English Teachers, English Words

At a long-ago event in the Redwood Forest, 

where banana slugs were vigorously munching on dichondra sod 

that had been laid especially for a wedding, 

these three English teachers and friends of ours posed for my good camera.

They know who they are, I will not name them now. . . .

Silent Poem

backroad   leafmold   stonewall   chipmunk
underbrush   grapevine   woodchuck   shadblow

woodsmoke   cowbarn   honeysuckle   woodpile
sawhorse   bucksaw   outhouse   wellsweep

backdoor   flagstone   bulkhead   buttermilk
candlestick   ragrug   firedog   brownbread

hill top   outcrop   cowbell   buttercup
whetstone   thunderstorm   pitchfork   steeplebush

gristmill   millstone  cornmeal   waterwheel
watercress   buckwheat   firefly   jewelweed

gravestone   groundpine   windbreak   bedrock
weathercock   snowfall   starlight   cockcrow

Robert Francis     (1901-1987)

Robert Francis; Collected Poems 1936-1976,
University of Massachusetts Press, 1976, page 240.

I often mention that I love compound words. Imagine then my joy when I found this poem---in a used book that had been thrown away by the Chicago Public Library. Perhaps Robert Francis is most famous now for never having even been as famous as he probably deserved to be. He was mentioned approvingly in something (I have forgotten where or what) I read recently, so I got this book of his life's work. His other book is prose, apparently, about not having been famous, or even all that much noticed. Two books, I love this poem, the mostly rural sweep of it! Two of these words, shadblow and jewelweed, have enough meaning for me that I could write a blog post on each one. And probably will! Most of the compound words in this poem have two syllables, a few have three and only one is four syllables in length. And I think we should make more of them when writing poetry,
I want also to recommend again a small book of Mark Strands, Chicken, Shadow, Moon and More, which I discuss in this blog post. Strand uses the each small word over and over to create wonderful poems.

In The Land of Crinoline

Here I am hanging out with the shorter side of the family.

Left to Right: My mother, Olga Butler Hopper, her mother, Susie Redd Butler, 

my aunt, Marita Butler Brimhall, myself: The Bride, twin cousin, Mocella Brimhall,

cousin Marilym Brimhall not in a good mood, twin cousin Marita Brimhall.

This was taken the day of my wedding, June 21, 1955, or perhaps the day before.

I am wearing one of my favorite dresses with more expensive fabric than I usually used.

It was a modern cityscape print in browns and tans with touches 

of bright peach and turquoise. Fitted bodice, full flared skirt. 

No crinolines; Marilyn was horrified and loaned me a slip for under my wedding dress.

I had remembered I made this dress after I married; I know I bought the fabric at my favorite

fabric store in Provo, Utah (a woman names Crilla worked there, but that is another story) 

and I was only at BYU for that school year, so I must have made it then. 

I wore it for years and years, and still wish I had kept a piece of the fabric.

When she learned I had not planned a reception 

(I had always planned to get my PhD. before even thinking about marriage!)

Aunt Marita stepped up to the plate and made me an outdoor party

complete with home-made hamburger buns. Lots of family friends came.

My mother bought a cake with a white sugar bell on the top.

This picture was taken on slide film with my mother's Contax camera, 

perhaps by my father. It was underexposed, but I have lilghtened it.

CROSSROADS

My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer

I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and                                                                                                          unfamiliar,

like what I remember of love when I was young---

love that was so often foolish in its objectives

but never in its choices, its intensities.

Too much demanded in advance, too  much that could not be

                                                                                         promised---

My soul has been so fearful, so violent: 

forgive its brutality.
As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously,

not wishing to give offense
but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance:

it is not the earth I will miss,
it is you I will miss.

Louise Gluck

A Village Life, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009, page 62.

   

One critic has called this poem perhaps the most moving in this moving volume of poems. 

In three three-line stanzas and two two line stanzas, the ideas are beautifully expressed.

It is worth it to read the whole book! This is what I recommend! It is not a terribly long book

and is work by a poet who has mastered the lyric peom.  jhh

Milk and Eggs

Today, I was backing up and transferring many generations of digital photos, and I found an old photo disk with these pictures on it. They were in a strange format, but I was glad to be able to convert them. I don't know if this is when my daughter still had her cow, Anna, or whether this is goat's milk. My grandson is 28 now, so this was more than 15 years ago.

BENEDICTION

God banish from your house
The fly, the roach, the mouse

That riots in the walls
Until the plaster falls;

Admonish from your door
The hypocrite and liar;

No shy, soft, tigrish fear
Permit upon your stair,

Nor agents of your doubt.
God drive them whistling out.

Let nothing touched with evil,
Let nothing that can shrivel

Heart's tenderest frond, intrude
Upon your still, deep blood.

