In Praise of Silliness

     A few nights ago, after a trying day, my husband said, "Let's watch something light," so we picked a Jeeves and Wooster DVD.  We'd seen it many times before, but that didn't matter.  There's something about watching deliciously silly characters who have an aura of genuineness that brings you a sense of being among friends and relaxes you.  Listening to the familiar dialogue is like hearing golden oldie tunes that sing in your spirit.  Tension vanishes and all seems right with the world.  And the feeling persists -- if nothing new comes along to shatter it -- for hours afterward.
     To make my own contribution to the silliness in the world, I thought I would include here two poems from my Kindle collection, Spoons on the Moon.  Since publishers and the reading public seem to want categories, I've categorized the poetry as suitable for children 6 to 8, but in reality they're for children of any age.  The first one owes a debt to Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), whose magnificent mystery, The Nine Tailors, taught me an immense amount about the English practice of ringing church bells.  That was incidental to a completely absorbing story that I wish were better known.  I have read portions of it every years since I first read it over 40 years ago.  Here's the first poem:

A Family Funeral

One day Mr. Rat
lay down in the road
and said, "That's that,"
to a passing toad.

"I've nothing gained,
I'm nothing owed,
I'm free to shed
this mortal load."

His sons-in-law
like pious rats
all crossed themselves
and doffed their hats.

"Dear Father, we
have loved you well.
Now let us ring
the passing bell."

It took eight rats,
it's safe to wager,
to play him out,
Kent Treble Bob Major.

Then at a squeak
from Parson Teasel,
his family sang,
"Pop goes the weasel."


And here's another nonsense rhyme, showing cats at their most solemnly silly:

The Abbey of Cats

Every fine Sunday
on Strawberry Tor,
the abbot of cats
orders, "Open the door."

The brothers will put on
their black velvet hats
and then there's a stately
procession of cats,

Who bury their faces
in little green tins
to lick up some catnip
before singing hymns.

They dance two by two
through the abbey's old walls
and over the meadows
until their lord calls,

"It's Sunday at noon!"

And then at their shout
they toss up their hats
and run shouting about.

    (The end, for now....)      
   
   
       

Literary Gifts

     Thinking of all the literary sources that underlie the poems in my collection, The Green Road to the Stars (that I made available on Kindle exactly one year ago), I realize that I'm a lot like a magpie, a bird that flies around picking up small glittering objects.  There's something in my spirit always alert for scenes or situations -- in fiction or nonfiction -- that I can pick up and drop into my own nest.
     Springtime in Britain, by the famous American naturalist, Edwin Way Teale, was a magpie's delight, a treasury of sensitive observations, literary reminiscences, and vivid descriptions of the landscape of England and Scotland.  Little details noticed by his eye and ear are everywhere in my rhymes, and several poems -- "Jackdaws Nesting in a Cathedral," for example -- derive almost completely from one of his visits to ancient historical and religious sites in Britain.
     Another open treasure chest is the autobiography of the English novelist, Elizabeth Goudge, whose scenic depictions in The Joy of the Snow are so fresh and densely foliated that they are like Constable's paintings.  I am indebted to her as well as Teale for my poem, "Swans in the Moat at Wells," because she lived in that city as a child around 1900, and her chapters set there are a hymn to the bishop's palace and the bishop's moat with its aristocratic, bell-ringing swans. 
     She also gave me the rhyme "In Devon," which is based on her eerie experience of hearing -- alone -- the dawn song of a glorious disembodied voice, early one morning during World War II. 

Now, just for your reading pleasure, you who are reading this blog, here is my rhyme.

In Devon

Once in a lane
by a stream's narrow bed,
a glorious voice
sounded over my head. 
It wasn't a lark's,
singing everyday joys.
It wasn't a girl's,
and it wasn't a boy's.

It swelled from the grass
to the soft Devon sky.
It was clearer and stronger
and greater than I.
But nothing and no one
was over my head.

"Singing just happens
in Devon," they said.   


And since I have some time, I'll also include "Swans in the Moat at Wells."

Swans in the Moat at Wells

Here's Bishop Swan of Bath and Wells
and Mrs. Swan, as though two spells
had hovered over streams and ponds
to turn a couple into swans --
A man and wife of noble race
with liquid eyes and long-necked grace.

They ring a bell to let us know
they want their tea before they go,
a tea that's made of bread and bread,
delivered at once slice per head.

"But don't they ever wish for jam?
a hard-boiled egg?  A bit of ham?"

They glance at me with some disdain.
Aristocrats do not explain
to silly commoners like me
why they must have their wish for tea.

Without a napkin, spoon or cup,
they wet their bread and snap it up,
thus making it quite plain to see
that bread-and-dripping's best for tea.

They paddle off to swim back when
it feels like half-past four again.

   (Note: The bishop in that part of the world is referred to as the Bishop of Bath and Wells, although in my poem the bishop has webbed feet.)

Tea in the Sky?

     We've had a great deal of rain this week in the Orlando area, and that condition always makes me feel very English and encourages my (English and Irish) addiction to cups of tea.  For the enjoyment of other people who also love a cuppa, here's a poem that I wrote after visiting Salisbury cathedral with my husband, who held an umbrella over my head while I looked at the cathedral from the garden of the Rose and Crown (where we'd had tea, of course).  The title is a pun, since the expression "high tea" is what we Americans call "supper," but in the poem it refers to having tea in the sky -- on the capstone of the spire.  (For those who haven't visited English cathedral cities: the area immediately around the cathedral is usually called a "close.")

