I have been re-reading Hand Luggage - a quirky interesting anthology by John Bayley. And I thought I would put a couple of the poems he has included in this blog. The first sad and serious, the second clever and funny.
The first is A War by Randall Jarrell. Its context is World War 2, and it is tragically topical. The way he inverts the expression: "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" gives the familiar saying startling effect. As John Bayley points out in his introduction to the poem, it is a brief glimpse of what aircrews went through in WW2. The poet knew only too well what he was talking about as he was in the US Airforce at the time.
A WAR
by Randall Jarrell
There set out slowly, for a Different World.
At four, on winter mornings, different legs...
You can't break eggs without making an omelette
- That's what they tell the eggs.
The "different legs" suggests to me how many young men were sacrificed to the gods of war - relays of them. As they are being sacrificed to this day, and will be I guess until God's Kingdom is ruling over the earth.
The other poem I wanted to share is a gentle parody of Thomas Hardy (whose poems I love):
A Luncheon (Thomas Hardy entertains the Prince of Wales)
Albeit to see you I'm unglad
And your face is fraught with a deathly shyness
Bleaching what pink it may have had,
Come in, come in, Your Royal Highness.
Beautiful weather? — Sir, that's true,
Though the farmers are casting rueful looks
At tilth's and pasture's dearth of spryness. —
Yes, Sir, I've written several books. —
A little more chicken, Your Royal Highness?
Lift latch, step out, your car is there,
To bear you hence from this antient vale.
We are both of us aged by our strange brief nighness,
But each of us lives to tell the tale.
Farewell, farewell, Your Royal Highness.
As John Bayley says in his intro to the poem, Hardy would probably have appreciated it too.
Will I be able to meet and get to know the poets during the Thousand Years? I hope so. I know, from his poems, how much Hardy loved the beauty of the creation. But from the same poems, I know he could never reconcile that beauty with all the cruelty and injustice.
He will have so much to learn when he wakes from his dreamless sleep - all of it wonderful. We will all have wonderful things to learn then, if we are there.
It was a quiet weekend after the excitement of the C.O.Visit, the Memorial, and the sudden collapse of a friend. Col metal detected - and has a couple of nice finds which will appear on his blog. I attended both the Zoom meetings, and got some new territory. But I didn't do much at all in the way of witnessing, and hope to pick up speed again today. I feel very very tired and am having quite a lot of lowish level arthritis pain.
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