Two Poems

 

These are two more poems I have blogged before, but I want to keep sharing them..

I found them both in Hand Luggage - a quirky anthology by John Bayley.  And they could not be more different.

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.  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 have been 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)

by Max Beerbohm

Lift latch, step in, be welcome, Sir,
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.

https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/luncheon

As John Bayley says in his intro to the poem, Hardy would probably have appreciated it too.  I hope so anyway.

How creative Jehovah made us to be.  But we are made in his image, and he is "the Grand Creator".  And damaged though we all are at the moment, we can still be very creative.  We need to be I think.  And  I have chosen one of Col's photos of a grand creation, the Swallowtail butterfly, to head this blog.  It was taken on one of his trips to Corfu.

It is lovelier than the most expensive Tiffany jewel, and has finer engineering than our latest computer system.  Doesn't it tell us of its Grand Creator as clearly as if it spoke?

I managed to get to the Kingdom Hall by person, not pixel, on Thursday, thanks to my gallant chauffeur and valet Captain Butterfly.  Two more blood tests on Friday - horrendously bruised arm, not the fault of the nurse, but due to the state of me. It was still very hot, but we drove to the Post Office and I managed to stock up on the little cards that I am using in my witnessing, and Col went and got some more bread and some strawberries from Waitrose. I simply could not make it the few steps to  Waitrose to go with him, which I am trying not to get too depressed about.

When we came back from the shops there was a cool breeze coming off the sea which was so welcome.

Another June approaches rapidly... how grateful I am to be here still.  

We had a special morning at the Kingdom Hall yesterday - I had to attend by Zoom as Col was off with the detectorist lads.  When I have digested a few points I will probably blog them.

Shadow Dreams

My dreams keep taking me back to the house of my 1950s childhood - which appears in a couple of my books as 5 Disraeli Crescent. It worries me a little bit.

The other night I dreamt about Shadow, the lovely golden retriever from our expat days.  So here is a photo of him, in the desert, the only environment he ever knew.  And while the dream started in our flat here, it ended up in the front garden of Disraeli Crescent, in the rain. In the interim two lions turned up in the flat/house of my dream. I wondered where they had come from and what to do about them, but they seemed OK.  Then I remembered I had to let Shadow out. We hadn't had a walk as it was pouring with rain, so I opened the front door and let him into the large front garden at Disraeli Crescent, having first made sure that the front gate was securely locked so he couldn't get into the road.

I do remember wondering if the gate would still be there, so at some level I was aware that 5 Disraeli was in the past.  The gate was there, but I had to make an effort for it to be, I had to sort of dream it into existence.

Then I was looking for Shadow, not finding him, and realising that he was out with the door closed, went and got him. The rain had stopped and he was cuddled up to a large and fluffy cat, the like of which was never seen in the Northern hometown of my 1950s.  That reminded me I needed to feed him. And the lions!  But the lions had vanished and just as it dawned on me they must have gone out while I opened the door for Shadow, I woke up - feeling guilty that I hadn't fed any of them.

Our heatwave continues, It was a Bank Holiday weekend too, which usually guarantees rain.  I had never seen beach and Green so full as it was on Monday - and when I looked out in the morning, nearly every one of the many guest parking spots in our block of flats was already full.  Things are getting scarily crowded.

There was a recent news item showing a tiny village in the beautiful Italian Tyrol which has become so full of coach parties that the locals were having a problem getting out of their front doors which opened straight onto the narrow tourist-packed streets.

So I am wondering why people want to travel anywhere on a Bank Holiday, however sunny.  Yet clearly they do.  The heat, the hassle, the traffic jams, the parking problems, the public loos (aargghh)... the crowded beaches. Though admittedly we do have acres of sand down here.

Col left the Archeological site early on Tuesday, as it was so HOT.  And he was Mr. Desert Dweller (for 25 years)! 

Today was very hot too, but the car situation in our block of flats had eased as the Bank holiday is over.   And we went to spend the morning with our Bible student - the Flower lady - finishing the chapter on Why do Evil and Suffering Exist.  Next week, all being well, we start on How Can Jesus' Death Save Us?   

