Dancer in the moon garden,
brushed by gossamer
sleeves of breezes,
to music and silver
surrendered.
***
Caveat regarding what you will find here: you just never know. I promise absolutely nothing by way of consistency, theme, tone, genre, or value ;->. You’ll no sooner exact such things from me than you would a flight plan from butterfly. So tonight it’s haiku in too many words.
After days of dark thinking about weighty matters, my son made a difficult choice out of love, all on his own - to do the thing that is best for the well-being of the girl he loves, a thing which might consequently cost him the chance to spend time with her at all. This was the day love grew up, and I will never again think of him as a child.
While this story would be best understood were it vividly rendered, it won’t be, because it is his story, not mine, to tell.
There are weeks when life must be lived in slivers of between. There isn’t time for writing then. But there is almost always time for poems remembered. I love these two by Yeats.
When You are Old
When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
The Song of Wandering Aengus
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 a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone 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.
I’m awarding a prize for stupidest Christmas merchandise of 2005. The award, without further ado, goes to a mesh sink strainer with a little sculpted Santa at the bottom of it, squarely in the center. You can buy it at Wal-Mart, if you must. I can just see Santa choking on all the bits of celery and cranberry and turkey, with mashed sweet potato casserole to glom everything together. I wonder if he comes clean in the dishwasher, or if you have to scrub him with a toothbrush. If you asked me where in the world I’d least like to spend my fleeting existence, even as a sink strainer Santa, I think the kitchen sink drain might well be the place.
Nominations are open for second and third place.
In the mountains where my mother lives, not so much has changed. A minister who once pastored my mother’s church has a son just the age of mine, sixteen. This son fell in love with a girl likewise sixteen, and she is now pregnant. This my mother told me in grieved tones two weeks ago. But now my mother has brightened. The two are living with the boy’s parents (the girl’s parents having thrown their pregnant daughter out) and are married now. Apparently a wedding at sixteen is supposed to fix something. We’re all supposed to dedicate ourselves to the notion that this is true love that can last a lifetime. One cannot rule this out, but chances seem slim to me.