Fireweed and bee spotted today!

 

Strong mid-day wood's-edge light along the road at the south end of the Hymas Woods Nature Preserve shows off the intricate structure of the white parts of the flower. A bee bumbling here and there. There is a tiny red spot below the bee, which seems to be part of the bee. I have seen the yellow pollen baskets on other bees, but could this be a red one? Fireweed in bloom always makes me happy. since I first saw and identified it here just a few years ago. Looking it up, I find that in many parts of the English-speaking world, it is known as willowherb; this sounds very poetic, I think.
There were a few fireworks in the early evening. The sad thing is that the dog tried to dig out again when it got dark. It reminds me of a nervous breakdown, one that continues after the initial manifestation. We are all pretty upset about it.

This lovely flower seems to require Song of the Yodo as the poem for tonight. The Yodo is a river. This  SONG is the final poem (part of a very short section of poems that are not haiku) in the NEW book, Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson, translated by W. S. Merwin & Takako Lento. (It is on page 245.) I have been waiting a long time to be able to learn something more about Buson's haiku. He is particularly interesting to me because of his renown as a painter as well as a giant of haiku poetry. The procedure of this poem reminds me of "linking by scent (or emotion)" a method Basho discussed for the creation of renku poetry, which is created by small groups of people working together. Scent linking implies a connection between verses by agreement in mood or emotion rather than by association of specific things or ideas. Naniwa was later known as the city of Osaka.

SONG OF THE YODO

                              *

A plum flower floats on the stream of Spring
the Uji flows down south and meets the Yodo
do not untie the sash of golden brocade
if you do the swift current will take the boat like lightning

                              *

The Uji water meets the Yodo water
they come together to become one body
I wish to sleep with you on the boat
and become a familiar resident of Naniwa

                               *

You are a plum flower floating on the water
floating down the river swiftly you leave
I am a weeping willow on the river's edge
my shadow is deep in the water
I cannot come with you

Lost dog found: Luella is home!

This is an older picture of the dog that was frightened by fireworks and ran away on July 4th. We used it on the posters we took all over the village yesterday. She was located about 10 miles away today, so exhausted she just lay in the road. A passing mail carrier saw a grandmother and granddaughter protecting her and alerted my daughter.
When the granddaughter saw how happy she was to see her owner, the child cried.
We are very relieved. I might be a little happier, if people had stopped shooting off fireworks, but it is still going on right now from two different directions! Until about an hour ago, the dog was still frantic; she seems to have settled down some now. There has been a recent change in the fireworks laws in Michigan, so I imagine stories like this can be heard throughout the state. Fireworks were legalized and the burden has been put on the localities to set up the rules for fireworks. I don't hope for much change in the popping tomorrow, but maybe after the weekend??? And maybe if enough dogs and children are terrified, some useful guidelines will be implemented and enforced. Maybe . . .

I know this isn't really a FIREWORKS poem (or sort of) but "they must burn out like used candles," got me when I went to www.Americanpoems.com looking for a poem I might not have to type.

The Epic Stars by Robinson Jeffers

The heroic stars spending themselves, Coining their very flesh into bullets for the lost battle, They must burn out at length like used candles; And Mother Night will weep in her triumph, taking home her heroes. There is the stuff for an epic poem-- This magnificent raid at the heart of darkness, this lost battle-- We don't know enough, we'll never know. Oh happy Homer, taking the stars and the Gods for granted.

It has been a very tiring day. And so to bed. . .

Seriously, spring already sprung! Now it is July 5th.

 On the glorious Fourth, the firecrackers almost didn't stop. They've been going off for more than a week now. And as I write they are still going off here in the tranquil hinterlands. 

This lovely dog, seen here last month, when the poppies were at their height next door, tore out of her run and ran away last night. On other years, she hadn't seemed to mind the fireworks, but they went on a lot longer this year. Today we put up LOST DOG posters all over the village. But I am doubtful that she will be found. There is a pack of coyotes in the woods here, and plenty of other dangers.

For me, this afternoon, it was the Habitat for Humanity resale store again, while S did his hot-pool therapy, He does improve slowly, and I am quite encouraged about that.

I bought Selected Poems and Two Plays of William Butler Yeats from 1966. This copy is from the 17th printing, and is larded with student notes. I'm sure you have seen this same volume in a used bookstore. It has a red and black cover featuring an oval photo of the young, bespectacled, Yeats. There are many lyrical beauties inside, and it is hard to choose. I like this one, partly because I think the three beat lines are interesting. And look at the repeated "l" sounds!

