart,
          and me alone,
walking an unlit road
          with no end in sight.

(a) The shadow of nothingness is Meister Eickhard’s Umbra Nihili. A reference to the medieval philosopher.

(b) The dark night of the heart is a reference to St. John of the Cross’s dark night of the soul, part of the Via Purgativa, the mysterious road walked by the Mystics.

A Masked Ball

Masked Ball

After a two-week lay-off, the Dance of Colors returns. What caused the lay-off? Absolutely nothing. I grew tired of posting, of writing, of throwing my paint on the waters of the web and waiting to see what, if anything, happened. Well – nothing happened.

Steven King, On Writing, says “Paper your walls with rejections.” And I have done, pages and pages of them. The secret is ‘never surrender’ – ‘never give up’ – or, in the language of the WWII Prisoner of War Camps – Nil carborundum illegitimi. You can Google the meaning, if you can’t read Latin. It is a euphemism for ‘never despair’.

Rejection is one thing. Silence is something else. When I check my notebooks I find submissions, some sent several years ago, that are still unanswered. There is simply no response. It is as if the writer – submitter – does not exist, is not even worthy of a form letter.

I ran into that wall of silence during this two week lay-off. Does it matter? Probably not. The creation of art is as much a monologue as it is a dialogue. Bakhtin calls it ‘a creative artist’s dialogue with his time and place.’ I think of it as ‘this creative artist’s monologue with his time and place.’

Footsteps – I leave them here, I leave them there, you can find those footsteps anywhere. But beware the footsteps left on the beach at low tide. You will not find them on the beach the day after you leave them. The tide will have risen and washed them all away. In spite of that, some footprints are here to stay.

Choices

Choices

Winter-low sun in my eyes,
I sit at the breakfast table
blinking back rainbows.

Light quivers into fragments.
Too much light and my world
turns dark. I can no longer see
the computer screen, nor am I
able to write in the old-fashioned
way with pen, ink, and paper.

To continue working, I must lower
the blinds or move to the other room
away from the sunlight.

Another option:
to forget deadlines and schedules
to lay down my pen, to close my eyes,
to bask in early morning pleasures,
purring like an ageing cat
enjoying the sun.

Comment:
A Golden Oldie that suddenly surfaced from “among my souvenirs”, as Connie Francis once sang. Or was it twice? Sunshine is certainly a magic balm for old bones. Only now am I starting to understand the wisdom of animals, that old dog, lying in the sun, the ageing cat curled up in a sunny window, the ancient donkey, seeking warmth, away from the shade. Such joy in the small things that make life so much better.

Islands

Islands

Bewildered
by the rush hour
surge of traffic
we peer at street signs,
slide slowly round
roundabouts
sprung up overnight,
mushrooms
grown to confuse us.

Swept along by the main
street’s vibrant flow,
we fail to recognize
new shops standing
where we remember
old cracked paint
and the woman who sold
curiosities.

A face in the crowd
holds us for a moment.
Grey hair, unshaven,
clothes ragged,
a scarecrow on the street,
was that the man
who once ruled our world?

That old woman,
hunched, wrinkled,
her face a Hallowe’en mask,
her limp, her canes
and dragging feet:
is that the dancing queen
who ruled beside him?

Lights change.
Cars move on.
Another island
beckons
as we pull away
from the past
and drive
into the future.

What relationships have a positive impact on you?

Daily writing prompt
What relationships have a positive impact on you?
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What relationships have a positive impact on you?
I think one of my poems answers this question best. I write “one of my poems” but it is really my ‘free’ translation of one of Francisco de Quevedo’s sonnets – Retirado en la paz de estos desiertos. I have changed the poem slightly, but I am sure Don Francisco (1580-1645) will excuse Don Roger’s impoverished effort (2023).

On Loneliness
29 December 2023

Resting in the peace of these small rooms,
with few, but welcome books together,
I live in conversation with my friends,
and listen with my eyes to loving words.

Not always understood, but always there,
they influence and question my affairs,
and with contrasting points of view,
they wake me up, and make me more aware.

The wisdom of these absent friends,
some distant from me just because they’re dead,
lives on and on, thanks to the printed word.

Life flits away, the past can’t be retained.
each hour, once past, is lost and gone,
but with such friends, I’m never left alone.

The painting, by my friend Moo, is called Fiat Lux – Let There Be Light. It is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas’s poem, Light breaks where no light shines. Intertextuality – Quevedo drew inspiration from the Stoics. I drew inspiration from Quevedo. Moo drew inspiration from Dylan Thomas. The nature of creativity and its continuing links throughout the ages shines clearly through these wonderful associations.

Share what you know about the year you were born.

