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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jun 16, 2013 - 04:47pm PT
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The sepulturero said that it was "the nature of his profession that his experience with death should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart’s memory which is the sole place of their abode then and now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift."
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Jun 21, 2013 - 04:02pm PT
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Wonderful, Anastasia.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Jun 21, 2013 - 04:03pm PT
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For the solstice, our anniversary, and for my father-in-law who always celebrated and noted it with my wife:
One Hundred White-sided Dolphins on a Summer Day
1.
Fat,
black, slick,
galloping in the pitch
of the waves, in the pearly
fields of the sea,
they leap toward us,
they rise, sparkling, and vanish, and rise sparkling,
they breathe little clouds of mist, they lift perpetual smile,
they slap their tails on the waves, grandmothers and grandfathers
enjoying the old jokes,
they circle around us,
they swim with us -
2.
a hundred white-sided dolphins
on a summer day,
each one, as God himself
could not appear more acceptable
a hundred times,
in a body blue and black threading through
the sea foam,
and lifting himself up from the opened
tents of the waves on his fishtail,
to look
with the moon of his eye
into my heart,
3.
and find there
pure, sudden, steep, sharp, painful
gratitude
that falls -
I don't know - either
unbearable tons
or the pale, bearable hand
of salvation
on my neck,
lifting me
from the boat's plain plank seat
into the world's
4.
unspeakable kindness.
It is my sixty-third summer on earth
and, for a moment, I have almost vanished
into the body of the dolphin,
into the moon-eye of God,
into the white fan that lies at the bottom of the sea
with everything
that ever was, or ever will be,
supple, wild, rising on flank or fishtail -
singing or whistling or breathing damply through blowhole
at top of head. Then, in our little boat, the dolphins suddenly gone,
we sailed on through the brisk, cheerful day.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(What Do We Know?)
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jun 21, 2013 - 04:32pm PT
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"Going to Sleep"
Now that I am wearied of the day,
I will let the friendly, starry night
greet all my ardent desires
like a sleepy child.
Hands, stop all your work.
Brow, forget all your thinking.
All my senses now
yearn to sink into slumber.
And my unfettered soul
wishes to soar up freely
into night's magic sphere
to live there deeply and thousandfold.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - Vier Letzte Lieder - Beim Schlafengehen (Richard Strauss)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 25, 2013 - 03:01am PT
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A SERVICEABLE FIRE
Why pretend?
My heart is no longer on fire.
My passion, which once provided a serviceable fire to heat your cockles, has dwindled to embers.
A pressing cold now squeezes me.
I feel condensed, like ice gone awry.
I am at times a peninsula, surrounded by warm seas and watered by the monsoon of your concern, if not love.
Other times I am a glacier, connected to nothing, emanating from nothing, a gravitational freak.
I am oh-so-heavy, slick-as-snot, ultimately connected to nothing at all, just lying here, pressing my coldness against you.
I am rain and snow and ultimately, again, sublimely myself.
And next time the fire.
And again with more cold.
And temper me with more flame.
Then freeze my thoughts.
Then warm my passion.
Then make lemonade with the bits of my soul.
A non-stop cycle of fire and water.
Weight and watch.
Un-weight and feel.
So it’s not emotion I’m trying to describe, but cold hard facts in reaction to your stimulus.
Or is this all to scientific?
Then I’ll just say, “I don’t love you now.”
It’s not a theory, dearie.
It’s just the facts and I’m weary.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 28, 2013 - 12:42pm PT
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I'm thinking of Fletcher and his gang. I can't help myself.
Pancakes for Breakfast Redux
We had pancakes yesterday
We have pancakes every day
Dad just don’t care what I say
I gotta have it his way
Sourdough this and buckwheat that
I just feed mine to the cat
I just fear something awful
Will he try to make a waffle?
Don’t think I’m little dope
I’d just like some cantaloupe
PLEASE?
(apologies to Tommy DePaola)
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jun 28, 2013 - 12:56pm PT
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Sofia Karlsson & Odd Nordstoga - Jag väntar... (I'm waiting...). Music/poetry from 1:51.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
The poet: Dan Andersson from Finnskogen.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jun 28, 2013 - 02:25pm PT
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Strange Fruit
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
"I had always assumed that Billie Holiday composed the music and lyrics to "Strange Fruit". She did not. The song began life as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a schoolteacher who was living in the Bronx and teaching English at the De Witt Clinton High School. Meeropol was motivated to write the poem after seeing a photograph of two black teenagers, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, who had been lynched in Marion, Indiana on August 7 1930. Their bodies were hanging limply from a tree. The image greatly disturbed him, and his poem opens with the following lines:
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Hoping to reach a wider audience, Meeropol set his poem to music, and the song "Strange Fruit" was first performed at a New York City Teachers Union meeting. It created an immediate stir.
