I'm not a fan of Tyne Daly

But I've long been in the tank for Edna St. Vincent Millay.
And truth to tell, Ms. Daly is pretty darned good here.
And here.
 

Those Winter Sundays

Keillor has used Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" as The Writer's Almanac's poem 4 times in 14 years.

Not enough.

14 times in 4 years wouldn't be enough.

Raw material for a poem, con't.

Rhymes with EPICURE:
amateur, aperture, armature, blackamoor, carrefour, carte du jour, coinsure, commissure, confiture, connoisseur, coverture, curvature, cynosure, embouchure, filature, forfeiture, garniture, geniture, green-manure, haute couture, immature, insecure, ligature, manicure, overture, paramour, pedicure, plat du jour, portraiture, prelature, premature, quadrature, reassure, Reaumur, reinsure, saboteur, sepulture, sequitur, signature, simon-pure, sinecure, soup du jour, tablature, temperature, to be sure, troubadour, white amur, Yom Kippur

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epicure?show=0&t=1321272124

And no, this list wasn't compiled as an homage to Dr. Seuss despite its inclusion of "green manure":

In agriculture, a green manure is a type of cover crop grown primarily to add nutrients and organic matter to the soil.

Wikipedia

Oats, rye, clover, and alfalfa are examples of green-manure crops.

You're welcome.

W.C. Wlliams

Keillor reminded us that yesterday was William Carlos Williams's birthday, which prompted me to reread two of the only three of Wlliams's poems I can remember -- faintly. I enjoyed "By the road to the contagious hospital" and thought (again) how strange it is that "This is just to say" has become so famous. (The third poem, which I didn't try to find, says something about "a red wheelbarrow.")

You say puh-TAY-toe; I say . . .

You've probably been wondering about the proper pronunciation of "Gerard," as in Gerard Manley Hopkins. Like me, you may cringe when at what is far and away the most common pronunciation, "jur-ARD," because (diseuphony aside) you seem to remember your freshman English teacher at St. Joe's said that the stress falls on the first syllable: "JUR-urd."

Problem solved. In an excellent video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL4lsEcE-js), John Wain pronounces it with equal stress on both syllables (at about the 4:55 mark). That settles it for me.

Even if -- unlikely event -- you don't care about how to pronounce the name, the video is well worth watching. Wain, a 20th century atheist, is wonderfully sympathetic to the 19th century Jesuit. And he, Wain, that is, pulls of a remarkable feat in narrating some of Hopkins's lines in a way that almost make them understandable. (Most of Hopkins's poems, of course, are so intricate, convoluted, and just plain strange that you really need to see the words and think about them to make any sense out of them.)

An extra bonus. If, like me, you haven't turned to "God's grandeur" in a while, check out Wain's recital beginning at the 6:48 minute mark of part 5 of the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKDxgfvUCNo).

Go to mass tomorrow

Thrill to the reading from Jeremiah: "You duped me, O LORD, . . . "

Then go home and read the GREAT Hopkins poem:

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.

My Own Heart

Reading Hopkins is always a challenge, as Keillor reminds us today. But it's also a thrill that I don't treat myself to nearly enough. Thanks, Garrison.

March 25

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

Excerpted from Annunciation, by Denise Levertov

I would have guessed Levertov was a jew, but "Her father, raised a Hasidic Jew, had converted to Christianity while attending university in Germany. By the time Denise was born he had settled in England and become an Anglican parson." And

Her mother, who was Welsh, read authors such as Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, and Leo Tolstoy aloud to the family. Denise was educated entirely at home, and claimed to have decided to become a writer at the age of five. When she was twelve, she sent some of her poetry to T. S. Eliot, who responded with two pages of "excellent advice," and encouragement to continue writing.

Poets.org

The rainbow comes and goes

It was a treat seeing a bit of the Intimations Ode on Garrison Keillor's web site a couple days ago, but the intern responsible for the typo in the last line of this stanza needs to be sent back to junior high for remedial English, no?

The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

The Writer's Almanac

Footnote: By the way, "past" can be an adjective, adverb, noun, or preposition. I wouldn't have thought of preposition.

A Dog's Death

SEAMUS
R.I.P 1997-2011

Seamus, usually called Shay or sometimes Seamus the Wonder Dog, died today, March 5. He was 13 and a half years old, and for most of that time was virtually a fixture of the neighborhood. Nicknamed long ago “the Mayor of Woodside Park,” he would lie in our front yard, surveying the passing scene, occasionally offering a bark or two of hello. Other dogs might be alpha-males, but Seamus was an omega, as docile and easygoing as any dog can ever be. In his younger days, he would sometimes wander off and many in the neighborhood have called our house to say “Do you know where your dog is?” Then we’d go fetch him on Pinecrest Circle or in the park near Spring Street, and he’d be thrilled to see us. His favorite activity—even more than eating—was taking walks in the woods, preferably near creeks in which he could splash and fetch sticks. Even in his last months, when suffering from a series of ailments, he remained a wonderful animal friend. In our memory, Shay will always be bounding across the front lawn, full of life and love. We miss him terribly.

