Summer Sun

August 1, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

I appreciate our glowing orb as much as the next person. However, given this long dry spell and 100-degree temperatures, I think it’s time for Helios to take a little holiday.

Nevertheless, here is a tribute for the first of August.

Great is the sun, and wide he goes

Through empty heaven with repose;

And in the blue and glowing days

More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull

To keep the shady parlour cool,

Yet he will find a chink or two

To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad

He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;

And through the broken edge of tiles

Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around

He bares to all the garden ground,

And sheds a warm and glittering look

Among the ivy’s inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true,

To please the child, to paint the rose,

The gardener of the World, he goes.

—Robert Louis Stevenson

Francine

Flow’ry May

May 4, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Clematis, pansies, primroses, lily-of-the-valley: our tiny city garden is bursting into bloom.

For today, a sketch and a poem.

Now the bright morning star, day’s harbinger,

Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her

The flow’ry May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.

Hail, bounteous May, thou dost inspire

Mirth and youth and warm desire!

Woods and groves are of thy dressing,

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.

Thus we salute thee with our early song,

And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

—John Milton (1608-1674)

Jacqui

Aunt Francie

Dancing with the Daffodils

April 7, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

I post this ever-so-timely poem, along with a sketch of a neighbor’s garden, in honor of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), whose birthday it is today.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed–and gazed–but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

—William Wordsworth

For another Wordworth poem, a bio, and a painting, please see My Heart Leaps Up.

To the Thawing Wind

March 26, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Today is the birthday of Robert Frost (1874-1963), who is probably best known for his thoughtful, evocative poetic observations of rural life, inspired by his years of farming in England and New Hampshire: Mending Wall, The Road Not Taken, The Pasture. Frost’s poetry is not necessarily easy reading, although it seems accessible at first glance, drawing the reader in through a seemingly conventional, anecdotal surface. But often in his choice of subject matter and his carefully crafted blend of meters and language styles one can see that he is not exactly a 19th-century romantic pastoral wander-through-the-daffodils kind of guy.

Less often quoted are his darker poems on themes of abandonment, estrangement, and the bitterness of loss, poetry reflecting Frost’s own difficult life journey. Losing his father to tuberculosis at age eleven, then his mother to cancer; laboring, unsuccessfully at first, to farm and write and support a family (later supplemented by teaching and the eventual success of his poetry); seeing his sister committed to a mental hospital; outliving four of his six children, who succumbed variously to cholera, childbed fever, and suicide; and outliving also his wife, who died, like his mother, from cancer—these are weighty burdens for a man already struggling with depression, which seems to have run in the family for generations.

Although such a series of tragedies could bring on depression in the most resilient of characters. Which makes Frost’s achievement all the more remarkable: not only that he found profoundly inventive and powerful means of expressing human despair, in a voice both intimate and universal, but that he could also convey deeply felt, unsentimental appreciation for life’s beauty and joy. Not only to endure, but to make of pain a shared work of art to illuminate the soul and expand the vision: that is a birthday gift for everybody.

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!

Bring the singer, bring the nester;

Give the buried flower a dream;

Make the settled snowbank steam;

Find the brown beneath the white;

But whate’er you do tonight,

Bathe my window, make it flow,

Melt it as the ice will go;

Melt the glass and leave the sticks

Like a hermit’s crucifix;

Burst into my narrow stall;

Swing the picture on the wall;

Run the rattling pages o’er;

Scatter poems on the floor;

Turn the poet out of door.

For another Robert Frost poem, and a picture, please see A Snowy Evening.

Today is also the birthday of poet Alfred Edward Housman, and for a bio, picture, and poem, please see Loveliest of Trees.

This image is available as a high-resolution print on 8.5″ x 11″ archival paper.

Come Live With Me and Be My Love

February 26, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Although the imagery isn’t exactly appropriate for the weather, I post this verse and accompanying painting in honor of the baptismal date (his actual birthdate is unknown) of Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), poet, playwright, freethinker, and influential contemporary of Shakespeare. Anyway, March is just around the corner, so pretty lambs and melodious birds cannot be far off.

The combination of Marlowe’s successful career, yawning gaps in the biographical record, and early mysterious death in a tavern brawl have led to much speculation about his love life, religious views, and supposed alternate career as a government spy. I can’t think why his story hasn’t yet been made into a swashbuckling PBS mini-series.

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of th purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my love.

—Christopher Marlowe

The painting above was created for the cover of a CD, The Sylvan Court.

The Deep River Ran On

February 21, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Today is the birthday of W.H. Auden (1907-1973), and it is in his honor that I post this rather melancholy but very beautiful poem.

This day is also the 125th anniversary of the dedication in 1885 of the Washington Monument, so for an illustration and mini-history, please see Washington’s Monument.