According to figures kept by Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, between 1889 and 1940, 3,833 people were lynched in the US - the overwhelming majority of the victims being in the southern states, and black. The brutality of this mob "justice" invariably went unpunished, and when Meeropol was asked, in 1971, why he wrote the song, he replied: "Because I hate lynching and I hate injustice and I hate the people who perpetuate it." Those who heard "Strange Fruit" in the late 30s were shocked, for the true barbarity of southern violence was generally only discussed in black newspapers. To be introduced to such realities by a song was unprecedented, and was considered by many, including leftwing supporters of Meeropol, to be in poor taste.
At this time, 24-year-old Billie Holiday was headlining at a recently opened Greenwich Village nightclub called Cafe Society. It was the only integrated nightclub in New York City, and a place that advertised itself as "the wrong place for the Right people". The manager of the club, Barney Josephson, introduced Billie Holiday to Meeropol and his new song, which had an immediate impact on her. She decided to sing it at Cafe Society, where it was received with perfect, haunting silence. Soon she was closing her shows with the song. It was understood that only when the waiters had stopped serving, and the lights dimmed to a single spotlight, would she begin singing, with her eyes closed. Once she had finished, she would walk off stage and never return to take a bow.
The song was revolutionary - not only because of the explicit nature of the lyrics, but because it effectively reversed the black singer's relationship with a white audience. Traditionally, singers such as Billie Holiday were expected to entertain and to "serve" their audiences. With this song, however, Holiday found a means by which she could demand that the audience stop and listen to her, and she was able to force them to take on board something with which they were not comfortable. She often used the song as a hammer with which to beat what she perceived to be ignorant audiences, and her insistence on singing the song with such gravitas meant that she was not always safe while performing "Strange Fruit". Some members of her audience did not fully appreciate her treating them to this particular song when they had stepped out for the evening to hear "Fine and Mellow" and other cocktail-lounge ditties.
Holiday was keen to record "Strange Fruit" on her label, Columbia, but her producer, John Hammond, was concerned that the song was too political and he refused to allow her to go into the studio with it. But the singer would not back down. In April 1939, she recorded "Strange Fruit" for a specialty label, Commodore Records."
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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I look out my window watch her as she passes by
I say to myself I'm such a lucky guy
To have a girl like her is a dream come true
And of all the girls in New York she loves me true
It was just my imagination, once again
Running away with me
It was just my imagination
Running away with me
Soon we'll be married and raise a family
Two boys for you, what about two girls for me
I tell you I am just a fellow with a one track mind
Whatever it is I want baby I seek and I shall find
I'll tell ya
It was just my imagination, once again
Running away with me
It was just my imagination
Running away with me
Every night I hope and pray
"Dear lord, hear my plea
Don't ever let another take her love from me
Or I will surely die"
Her love is ecstasy
When her arms enfold me
I hear her tender rhapsody
But in reality, she doesn't even know... me
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jul 10, 2013 - 04:39pm PT
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Old Friend
What he did for me I’ll never forget
What I did for him was simply a debt
His words rang true way back in the day
His guidance and care helped clear my way
That hard-to-tie knot that he taught me so well
Has saved me and others from going to hell
When I stepped on his rope he chewed me real good
Then he taught me to coil it just like I should
On rappel he looked up cuz he barely looked down
Nor on anyone---ranger, misfit or clown
Our friends were so cool and I was sorry to flee
The Camp 4 I knew back in seventy-three
His mellowness hardened and he soon grew so stern
Finished with climbing, it was carpentry’s turn
He lives in the hills not very far away
I’d stay up there gladly if he said OK
But the days we had then are different by far
We can’t have them back by wishing a star
So I’m happy to have the memories I do
For soon there’ll be one where there used to be two
It's better to pay tribute to a live person anyday! We think too much of death. It doesn't think about us at all. Death has few friends, but it's not MY enemy. Fear is my friend, too.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jul 10, 2013 - 09:04pm PT
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http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/2178789/If-My-Vagina-Was-A-Gun
If poems were written subjunctively...
IF A CLOWN
If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.
And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?
What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?
If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?
And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art? I can tell you
it worked. Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extoll?
--Stephen A. Dunn in New Yorker
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jul 14, 2013 - 07:55am PT
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DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.
© Max Ehrmann 1927
Have a fine week, seekers!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jul 22, 2013 - 01:05am PT
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Little rock.
Big rock.
Both Earthbound,
their many parts been underground.
Now is the time
for each to shine.