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Share what you know about the year you were born.
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Share what you know about the year you were born.

How much does anyone know about the year when they were born? When do childhood memories begin? What do we really know about those early days, those first surroundings, the family, the friends? I only know what I have been told – and not all of it is pleasant. Here for example is the song my grandfather used to sing to me when I was a very young child.

“I’ll never forget the day, the day that you were born.
They took you to your father and he looked at you with scorn.
Said he, ‘if that’s his face, the best thing you can do,
is stick a tail the other end and take him to the zoo.'”

I don’t remember what I looked like, acted like, or sounded like. I don’t remember much at all. But I have never forgotten that song with its innate cruelty. Oh yes, people laughed and pointed. Maybe you did too. But is it really funny? And what if your only childhood memory is a sense of being unwanted, rejected, left on the shelf, sent to the zoo… ? “Little boys should be seen and not heard.” Another piece of wisdom from the ancients.

Mind you, I have heard stories, and written them. Here’s one.

The Stork

My story almost didn’t begin in Number One, the first house that I recall from Gower, Wales. My mother gave life to me, a very long time ago, in the middle of a frost-bound winter in that land now distant in time and space. Yet begin it did just as the clock struck eight, that Sunday evening, in January, mis Iawnor. I know this is meant to be my story but the beginnings are swathed in a misty past that tells of a lack of awareness, a search for the meaning of shape, color, and form, the realization, however slow, of the need for language, words, a map, a direction, a slow growth of the seed from baby hood to boyhood, to manhood, and beyond.
 My parents told me I was flown in by a meandering stork that just happened to pass by our house at eight o’clock that night. I don’t remember much about the flight, although I have always dreamed of tumbling through that sky-blue air, only to be trapped at the last moment, my hips and legs caught in a vice that squeezed and squeezed until I could no longer breathe. This nightmare haunted me for years. All through my childhood, I climbed through ever narrowing tunnels and caves until I was trapped, struggling, suffocating, trying to get out. Many times, I would wake myself up with my own panicked screams. The twin holes in my temples, marks made by the doctor’s forceps, remind me to this day of the last stages of that journey.

Our dog, a black Labrador called Paddy, after St. Patrick, of course, and all the Paddies who worked the Paddy fields in Ireland and Wales, had been exiled to a neighbor’s house until after … after what? After the delivery? Were they afraid the dog might frighten away the stork? Who knows what they thought back then? In Galicia they still throw stones at storks to keep them from bringing babies to houses. It’s cheaper than contraception, which is illegal there anyway. When the clock struck eight, Paddy, curious and maybe jealous, turned herself into a stone, threw herself through the neighbour’s front bay window, and rushed home barking. The stork, scared by the noise, dropped me, plop, right down the chimney, and when the doctor held me upside down by the heels and slapped me, I started to scream.
How do I know all this? I don’t. I merely repeat what I’ve been told. Simpletons at heart, poets and babies believe so many things, myths and legends, fairy tales, tall stories, the stories of storks … can you tell talk from mutter, or Stork* from Butter as the TV ads used to ask? I know I can’t. But this is my tale to tell, even though I don’t know how it began (Alpha) nor how it will end (Omega). So many mysteries hide behind thick curtains of mist that conceal both the future and the dimly remembered past, a past that we often reconstruct while calling it ‘memory’.

*Stork: a brand of margarine that the tv ads said “tasted just like butter”. Hence: “Can you tell Stork from butter?”

Do you ever see wild animals?

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Do you ever see wild animals?
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Do you ever see wild animals?

Indeed I do. And sometimes, just like this Wapiti, or White-Tailed deer, they see me as well. Some are camera shy. But this one, caught one morning walking past my garage door, heard the click of the first camera shot, stopped, turned towards the sound, then kindly waited until I had shot him, in the only way I would ever shoot a wild animal, with my camera. Isn’t he a handsome fellow – very photogenic.

Some of the animals that pass through our yard do not seem that wild. This one lay down for a little rest about forty feet from the house. Early morning light, not easy to shoot, but he sat there and waited for me. Alas, I was using a camera with a laser focus and the red flash of the light disturbed him. I didn’t mean to do so. Whoops – there he goes, tail-up and now you know what they mean when they say ‘high-tailing it’ out of the woods and up the road.

And what about the chipmunks, and the squirrels, and the skunks, and the raccoons, and the jack-rabbits, and the porcupines? They all drop in from time to time. Look at this happy couple. Aw! Aren’t they sweet?