As I walked out one evening,

Walking down Bristol Street,

The crowds upon the pavement

Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river

I heard a lover sing

Under an arch of the railway:

‘Love has no ending.

‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you

Till China and Africa meet,

And the river jumps over the mountain

And the salmon sing in the street,

‘I’ll love you till the ocean

Is folded and hung up to dry

And the seven stars go squawking

Like geese about the sky.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,

For in my arms I hold

The Flower of the Ages,

And the first love of the world.’

But all the clocks in the city

Began to whirr and chime:

‘O let not Time deceive you,

You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare

Where Justice naked is,

Time watches from the shadow

And coughs when you would kiss.

‘In headaches and in worry

Vaguely life leaks away,

And Time will have his fancy

To-morrow or to-day.

‘Into many a green valley

Drifts the appalling snow;

Time breaks the threaded dances

And the diver’s brilliant bow.

‘O plunge your hands in water,

Plunge them in up to the wrist;

Stare, stare in the basin

And wonder what you’ve missed.

‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,

The desert sighs in the bed,

And the crack in the tea-cup opens

A lane to the land of the dead.

‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes

And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,

And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,

And Jill goes down on her back.

‘O look, look in the mirror,

O look in your distress:

Life remains a blessing

Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window

As the tears scald and start;

You shall love your crooked neighbour

With your crooked heart.’

It was late, late in the evening,

The lovers they were gone;

The clocks had ceased their chiming,

And the deep river ran on.

—W. H. Auden

American Scrapbook

February 17, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Unbelievably, it has been FIFTY YEARS since the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, and in honor of this anniversary the Kennedy Center here in Washington, DC has created a blockbuster lineup of events. Both President and Jacqueline Kennedy were enthusiastic supporters of the arts, so the celebration includes a bounteous variety of musical, theatrical, and dance performances, some ticketed and some free of charge. It is, after all, the Kennedys who helped bring to fruition a long-languishing plan for a National Cultural Center, which was renamed the Kennedy Center after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

Whatever you may think of its architectual style, you must acknowledge that it’s been a fantastic addition to the Washington cultural scene all these years, providing a setting for a huge range of artistic performances (including Millennium Stage, with 365 free performances a year!) and inspiring the launch of many additional venues. And it has a lovely view from the terrace. Anyway, we’re all used to it now, as a familiar icon for which we feel affection, like some eccentric great-aunt who is known for her peculiar hats.

As part of a homeschoolers’ outing, my daughter and I attended American Scrapbook, A Celebration of Verse, a theatrical interpretation of some of the Kennedys’ favorite poetry. The family had a lovely tradition which (WARNING) will assuredly make you long to go back and raise your semi-literate, poetry-impaired children all over again: for the parents’ birthdays, the children Caroline and John Jr. each chose poems and then created drawings to accompany them, which were then pasted into a scrapbook.

This scrapbook collection inspired the play, which was essentially a seamlessly interwoven, thematically arranged series of “recitations”—although I hesitate to use that dry schoolhouse term, because the interpretations were so engaging and heartfelt. (I tried to sketch, but it was pretty dark and the actors were awfully “active,” thus the rough, scribbled result.)

The set was simple, modest, effective: tall wooden shutters that opened and closed in a variety of configurations to reveal changing images that supported, rather than distracted from, the spoken word.

Lively, imaginative, yet true to the spirit of the poems, the program transfixed the audience of elementary and middle-school children for an hour, which, when you’re talking about poetry, is truly a laudable achievement.

Walter

The Song of Wandering Aengus

February 14, 2011 by Sheila 1 Comment

For Valentines Day.

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire aflame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

—William Butler Yeats

Bill

This image is available as a high-resolution print on 8.5″ x 11″ archival paper.

Cats

February 13, 2011 by Sheila 1 Comment

This rather fierce-looking cat is Minou, the spoiled darling of the concierge, painted in our long-ago Paris days. Minou is undoubtedly long gone, but she pretty much ruled the roost while she was around. I post her portrait here, along with this poem, in honor of Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965), whose birthday it is today. For a brief bio of the delightful Farjeon, another of her poems, and a painting, please see Morning Has Broken.

Cats sleep

Anywhere,

Any table,

Any chair,

Top of piano,

Window-ledge,

In the middle,

On the edge,

Open drawer,

Empty shoe,

Anybody’s

Lap will do,

Fitted in a

Cardboard box,

In the cupboard

With your frocks –

Anywhere!

They don’t care!

Cats sleep

Anywhere.

—Eleanor Farjeon

Sara

Midwinter

January 27, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Deep in the earth

When the days are dark

Dwells the summer’s dawn.

—Traditional in Waldorf schools

Sister Mary Daniel Turner