We were taught at school that Jesus died for us.  But what does that mean - and why?   The Inspired Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation explain it clearly and logically, and I hope that our student is going to see that.

Wulf and Eadwacer

I have blogged this poem before, some years ago. But it speaks so powerfully of the tragedy we, the human family, have been living in since the loss of Eden, that I want to blog it again.

Wulf and Eadwacer

Anonymous

The men of my tribe would treat him as game:
if he comes to the camp they will kill him outright.

            Our fate is forked.

Wulf is on one island, I on another.
Mine is a fastness: the fens girdle it
and it is defended by the fiercest men.
If he comes to the camp they will kill him for sure.

            Our fate is forked.

It was rainy weather, and I wept by the hearth,
thinking of my Wulf's far wanderings;
one of the captains caught me in his arms.
It gladdened me then; but it grieved me too.

Wulf, my Wulf, it was wanting you
that made me sick, your seldom coming,
the hollowness at heart; not the hunger I spoke of.

Do you hear, Eadwacer?  Our whelp Wulf shall take to the wood.
What was never bound is broken easily,
            our song together.   

English - 10th century - translated by Michael Alexander

https://voetica.com/poem/5813

There are many translations of this, but Michael Alexander's is my favourite. It is a cry of pain from the past, its sadness and longing are so immediate, so vivid.  Its meaning is not quite clear beyond that.  Nor do I know how to pronounce Eadwacer.  I suppose scholars of Anglo-Saxon English would know.

The pic that heads the blog is of Strumpshaw Fen, in Norfolk. It is from Col's photo gallery of course.  We had a couple of holidays there in our early retirement, when I could still get about - and WALK!

We were hunting the wild Swallowtail butterfly.  And we were, as we thought, on our own on a boardwalk amidst the marshy Fen, when one landed in front of us!  Immediately hordes of middle-aged Butterfliers appeared from the rushes, with cameras, and it was well and truly photographed. 

And a very sad bit of news.   The identity of the three young women found drowned on one of our local beaches has finally been revealed. They were sisters, Londoners, down here on holiday.  It seems that no-one else was involved, this was an accident, of awful proportions.  My guess would be that they were paddling on the slippery pebbles, all moving in the undertow, close to a drop-off they did not know was there, and one of them slipped into the deep water and the others tried to help...   And it was dark and cold...  Well, God bless them and remember them when the time comes for the resurrection, so that they will next open their eyes in the restored earthly paradise.

My condolences to their family.  What a terrible loss.

But how sad things have been since the loss of Eden, the sadness expressed by the writer of Wulf and Eadwacer  all those centuries ago - and we still have continuing clan warfare, only on a titanic scale, and then these daily tragedies.

And on a much much more minor note, I am feeling really sick as I try to adjust to a new bp medication.  I have to give it 3 weeks at least. I had hoped to get to the Kingdom Hall Thursday night, but had to hitch up my pixels and go on Zoom. Col took one look at me when I got back and said I was not going anywhere.  

We had hoped to visit Jacks on Friday morning, but I am still not up to going anywhere.  The balcony is as far as I have gone all week. And what a privilege to have that, with its constant view of the ever changing English Channel.

And, right on time for the Bank Holiday weekend, a heatwave arrived.  Both beach and Green are going to be very busy.  

Captain Butterfly came back early from his metal detecting.  HE CAME BACK EARLY.  Apparently it was just too hot.  And this is  a man who has spent days in the Saudi desert  - in Summer.  So, yes, this is quite a heatwave we are having. There is not a parking space left locally as myriads have headed for the beach.

I just hope for no more beach tragedies.

Moonpenny Daisies

 

The Moonpenny daisies are lining the roads and filling the fields now, along with all the splendid flowers of May.

There once were some daisies of Moon,

resplendent in their Springtime bloom,
by the roadside in drifts, 

they are paradise gifts,
and they do help to lift all the gloom.

Monday was a day of Zooms (to continue the rhyme scheme).  We both Zoomed with our siblings - well, not with Nute as she was working.  And i also had three Zoom sessions with friends.

I managed a bit of studying and witnessing, but still feel very drained from the last three weeks, which ended with that tiring trek to the hospital on Friday.