And don’t forget the birds – but give us another prompt – all about our feathered friends -and we’ll talk about them next time

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

Daily writing prompt
Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?
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Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

Just one place? So difficult to choose. I have been very lucky in my travels. I haven’t gone far, but I have tried to go deep, returning to the same places again and again. One place I often visited was St. Luce-sur-Mer in Quebec. It is a wonderful little town on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. The sunsets are sheer marvels and the views of the Northern Lights across the bay are just outstanding. Site of the wreck of the Empress of Ireland, it is filled with mystery and memories, as is the nearby Rimouski. Ste. Luce sur Mer would be my third choice.

Oaxaca, Mexico, would be my second choice. The city itself, capital of the state, is packed with history. I taught there for a couple of weeks (maximum six) every year from 1995-2001 and every time I returned I found something different and more mysterious. The dancing and music in the capital, the cascades of fireworks flowing down the facade of a church, the Christmas Cribs that grew day by day as people added to them, the incredible food, and above all the people – dancing in the Zocalo on Sundays to the music of the State Orchestra, crowding the markets with color, and the markets themselves, the scents of peppers, coffee, chocolate – to visit Oaxaca, in those days, was to visit the heart of Mexico. Imagine sitting beneath the tree that Hernan Cortes had sat beneath when he visited Oaxaca just after the Conquest of Mexico City – Tenochtitlan – and talked to the Mixtecs and Zapotecs of the Oaxaca Valley. And the codices – wonderful – I cannot say enough in praise of Oaxaca.

My number one choice: Avila. The lead photo shows the Toros de Guisando. Pre-dating Christianity, these four stone bulls – verracos – were often used as boundary markers by the Vettones who lived there before the Romans. One of these four bulls bears, carved into its side, the marks of one of the Roman Legions that passed this way. The countryside around Avila has to be seen to be believed. The walled city itself is a wonderland – three kilometres of walls, 9 gateways, a Cathedral that shows an enterprising mixture of styles, museums, libraries, squares, and a welcoming people who make you one of the family. I visited here for four summers, 2005-2008, staying for between 6 and 8 weeks on each visit, and always residing in the same place, El Rincon, close by the Mercado Chico.

The Banks of the Seine

Banks of the Seine

Gnawing at the carcass of an old song,
my mind, a mindless dog, chasing its tail,
turning in circles, snapping at the fragment
of its own flesh, flag-flourished before it,
tournons, tournons, tournons toujours,
as Apollinaire phrased it, on a day
when I went dogless, walking on a mind-leash
before the Parisian bouquinistes who sold,
along the banks of the Seine, such tempting
merchandise, and me, hands in pockets,
penniless, tempted beyond measure,
by words, set out on pages, wondrous,
pages that, hands free, I turned, and turned,
plucking words, here and there, like a sparrow,
or a pigeon, picks at the crumbs thrown away
by pitying tramps, kings, fallen from chariots,
as Eluard wrote, and me, a pauper among riches,
an Oliver Twist, rising from my trance, hands out,
pleading, “Please, sir, can I have some more?”

Comment:
This is a fusion / confusion, if you like, of The Kingston Trio’s song – The Seine – with a quote each from Guillaume Apollinaire – Alcools – and Paul Eluard – Il ne m’est Paris que d’Elsa, and Francisco de Quevedo’s – El Buscon – and a tip of the old chapeau nouveau to R. S. Thomas and Charles Dickens. Fools rush in, I am afraid, where angels fear to tread. Go on. Rush right in. Sort it all out. I double-dog dare you – and thank you for that one, Jude.

Dark

Dark

The lights went out suddenly,
leaving me in the dark.
A cloudy night, not a spark
of starlight to light my way.

My search for candles was slow.
I found them, struck matches,
and sat at the table watching
light catch and flames glow.

A war baby – bombs, blackout
curtains, diminished light, all
are present in my DNA, and yet,
I fear the dark above all.

Like a moth, or a high plane
caught in a searchlight,
I struggle to escape from twin
siren calls: fire and light.

I sat and waited for power
to return. An hour, two hours,
three, four. Then I couldn’t wait
any more. I climbed the steep,
wood hill that led to bed.

At the top of the stairs
a plea for light filled my head
and a plea for the return
of light formed the focus
for long-forgotten prayers.

Comment:
We lost power for 15 hours a couple of weeks ago. One moment we were sitting there, after supper, ruminating quietly, with the lights on. The next, we were sitting in the dark. We found a flashlight – light but no warmth. Then moved on to candles. Candles need matches. When the ingredients were ready, we struck the matches to light the candles. These were the first three we lit.

We are so lucky. Sure, it was an awkward night. But it was only fifteen hours. We talked about the homeless, their poverty, often in the middle of such wealth, the poor who have homes, but who cannot afford to light them or heat them, the innocent victims in war zones, powerless in every sense of the word, deprived of light, heat, water, plumbing, sanitation. Our prayers that night included them as well – all of them.