THE PITY OF LOVE

A pity beyond all telling
Is hid in the heart of love:
The folks who are buying and selling,
The clouds on their journey above,
The cold wet winds ever blowing,
And the shadowy hazel grove
Where mouse-grey waters are flowing,
Threaten the head that I love.

William Butler Yeats  (1892)  (page 13)

I want to spend an afternoon beside those mouse-grey waters!
Firecrackers are still going off in bunches here

Seriously. Plus a little bit of flag. Also, Bliss!

 I don't quite get the reference. Is this supposed to be the Abominable Snowman? Or a species of pigmentless gorilla? Anyway his/her furry effigy sits on one of the sofas at the Friendship Center in Petoskey where the seniors sit to wait for the bus. Or I wait while the wonderful massage guy gives S. a massage, after which it will be my turn.
I like to think that the yellow thing around the neck represents a banana, (thus, gorilla?) and was crocheted as a gift by a friendly senior fiber artist. Since it is now so close to the Fourth, an extra small flag is also on display here, visible in the upper right corner of the portrait. Do you ever think that symbols are everywhere and that there must be some species of meaning in everything?

This afternoon on the way to the holiday barbecue to which we were invited, we passed through the hamlet of Bliss, MI. There is nothing much there but a small corner store (The Bliss Store!) and a large field of turf near some restored housing and stabling for the polo players and horses who come here from the South to play polo when it gets too warm where they come from. I kid you not, a polo summer camp! Quite posh.

Tonight's poem is by David Lee, Utah's first poet laureate. Which places him far away from Northern Michigan, where, near midnight now, someone is still setting off fireworks down the lane by the lake.

On Turning Up a Fossil in My Garden

Natural extinction need not connote
a forced or meaningless fall into oblivion:
instead, one of the simple facts of life, the ultimate
fate of all species, not tainted by a stigma
of failures like breath, frequent in occurrence
but unworthy of inordinate praise, not
especially provocative as conversation. As
when two lovers cease their heavy breathing, and part,
and the moonlight seeps into a darkened room:
seen clearly with no apprehension, animosity, fear.

from So Quietly The Earth by David Lee, Copper Canyon Press, 2004, page 20.

Hope you also had a Glorious Fourth, or a least a pleasant one. Good Night!

World War II hasn't started yet . . . threads

This is a shout-out to my cousin Marilyn, the blonde with the hairbrush. Her big brother, my much-loved cousin Dwayne, died just a few days ago. Dwayne Brimhall was the oldest grandchild of the woman in this photo, my maternal grandmother Susan Elizabeth Redd Butler, the daughter of Mormon pioneers to the American West.
Since Marilyn lived in Mesa, Arizona and I lived in Schenectady, New York we weren't childhood buddies, or even acquaintances. I came to Mesa this once on the train with my mother to be shown off, and for photos like this one to be taken. It is the summer of 1938, I think. None of us are much concerned about the gathering storm in Europe yet. Though in the end, my mother's youngest brother, my Uncle Merwin, (Elbert Merwin Butler) will go to this war and serve on Okinawa.

Here is a letter Merwin sent us from Okinawa that my mother saved. At the time the photo was taken, most of the people in the salutation hadn't yet been born. Four little brothers and a sister! In the photo I am still an only child.

See the rubber stamp on the envelope? I Googled the phrase and found out that there weren't enough ships to transport the troops home rapidly after the war ended, so they carved this stamp (probably from an eraser) to put on letters sent home. It's an electoral threat. (Single-click on the image to enlarge.)

I've mentioned my thrift-store book-shopping expeditions. Last week I also got Winston Churchill's Memoirs of the Second World War, which is an abridgment of his 6-volume history published in 1959. ( I had always thought I would read that. Someday!) Still, it comes in at a respectable, if daunting, 1016 pages! There is a new introduction and an epilogue. I knew Churchill was a good writer--we all know tag-phrases from his great speeches--but I must say it is a pleasure to read clear and expressive English like this! So, once again, Franz Kafka in the also very well-written book by Frederick R. Karl, has to wait. . .

This is from Churchill's first chapter, "The Follies of the Victors" I want you to pay special attention to the masterful use of semicolons in series to convey the building blocks of a reasoned assessment.