Against the drip of night
God keep all windows tight,

Protect your mirrors from
Surprise, delirium,

Admit no trailing wind
Into your shuttered mind

To plume the lake of sleep
With dreams. If you must weep

God give you tears, but leave
You secrecy to grieve,

And islands for your pride,
And love to nest in your side.

God grant that, to the bone,

Yourself may be your own;

God grant that I may be

(My sweet) sweet company.

Stanley Kunitz       (1905-2006)

The Voice That Is Great Within Us; 

American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, 

edited by Hayden Carruth, Bantam, 1970, pages 259-260.

Stanley is of the generation of my parents, who were born in 1906 and 1907, but he lasted until the age of 100, which they did not. He taught many generations of young poets and also had an illustrious career creating reference books about Contemporary Authors. We used to just say, "Have you looked in Kunitz?" when I worked in the library.

This is a gentle poem in rhyming tetrameter couplets. Constructed, not a bit careless. I like to look up the poems I find and see who else has cited them. I was interested that when Garrison Keillor read this poem on the radio, he omitted the last four lines. (At least they are missing from the transcript.) It is a different poem when this is done.  I like it Garrison's way, not so obviously a love poem. Which way do you prefer?

These eggs were the only other picture on this disk. My daughter always

had chickens that laid green and brown eggs in addition to the classic white.

She is gradually retiring from chicken-keeping now, because the winters are 

so harsh, and chickens must be attended to every day. 
I think she said she is down to three chickens.

Double-Breasted Suit

 

 I promised my brother, David, I would post this photo. He is the lad on the right.

He is about to leave now for an LDS Service Mission to the Philippines, and

might have to miss my blog which he claims to be too busy to read in any case.

This picture was cropped from one of those Brownie Reflex square black-and-whites.

Mostly my Dad wore single-breasted suits, I don't remember this one. But Wikipedia

says that double-breasted suits were in fashion in the Forties and Fifties, helped to that

position by the discomfort of the new baggier waistcoat/vest that rode up when one

sat down. These boys were born in 1944 (David) and 1945 (Robert, left) which

is just about at the height of this suit's popularity. Notice that David has a double-breasted

coat, while Robert's is single-breasted. Again, these coats were likely made by my mother

from mill ends from a Vermont textile outlet. I think they might be camel-colored.

The caps are a nice touch. . .

Robert, at right, is the only one of my siblings that is no longer living. 

We all miss him terribly; he had such a sweet spirit and understanding heart.

I think my Dad really loved having these boys and the two older sons;

I remember he usually asked math and geography questions of them

at the dinner table. He worked all his life for General Electric, 

and thought it was the finest company ever created. 

I have always been proud to be his daughter.

LOVE CALLS US TO THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD 

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
                        Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

   Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

   Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
                                                   The soul shrinks

   From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessèd day,
And cries,
                “Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”

   Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

   “Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
                         keeping their difficult balance.”

Richard Wilbur          (1921--

The Voice That Is Great Within Us; 

American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, 

edited by Hayden Carruth, Bantam, 1970, pages 484-485.

"Their difficult balance" isn't that just beautiful??
Richard Wilbur is an excellent poet, who has received many awards for his work. Read this poem out loud for the beauty of the language. And notice the subtle shifts of the arrangement of the lines on the page.

Requiem: David Dickens

I wish I had a good picture of David Dickens.

This is a better picture of his wife, Deborah, than of David, 
but I never thought to take any of him.

I borrowed this from his Facebook page.
I have talked about him on this blog before,

but I didn't use his name, 
I called him "the man who knew how to do everything."

I think here they are enjoying a night on the town, with friends.

Several times on this blog I have mentioned someone who has helped us with his handyman skills many times over the past several years. Here is a link to one post in which I listed some of the things he did for us.  I had an email from him on August 8, saying he would check the house before we got back for us. Then I heard nothing else. We left to come back on September 8th, and spent a few days with our grandchildren in Plumas County. When we got back I still hadn't heard from him. My email telling him when we would be back was never answered. Then I looked for his daughter's Facebook page and found a notice that he had died on September 2nd. I don't know what the cause was, but pray that he was never in too much pain. Even though he had been through a serious illness, deep down I always expected him to help me with things like the replacement of the icemaker on our old refrigerator. This and that might now never get fixed or improved, He installed or repaired toilets and rewired lamps, too. There seemed to be nothing he couldn't do. Rest in peace, dear friend.

We first met him when the termite inspector said we needed some work done on dry rot on the eaves. He recommended David to us and he fixed it. Thus our history of his fixing began. We have lived in this house since 1967, so this and that often that needs fixing. In addition to all the repair and remodeling described in this post, there was the event of the roof rat invasion. On one of our seasons in Michigan, roof rats took advantage of a small break in the wire mesh that covered a ventilation hole in the side of the garage. During our absence, they chewed through and ate 1)two small covered plastic garbage cans full of dog food, 2) the bottoms of three other empty cans and several other plastic containers, 3) the 1 1/2 inch diameter inflow and outflow hoses for the water softener 4) large portions of a small clear drainage hose from the furnace/air-conditioner that ran all across the ceiling, 5) about a three-foot section of the plastic gasket that runs along the bottom of the garage door. And much much more! Of course, there was also some water leakage. It was horrifying. He repaired everything! Some it it was better when he got through than it had been before. And he closed the means of access for the rats--we haven't had any since!!