We woke up to stormy weather on Tuesday - the rain was much needed I must say. Though, as I begin to write this blog, we are wondering if Col's Tuesday session with the archeologists will go ahead or not. It's a really fierce storm!  Anyway he did trek out into the storm, laden with metal detectors and his sandwich lunch.  Next stop K2!!  (Or maybe not.)

And he had some very interesting finds.  He brought them home in photo form only, and they should be appearing on his blog in time.  Bea rang to get the name of the scented flowers we have on our balcony - Nemesia.  We are having to grow them from seed this year - and they are sprouting up well. They are like a little green forest on the balcony, soon, hopefully to be a forest of scented flowers.

Our Bible Study went well - I think. And we are welcome to come back next week.  I continue with my Not Home letters, and also am slowly doing the block of flats I was given for my territory this month. Every day that goes past, makes the Kingdom preaching work that Jesus left for his followers to do more urgent.

I had such a strange vivid dream in the early hours. Col's alarm clock when off at 4:30 - as it often does on Detecting days - but I managed to fall into a deep sleep almost straightaway - well into a vivid dream anyway.  I had had some kind of fall, just leaving me mildly bruised, but I had been sent to A & E and was now in the operating theatre awaiting an operation to make me more steady on my feet.  All the nurses and technicians were getting themselves dressed up in this vivid stripy garb. I really did not want the operation. But I remember thinking that if the worst came to the worst, and I did not make it through the operation (which I doubt I would), then as long as Jehovah remembers me, I would next open my years in the paradise earth.

That was a very comforting thought, but I was glad to wake up and find myself in my own bedroom, not in an operating theatre.

The Bow in the Cloud

 

There was a double rainbow on Wednesday, arching from sea to land. You can see a glimpse of the double bow in Captain B's photo.  And the Moonpenny daisies are out everywhere now, lining the roads as we drove to Worthing for my latest hospital appointment.  All went OK.  But but but - how many more times am I going to see the splendid flowers of May?

Of course, if I inherit the earth, as Jesus promised, I will never have to leave them behind. But that remains to be seen. It is not in my power to grant.  As things are now, I have very few Springs left - if any more at all.  I have to keep reminding myself that, at my advanced age, I can't expect to feel wonderful, and just to be grateful still to be here.

The first Biblical reference to a rainbow is in the account of the covenant God made with Noah and his offspring after the Flood survivors came out of the ark.  (Genesis 9:8-17)  This splendid sight of itself would have been reassuring and an indication of peace to Noah and his family.

But of course the ransom and the rule of the heavenly government, the Kingdom of God, were still centuries away.  So rather than peace on earth we have - well, watch any episode of the News.

And here is a strange and startling headline from today. Rioting over a watch...  ?

From the online Daily Mail today, under the heading SWATCH STAMPEDES:

Violent scenes erupted across Britain, Europe and the US this weekend after the launch of Swatch's latest limited-edition watch - sparking overnight queues, mass crowd surges and police interventions. Thousands of desperate shoppers camped outside stores for days in the hope of securing one of the £335 'Royal Pop' watches - a collaboration between Swatch and luxury brand Audemars Piguet. But the frenzy quickly descended into chaos, with fights breaking out, police dog units deployed and stores forced to shut their doors after crowds overwhelmed security staff.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15825625/brawls-globe-WATCH-Violent-scenes-Europe-UK-US-Swatch.html

That is so sad - if true - and the photos do look distressing.  But it reminds me of an expression the Bible uses:

Do not love either the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; because everything in the world—the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the showy display of one’s means of life—does not originate with the Father, but originates with the world. - 1 John 2:15.16

The phrase the showy display of one's means of life seems to describe the Designer Label culture very well.

There was a first for our Moth Hotel when we checked the guests out this morning.  We had a pair of honeymooners - two Shuttle-shaped Darts, clearly very much in love.  I hope life goes well for them, and their many children.

A Lunar Double Strike

 

This moth, found in our moth hotel on Sunday morning, is a very rare sighting indeed (for our location)- and for sure it is new to our balcony. Col was thrilled.  It is beautiful and has an amazing name too : the Lunar Double Strike. It could be the title of a best selling SciFi Novel.