"It is my purpose as one who lived and acted in these days, to show how easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented; how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous; how the structure and habits of democratic states, unless they are welded into larger organisms. lack those elements of persistence and conviction which alone can give security to humble masses; how,even in matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued for even ten or fifteen years at a time. We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull's-eye of disaster. We shall see how absolute is the need of a broad path of international action pursued by many states in common across the years, irrespective of the ebb and flow of national politics.

It was a simple policy to keep Germany disarmed and the victors adequately armed for thirty years, and in the meanwhile, even if a reconciliation could not be made with Germany, to build ever more strongly a true League of Nations capable of making sure that treaties were kept, and changed only by discussion and agreement. When three or four powerful governments acting together have demanded the most fearful sacrifices from their peoples, when these have been given freely for the common cause, and when the longed-for result has been attained, it would seem reasonable that concerted action should be preserved so that at least the essentials would not be cast away. But this modest requirement the might, civilisation, learning, knowledge, science, of the victors were unable to supply. They lived from hand to mouth and from day to day, and from one election to another, until, when scarcely twenty years were out, the dread signal of the Second World War was given, and we must write of the sons of those who had fought and died so faithfully and well:

"Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,

They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light."

--Siegfried Sassoon"

(Churchill, pages 12-13)

*********

(June here again!) I want you to notice the stunning cumulation of long series strung together by commas.

And because we are on THIS blog, the use made of quoted poetry to wind things up.

I'll wind this us for now. Except that I can't help thinking about the current world, the lighted flares which threaten to become greater, or even lesser, conflagrations, consuming lives and property like something from Biblical prophecy. You need only to visit one cemetery, or know one wounded veteran to gather deep resolve to do something, if only we knew something to do!

And, Outside Looking In

A companion piece to last night's Cassandra, this is my daughter's late lamented Benjamin, who made plans to be an indoor cat every winter.

It's been a very strenuous day, starting out with water exercise. We plan to go to bed early. Boys that can't wait for the Fourth are shooting off intermittent fireworks into the country night.

Yesterday, I shopped the book racks at the Habitat ReStore again (despite already having books enough) while S did hot-pool therapy. Someone had bought the beach painting I was thinking of buying for a couple of weeks. Now I (sort of) wish I had.

Tonight's poem is by the renowned African poet Leopold Sedar Senghor. I found it on page 55 of the thrift-store copy (one of those old yellowed Penguins) of Modern Poetry from Africa (1963,1966.) The book gives no information about sources or translations, but I assume this is a translation from the French, the language he wrote in. Senghor was a very important African intellectual, writer, teacher and statesman. He, too, is of the generation of my father, having been born in the same year, 1906.

All Day Long

All day long, over the long straight rails
Like an inflexible will over the endless sands
Across parched Cayor and Baol where the baobabs twist their arms in  torment
All day long, all along the line
Past the same little stations, past black girls jostling like birds at the gates of schools
All day long, sorely rattled by the iron train and dusty and hoarse
Behold me seeking to forget Europe in the pastoral heart of Sine!

Even though this is a translation, it carries the rhythm of a railroad journey. It can be read aloud in one straight pass, moving right along along the rails.

Inside Looking Out

This is my Cassandra, an Indoor Dachshund, who would like to roam the woods and fields. After an over-full day, I am not thinking clearly enough to write much tonight.
But I want to give you another little taste of Adelman's book on Albert O. Hirschman, which I wrote about last night.  From The New Yorker review. (June 24, 2013, page 78.)

"Adelman is struck by the tone of optimism in Hirschman's notes on his journey. The economist was interested in all the ways in which proiects managed to succeed, both in spite of and because of, the difficulties:

Instead of asking what benefits [has] this project yielded, it would almost be more pertinent to ask: how many conflicts has it brought in its wake? How many crises has it occasioned and passed through? And these conflicts and crises should appear both on the benefit and cost side, or sometimes on one---sometimes on the other, depending on the outcome (which cannot be known with precision for a long time, if ever.

Only Hirschman would circle the globe and be content that he couldn't reach a conclusion ---for a long time, if ever. He was a planner who really didn't believe in planning, He wanted to remind other economists that a lot of the problems they tried to fix were either better off not being fixed or weren't problems to begin with."

This is enough to think about for a week! Look for examples in the things you have studied or (better) been involved in.

Here is your question for tonight from me: Did Che Guevara go through all that to become a T-shirt??? I know I am being silly, but I would desperately like the world to improve so that so many people would not have such terrible lives. (My husband is currently reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers; life, death and hope in a Mumbai undercity, in case I needed a few more specifics.) But how can we get there from here?

Stay tuned. Sleep tight!