They only live so long.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Let us sink then, you and I, when evening is spread out against the sky.--Jim Donini
Posted in March, 2010, by OUR LEADER.
Take me to your leader please
I'm kneeling on my kneeling knees
I need to have his blessing for
This little project, it's 5.4
May I place a big-ass bolt
No long fall, no sudden jolt
Just raise your hand, I'll do my best
Once I have been Donini blessed
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 27, 2013 - 03:48am PT
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SIERRA NEVADA FOOTHILLS
Old yip-yipping coyote is saying to me how happy he is to be here
The smelly old tar weed sends me a message telling me I am home
The cobble-rocks rolling under my feet are each surprised by my tread
They will cover my body, perfume my grave, and serenade me later
Much later, I hope
I’ve not done with these up and down cone-shaped wonders
They are unique to themselves in their shapes
While sharing the same angle of repose
I shall repose among them myself when the time comes
Pushing up tumbleweed
Queen Selene will be in the sky half the time
I won’t be able to see her nor delight in her light
But the coyote will let me know she is passing in review
And greeting her cousin cobble-rocks with her silvery kiss
As they cover my worm chamber
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The Lisa
Trad climber
Da Bronx, NY
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Aug 30, 2013 - 10:48am PT
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It is a sad loss for Ireland, and the world of poetry.
I love his translation of Beowulf.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 30, 2013 - 01:08pm PT
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A glass to an old friend
"Everyone wants a piece of Ireland's first Nobel-winning poet since Yeats. When we arrive at our destination, an oyster bar overlooking St Stephen's Green, the ebb and flow of Irish pride in Seamus, as he is universally known, surges up in a succession of spontaneous greetings. Everyone recognises Heaney's professorial spectacles and silvery mop.
A frisson passes through the restaurant. This woman wants to tell him about her daughter, recovering from leukaemia, and to ask for an autograph. Two punters, checking the starting prices on a laptop, volunteer a tip about the 2.30 at Leopardstown. Another old chap wants to be remembered. And the maître d' is beside himself with getting the best table ready.
I wonder how Heaney can stand it.
No need to worry. The object of this attention seems to move in a serene bubble of modesty and unconcern: he likes the attention, and it does not really trouble him. He's had it, in different ways, all his life, and he knows that, for an Irish poet, it comes with the territory.
There are many ways to be a famous writer in Dublin. You can be mad and grand, like Yeats; or mysterious, like Beckett; or drunk, like Flann O'Brien; or absent, like Joyce; or what? A long time ago, Clive James nailed Heaney with "Seamus Famous", but that's a gag, at best half true, spun off Heaney's brilliant self-presentation. There is rather more to the poet than his fame, dazzling though that can be.
For someone who has been so remorselessly scrutinised, Heaney is still something of an enigma. He works hard to make "famous" seem normal. Unfailingly courteous and attentive, he can also be grave, remote and occasionally stern, always watching himself, like the king of a vulnerable monarchy.
In keeping with that vigilance, and a well-defended uncertainty, Heaney is always asking himself the essential questions articulated in Preoccupations, his collected essays. "How should a poet properly live and write? What is his relationship to be to his own voice, his own place, his literary heritage and his contemporary world?"
I've known Seamus Heaney for about half of his writing life. The key to our friendship was always a third party: the mischievous, antic figure of the folk-singer, broadcaster and lord of misrule, David Hammond, from Belfast. Last summer, after a long illness, Hammond died. I was in America at the time, and unable to go to the funeral.
As part of my farewell to "Davey", I knew I had to see Seamus, pay my respects to the dead, and share the recollection of old times. Quite apart from my deep affection for Hammond, I'm conscious that Heaney is keen on the proper obsequies (he loves funerals) and will be only too glad to raise a glass to our old friend."
A glass to Seamus Heaney!
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Seamus Heaney: my travels with the great poet
Seamus Heaney was a great poet and friend, says Andrew O'Hagan, as he relives their travels in Scotland, Ireland and Wales – tucking into chowder and contemplating the afterlife"
"Memory was everything to Seamus. The memory of his father digging in the yard. The memory of peeling potatoes with his mother, or once noticing the glad eye of the coalman. He had a mind to Ireland's memory, the seasonal return of faith and possibility, the falling away and the coming back of things. He cared for this the way other people care about politics. He wanted to offer value to a notion of existence beyond the bounds of sense, and that is where his language led him, to the power of wonder and miracles in daily life. Great is the friend whose one small shove can put you on the upswing. Being with him, I always felt able to give everything its due. His was a steadiness that befriended the person you wanted to be."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/02/seamus-heaney-my-travels-with-poet
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