Sunlit morning, interrupted--

Thanks to Noah Clark of Erie, Colorado, sxc.hu

Started the green, sunlit day by politely explaining my allergy to politicians to a nice telephone lady from the one or the other of the two major U. S. political parties. I do hate to be interrupted when reading, perhaps particularly when the words come from Nabokov. (I say perhaps because it occurs to me that I have not read nearly enough Nabokov. There's another reason to regret that life is so brief!) I like what he said in answer to a question about what it is best to be: To be kind, to be proud, to be fearless.

Stephen Fry on poetic form

A genial, inviting discussion. Evidently Fry has much fiercer things to say about poetic matters (particularly form and shapeliness) in the book... And that book is The Ode Less Travelled. Tom Disch (in the form of poet Thomas M. Disch, author of The Castle of Indolence) would be proud.

Hat tip to A. M. Juster.

The Foliate Head, on sale--

Just back from the coast and noticed that The Foliate Head (second printing, hardcover) is now listed as not out of print and is on a very good sale. In fact, it is no longer 15 pounds but a mere 4 pounds. So, get it while you can--P. S. Publishing end of print run and clearance sale! Scrumptious wodwos art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, wonderful design by Andrew Wakelin. Poems by me--for more samples, go here.


THE FOLIATE HEAD


Peering from medieval churches,
Dressed in leaves of ash and birches,

Camperdown elm and English oak,
Doghobble, sassafras, and poke,

Here winks the sprite who can transcend
His yearly death, for whom no end

Can be unless by our misdeed.
His verdant woman bleeds to breed

A world of leaves, his phoenix-pet
Cries cockerel against regret,

Remorse, and all that’s passed away
While crowing-in triumphant day.

The green man’s lodge is budding wood,
His roofbeam’s resurrection rood,

The axis mundi staking cloud
To earth and realms below the shroud.

The roulette balls fly round the sun,
The spiral years are never done . . .

Within my dreams, he’s young and lithe,
Unheeding of the reaper’s scythe,

But when I meet him in the park,
He’s changed his guise from light to dark;

I go to grasp his creaking hands
And find him dressed in swaddling bands.    

A thimbleful

Parable of the Thimble

A being dedicated a life to words, to art, and to the great transcendentals of beauty, truth, love, and goodness. One morning, the being woke up and looked about at an apocalyptic landscape of toddler-slaying fanatics and Kardashian idol-worshippers and flashy, trendy drek. The being took up a thimble, pouring sparkling drops of cleanness into the oily, crimson, trash-islanded sea.

* * *

Knurlings

The thimble at right was found at "There's More to Thimbles Than You Think," where I learned that the oldest known thimble was in the form of a Han dynasty ring. Before that, we mortals evidently made use of "press stones." And those little dimples? Knurlings. Isn't that a wonderful word? You can tell an old dimple because the knurlings are not tidy and even, not machined.

* * *

To be of use

The thimble to the left is Meissen, 18th Century. (Wikipedia. For some Fabergé thimbles, go here.)

Like so many small, charming things, thimbles eventually became souvenirs and keepsakes and collectibles. They have been made out of many materials--gold, silver, steel, mother-of-pearl, porcelain, whalebone with scrimshaw designs. What does it mean to be of use if you are a thimble made of soft silver or breakable porcelain? Another parable, perhaps. Many, of course, are still made for the needle's use.

Pensez.