High Tea

I had my tea
in Salisbury Close
beside a stream,
behind the Rose

Among four ducks,
some passing bees,
a silver rain
and tender breeze.

But next time I
would like to try
and have my tea
beside the sky.

I'll climb the stout
cathedral wall
where rooks will help me
not to fall.

They'll lead me up
from king to saint
and keep my mind
from feeling faint.

Atop the roof
I'll pause a bit,
then ask the swifts
to finish it --

To lead me higher,
        higher,
             higher,
                up the tower
                     to the spire.

Beneath a cloud
I'll rest my feet
at Capstone Inn
on Steeple Street.

The swallow hosts
will fill my cup
and talk to me
of Down and Up.
                   

The Medicinal Value of Natural Beauty

     While my husband and I were watching Midsomer Murders last night, we agreed that the scripts aren't always as fine as they should be, although the acting and camera-work are reliably excellent, but what really attaches us to the series is the beauty of the English countryside.  The gardens and hedges, the vines climbing up the front of cottages and mansions, the rich array of foliage and flowers are magnificent. 
     Back in the late '80s and early '90s, when I was writing the poems in The Green Road to the Stars, that I published on Kindle last year, I made several trips to England, and I wanted to capture some of that beauty in my poetry.  And not only the beauty, but its effect on the our spirits.  Here is a poem that I wrote in a small town in East Anglia, not far from Cambridge, where my husband was supervising a group of students from the University of Central Florida. 

The Best Cure

I found a little teashop
that was quiet as a mouse
by walking down a narrow lane
where every little house
was dozing comfortably inside
without a breath of life
as though the urge to nap a while
had seized each man and wife.

The shop had big bay windows
with one tiny lettered sign
that whispered "Teas" to passersby
who had tea on their minds.
My mind was one of those, although
it had a Worry too,
all knotted up and thrashing round
till it was black and blue.

I took my Worry and myself
inside the green front door.
A bell chimed most hospitably
as though we'd met before.
The room had little tables
that were round as any plate
and pots of Busy Lizzie
to fill up the empty grate.

The door into the garden
had been propped back with a brick,
so summer sun could make the air
as warm and gold and thick
as honey or a marmalade.
A waitress dressed in blue
served scones and clotted cream and jam
and tea that was Typhoo.

As I sipped and savored these,
the garden called to me.
My eyes traced out the lazy path
of one fat bumblebee.
Suspended in the golden light
were flowers Nature grew --
roses rambling as they pleased
and hollyhocks askew.

Two tabby cats had stretched themselves
beside a basset hound,
all dozing, dreaming peacefully,
without the slightest sound.
Like me, a chalk-blue butterfly
was savoring her tea,
at rest on a buddleia bush
as still as it could be.

The little shop could well have put
the garden on the bill,
for tea and nature work a cure
as fast as any pill.
My Worry came unknotted
and was almost half-asleep.
When I strolled out, it followed me
as docile as a sheep.
 
(It's a pleasure to share some of my children's poems in this blog.  There will be more later on in the week.)
     

D-Day

       On this 70th anniversary of D-Day, I'd like to give my own salute to the men involved.  In his biography of Eisenhower, Geoffrey Perret gives a full picture of the run-up to D-Day, describing an aspect that most of us are completely unaware of.  Despite the enormity of the preparations, there was one essential element that had to go right, and nobody, including Ike, could influence it in the slightest.  That element was the weather!
     The invasion was planned for June 5.  But on the evening of June 2, a tense group of VIPs, including Churchill, were gathered together in the library of a mansion near Portsmouth on the English coast to hear the chief meteorologist, Group Captain John Stagg of the RAF, tell them that the forecast was "finely balanced" but "untrustworthy."  (After the meeting, Ike said some very uncomplimentary but well-deserved remarks about the British climate.)
     The next day, June 3, the skies were clear but the forecast was bad.  Stagg announced that the weather on the 5th would be "unflyable."  That was damning, because Ike would not launch the invasion without air cover.  The ground forces could not carry it alone.  Montgomery wanted to go ahead anyway, but Ike refused.
     On the evening of June 4, the wind was terrible, and the rain was hitting the windows horizontally.  But Captain Stagg looked more cheerful.  He told Ike he had a gleam of hope for him.  The rain would stop and the wind die down to a breeze on the afternoon of June 5, and there would even be a break in the cloud cover.  That situation would last for 36 hours.
     This was the moment of decision, and Ike made it.  If they did not launch on June 6, they would have to wait until June 19 because of the tides, and by then there would be no moon.  Besides, the Germans so far seemed unaware of the plans, but that ignorance might not last.  So Ike told everybody, "D-Day is June 6."
      Late on June 5, the commander of the German forces around Normandy sent a message to his forces, "There is no immediate prospect of an invasion."  And hours later, 18,000 American and British paratroopers fell out of the sky.       
      We owe an enormous debt to all of those involved, particularly the soldiers whose names never got into the history books.  Today is a good day to hold their memory in reverence.  And it's also a good day to remember the man who led "the whole shebang" (his own words), for his enormous intelligence, powers of decision-making, and authoritative personality that made his successful leadership possible.
     And we can remember his mother, Ida, too.  She raised her six boys -- Ike was the third -- by deploying good sense, a sense of discipline, and a sense of humor.  With seven brothers, she'd had plenty of practice!
     Blessings on them all!