But enough of all this peculiar history. I started out to write a requiem for the David Dickens I knew.

The one who showed me a dragonfly he had carved from wood for a present. The one who was interested in my plants and who asked for starts of some of my succulents. The one who help me pick out paint colors and selected birch doors with beautiful grain to replace our ugly ones. The one who talked to me about art. The one who hung plants on the deck and pictures indoors for me. The one who sat down and chatted with us after every visit, and told us about his parents and ancestors back east. The one who we saw through his battles with melanoma; we thought he was winning when we left. The one who talked about the deaths of his parents, one at a time. The one who eased Deborah through her losing battle with melanoma. The one who wore his long hair in a knot on the top of his head, held there with a pencil stuck through it, and often stowed under a big hat. The one who brought a big canister to drink from while he worked. The one who talked endlessly about his daughter's wedding. And about his ancestors. He hoped to go back, to family land. The one who fell in love with Margot, the baby granddaughter. The one who loved his cat, Fred, and made a war on gophers in his garden. The one who loved cigars, and created hardwood lighted-cigar stands. There is more, so much more. . .

I'll close with one of the strongest visual images I have of him. It was during the time he removed and replaced our family room/kitchen floor and subflooring. There was termite damage, too, and some studs had to be replaced. There was no light in that room except lamps; all the furniture had been removed to do the work. He was working later than he usually did, on his hands and knees by the light of a table lamp he had set upon the floor near him. His hair had fallen loose, as it rarely did. It caught the light from the lamp and surrounded him with a golden, light-filled halo, like one of those portraits of Jesus. He looked up as I came down the stairs and smiled, a beautiful smile! I want to remember it always.

Rest in peace, gentle friend, June Hopper Hymas


PS. His daughter just shared with with me this very recent photo of him with his granddaughter, who is wearing his hat.

Benediction

As soon as I saw this picture, I called it "Benediction."

I wasn't in Utah on this visit and could not have taken it, but someone sent it to me.

I don't know who took this photo of

 my two sisters and my youngest brother, Robert, with our mother.

Robert died in 1997 and Mom in 2002, but Marjory and Susan are still going strong.

Robert liked poetry and understood my poems, which was a wonderful thing!

DUCK-CHASING

I spied a very small brown duck

Riding the swells of the sea

Like a rocking-chair. "Little duck!"

I cried. It paddled away,

I paddled after it. When it dived,

Down I dived: too smoky was the sea,

We were lost. It surfaced

In the west, I torpedoed west

And when it dived, I dived,

And we were lost and lost and lost

In the slant smoke of the sea.

When I came floating up on it

From the side, like a deadman,

And yelled suddenly, it took off,

It skimmed the swells as it ascended,

Brown wings burning and flashing

In the sun as the sea it rose over

Burned and flashed underneath it.

I did not see the little duck again.

Duck-chasing is a game like any game.

When it is over it is all over.

Galway Kinnell

(1927-2014)

The Voice That Is Great Within Us; 

American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, 

edited by Hayden Carruth, Bantam, 1970, pages 599.

I think these are my favorite lines in the poem, but I also like " lost and lost and lost"
Brown wings burning and flashing

In the sun as the sea it rose over

Burned and flashed underneath it.

Within the care of the season

Suddenly there are pumpkins wherever you look!

GREEN   RED   BROWN   AND   WHITE

Bit an apple on its red

side        smelled like snow

Between white halves broken open

brown winks slept in sockets of green

Stroked a birch white as a thigh

scar-flecked smooth as a neck

of a horse          On mossy pallets green

the pines dripped down

their perfect carvings brown

Lost in the hairy wood

followed berries red

to the fork         Had to choose

between green and green        High

In a sunwhite dome a brown bird

sneezed         Took the path least likely

and it led me home         For

each path leads both out and in

I come while going      No to and from

There is only here       And here

as well as there          Wherever

I am led I move within the care

of the season

hidden in the creases of her skirts

of green or brown or beaded red

And when they are white

I am not lost        I am not lost then

only covered for the night

May Swenson
(1913-1989)

The Voice That Is Great Within Us; 

American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, 

edited by Hayden Carruth, Bantam, 1970, page 481.

May Swenson, born in Logan, Utah, was the oldest of 10 children.

She grew up in a household where Swedish was the home language. She had a long and well-regarded poetry career, and did translate poetry from Swedish as part of it.

This poem has irregular stanzas, interesting spaces within the lines,

and no puncuation! It also has a bird sneezing. Good night. . .