Michael Dirda, Washington Post

Seamus sounds nothing at all like Bones.
And he sounds everything like Bones.
R.I.P., Seamus.
R.I.P., Bones.

Dirda goes on to mention a John Updike poem -- two actually -- that are worth reading:

• Dog's Death, and
• Another Dog's Death.

I've never been much of an Updike fan, but after reading these poems, I may have to reconsider.

Knowledge, truth, happiness

Yesterday's Old Testament reading began:

Who can know God's counsel,
or who can conceive what the LORD intends?

Am I kidding myself to think I hear an echo of that in Mark Vernon's "rumination" on Emily Dickenson?

What she realises is that the truth which is beyond us, which is discerned only indirectly, is the only truth that is truly worth seeking. That which we can readily grasp and manipulate is too easy for us. It’s humdrum. It leaves life too small for us, the creature with an eye for the transcendent. But look further, and what you are offered is what she calls truth’s ‘superb surprise’.

Mark Vernon

Elsewhere on Vernon's blog: "[H]appiness is the by-product of a life, not something that can be pursued head on."

A great poem

I was searching for something a little while ago and came across an Elizabeth Bishop poem that I've mentioned before, The Filling Station:

Oh, but it is dirty!
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Go read the whole thing.

Names

Today's first reading is Genesis 2:18-24. Which reminds all right-thinking people of Anthony Hecht's wonderful poem:

Naming the Animals

by Anthony Hecht

Having commanded Adam to bestow
Names upon all the creatures, God withdrew
To empyrean palaces of blue
That warm and windless morning long ago,
And seemed to take no notice of the vexed
Look on the young man's face as he took thought
Of all the miracles the Lord had wrought
Now to be labeled, dubbed, yclept, indexed.

Before an addled mind and puddle brow,
The feathered nation and the finny prey
Passed by; there went biped and quadruped.
Adam looked forth with bottomless dismay
Into the tragic eyes of his first cow,
And shyly ventured, "Thou shalt be called 'Fred.'"

The Writer's Almanac

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .

I notice that my profile mentions a certain J. Alfred Prufrock. You know him, right?

The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
By T.S. Eliot


Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet–and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam312/prufrock.html

Great beginnings

When I consider how my light is spent . . .

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . .

buffalo bill's defunct . . .

My heart leaps up when I behold . . .

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan . . .

The world is charged with the grandeur of God . . .

and now a new one:

There is a moment just before
a dog vomits . . .

"The Meaning of Life"

Keep the faith, baby!

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

Prayer of Oscar Romero
(My italics.)

Emily

Garrison reminded us yesterday of one of the maid's poems. Which reminds me that I don't really care for any (?) or Ms. Dickensons's poems. In all of her poems, maybe there's a line or two, here or there, that appear to be salvagable

Paradise

‘Paradise’ By the Internet: Milton’s 400th Birthday Honored With Epic Reading
By Dave Itzkoff

Cambridge University will mark the coming 400th anniversary of the birth of John Milton on Thursday with a live Internet broadcast of “Paradise Lost,” the university announced. Beginning at 9 a.m. in Cambridge (4 a.m., Eastern time), the university’s Faculty of English and Christ’s College (where Milton, who was born on Dec. 9, 1608, studied) will hold a marathon reading of the epic of man’s first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree. The reading will cover all 12 books of “Paradise Lost” — more than 10,000 lines of poetry — and is expected to take 12 hours. Milton scholars unable to attend the event in the embossed flesh can tune in to an Internet broadcast at www.christs.cam.ac.uk/milton400; a podcast of the reading will also be made available after the event."

‘Paradise’ By the Internet: Milton’s 400th Birthday Honored With Epic Reading - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com: "October 22, 2008, 10:23 am

Footnote: I added the "BlogThis" button to Firefox yesterday. It makes copying stuff from elsewhere on the web a snap.

Bulletin! Yoicks, it's on now! Hie thee to www.christs.cam.ac.uk/milton400. (And explore the rest of the Milton 400 site, too.)

Warning!

Garrison Keillor had a funny poem on The Writer's Almanac yesterday. It begins:

A can of self-defense pepper spray says it may
irritate the eyes, while a bathroom heater says it's
not to be used in bathrooms.

"Warnings," by David Allen Sullivan

Go read the whole thing.

The Lanyard