We went early to our student on Wednesday morning and had a good session.  She does seem to be so much more receptive now.

Bea called  - and I also emailed her as I was rather distracted while Col was talking to her as I was looking for the paper for the printer which seemed to have disappeared.

Spoke to Bea again Thursday morning, and we sent each other various emails,  and made the usual apple crumble, and the (fairly) usual mushroom curry.  And realised that I would have to Zoom to the meeting this evening and do my part on the dreaded Zoom cameras.

And an idea for a limerick suddenly came to me - re the crumble:

There once were two apples so green

flour, sugar, butter (not margarine)
all crumbled somehow
Colin said "Wow!"
then they disappeared from the scene.

If only I had thought to get out my scary Smartphone and photograph it while it was still in its pristine state!  On the other hand, all that might have done is added to my collection of photos of me looking especially gormless while saying "How does this work?"

There was a tragedy occurring on a local beach on Wednesday morning. The bodies of three women were found floating in the water.  At first it was assumed they must have been swimmers who got into trouble, but as the day went on it seems they may likely have been from a student party that was apparently happening at a beachfront nightclub the previous night.  Very strange either way - and especially tragic in that they are all so young.

There wasn't really a nightclub culture in my student days, for which I am very grateful.  

However, it now seems they were all relatives - sisters? - all down from London and what may have happened is that, not knowing the beach, they went for a paddle, not realising that there was a sudden sharp drop off and powerful currents, including undertow.  I didn't know about the drop off myself.  It could be that one of them got into trouble and the others tried to help.

What a frightening and dangerous world it is for us, the children of Adam, since the loss of Eden, so that even what should be a pleasant paddle in the sea can turn into such a tragedy.

I hope the family of the girls know that they are not lost, but are sleeping safe in "the everlasting arms".

Jehovah will wake them from the dreamless sleep of death when the time comes, but not until the whole earth is restored to paradise, under the loving rule of the Kingdom of God. They will wake in perfect safety then, with nothing to distress them.

Visitors - Human and Moth

   

As I start this blog, we are expecting visitors, old friends from our Uni days - such old friends that we were at each others' weddings, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. So I chose a picture of Dunstanburgh Castle.  It's close to where they used to live.  We had some fun visits there. The beaches are stunning.

Bob and Judy arrived safely on Saturday afternoon.  I checked online and they were last here in August 2015, blogged as The Walnut Tree.  And Jacks joined us for supper!  How things change as you get older.  Jacks can no longer visit us and we will not be able to visit her in her Home this coming Friday either as, once again, my medical appointments interfere - this time a hospital trip.

Sunday was a quiet day. Rob and Judy went for a walk along the beach after breakfast, after witnessing the checking out of our guests from the Moth Hotel. There was an exciting new visitor which will appear in my next blog.  If I live that long... this beastly cold followed by that even more beastly flare-up has left me feeling very down.

Monday they all went off to Portsmouth to visit the Mary Rose and the Other Ship (whose name escapes me).  I had two Zoom sessions in the morning, plus a phone call to the Lady of the Flowers to ask if we could come a bit earlier on Wednesday. She said we could come at 5 o'clock in the morning, as long as we came!  So that was nice.

I also had a medical appointment, by phone, in which I managed to sort out the problem of my bp medication. So I should have yet another pill to add to my pantheon by the end of the week. How grateful I am for the NHS

But how much I look forward to the restored earthly paradise in which "No resident will say 'I am sick'".

Then I tried to rustle up some kind of soup for the returnees to have in the evening, out of the leftover chicken, some lentils, veggies, and spices.  It was edible and hopefully filled a gap.

And they left this morning after a long and leisurely breakfast over many cups of coffee. Col is driving them to Arundel as they are having lunch with a friend there, and then they head home.  It has been a great three days - and it will feel a bit flat without them.

They have taken three copies of my books with them - paying for two, the third being a bonus. I am hoping they will find them to be page-turners, books that make you want to know what happens next.  That is what I always aim for when I am writing.

I hope we will see them again. This is yet another thing you don't realise about old age when you are young - how many people you will lose.

I had another Zoom in the afternoon, rehearsing my part in the School on Thursday.  And I also had to prepare for our Bible study tomorrow morning.