Poetry | Contemplative Inquiry

February 13, 2015

POEM: AVALLENNAU MYRDDIN (MERLIN’S APPLE TREES)

Fair gift to Merlin given

Apple trees seven score and seven;

Equal all in age and size;

On a green hill-slope, that lies

Basking in the southern sun

Where bright waters murmuring run.

Just beneath the pure stream flows;

High above the forest grows;

Not again on earth is found

Such a slope of orchard ground:

Song of birds, and hum of bees,

Ever haunt the apple trees.

Lovely green their leaves in spring;

Lovely bright their blossoming:

Sweet the shelter and the shade

By their summer foliage made:

Sweet the fruit their ripe boughs hold,

Fruit delicious, tinged with gold.

Gloyad, nymph with tresses bright,

Teeth of pearl, and eyes of light,

Guards these gifts of Ceido’s son,

Gwendol, the lamented one,

Him, whose keen-edged, sword no more

Flashes ‘mid the battle’s roar.

War has raged on vale and hill:

That fair grove was peaceful still.

There have chiefs and princes sought

Solitude and tranquil thought:

There have kings, from courts and throngs,

Turned to Merlin’s wild-wood songs.

Now from echoing woods I hear

Hostile axes sounding near:

On the sunny slope reclined,

Feverish grief disturbs my mind,

Lest the wasting edge consume

My fair spot of fruit and bloom.

Lovely trees, that long alone

In the sylvan vale have grown,

Bare, your sacred plot around,

Grows the once wood-waving ground:

Fervent valour guards ye still;

Yet my soul presages ill.

Well I know, when years have flown,

Briars shall grow where ye have grown:

Them in turn shall power uproot;

Then again shall flowers and fruit

Flourish in the sunny breeze,

On my new-born apple trees.

This is my second poem drawn from The Misfortunes of Elphin written by Thomas Love Peacock in 1829 and based (very loosely) based on the last part of the Hanes Taliesin. The Bard Taliesin has to free his patron Prince Elphin from imprisonment by Maelgon, the ruler of North Wales by winning a Bardic contest at the court of the High King, Arthur. Victory entitles him to ask for Arthur’s support. Elphin is indeed liberated, through Arthur’s arrangement of a prisoner exchange. The poem above is presented as the work of Merlin, also a contestant. The audience response is described thus: “this song was heard with much pleasure, especially by those of the audience who could see, in the imagery of the apple trees, a mystical type of the doctrines and fortunes of Druidism, to which Merlin was suspected of being secretly attached, even under the very nose of St. David”. In a future post I will also present Taliesin’s winning entry.

Thomas Love Peacock was a slightly older contemporary of the Romantic poet Shelley and a close friend from 1812 until the latter’s departure for Italy in 1816. Indeed they continued to correspond, in letters that have been preserved, giving us valuable information about Shelley’s life in Italy. Peacock too wrote poetry and within The Misfortunes of Elphin he offers a characteristically Romantic view of Awen as “the rapturous and abstracted state of poetical inspiration”, and also recommends the triad: “the three dignities of poetry: the union of the true and the wonderful; the union of the beautiful and the wise; the union of art and of nature”. Peacock travelled in Wales and lived in Maentwrog in Merionethshire for a time. I have used Peacock’s spellings of proper names throughout.

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February 11, 2015

POEM: GORWYNION GAUAV (THE BRILLIANCES OF WINTER)

Last of flowers, in tufts around

Shines the gorse’s golden bloom:

Milk white lichens clothe the ground

‘Mid the flowerless heath and broom:

Bright are holly-berries, seen

Red, through leaves of glossy green.

Brightly, as on rocks they leap,

Shine on sea-waves, white with spray:

Brightly in the dingles deep,

Gleams the river’s foaming way;

Brightly through the distance show

Mountain summits clothed with snow.

Brightly where the torrents bound,

Shines the frozen colonnade,

Which the black rocks, dripping round,

And the flying spray have made:

Bright the ice drops on the ash

Leaning o’er the cataract’s dash.

Bright the hearth, where feast and song

Crown the warrior’s hour of peace,

While the snow storm drives along,

Bidding the war’s worst tempest cease:

Bright the hearth flame, flashing clear

On the up-hung shield and spear.

Bright the torchlight of the hall

When the wintry night winds blow;

Brightness when its splendours fall

On the mead-cup’s sparkling flow:

While the maiden’s smile of light

Makes the brightness trebly bright.

Close the portals; pile the hearth;

Strike the harp; the feast pursue;

Brim the horns; fire, music, mirth,

Mead and love, are winter’s due.

Spring to purple conflict calls

Swords that shine on winter’s walls.

This poem comes from The Misfortunes of Elphin written by Thomas Love Peacock in 1829. The story is (very loosely) based on the last part of the Hanes Taliesin, in which the Bard Taliesin he has to free his patron Prince Elphin from imprisonment by Maelgon, the ruler of North Wales. Taliesin has to win a Bardic contest at the court of the High King Arthur and thus be able to ask for Arthur’s support. Elphin is indeed liberated, through Arthur’s arrangement of a prisoner exchange. The poem above is presented as the work of Prince Llywarch, one of the contestants. It is well received: “Llywarch’s song was applauded, as representing a series of images with which all present were familiar, and which were all of them agreeable”. It treats winter as, among other things, a period of respite from warfare. In future posts I will also present the entries of Merlin and the winner Taliesin.

Thomas Love Peacock was a slightly older contemporary of the Romantic poet Shelley and a close friend from 1812 until the latter’s departure for Italy in 1816. Indeed they continued to correspond, in letters that have been preserved, giving us valuable information about Shelley’s life in Italy. Peacock too wrote poetry and within The Misfortunes of Elphin he offers a characteristically Romantic view of Awen as “the rapturous and abstracted state of poetical inspiration”, also recommending the triad: “the three dignities of poetry: the union of the true and the wonderful; the union of the beautiful and the wise; the union of art and of nature”. Peacock travelled in Wales and lived in Maentwrog, Merionethshire, for a time. I have used Peacock’s spellings of proper names throughout.

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February 7, 2015

POEM: BRIEF REFLECTION ON MAPS

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who knew a thing about maps,

by which life moves somewhere or other

used to tell this story from the war,

through which history moves somewhere or other.

From a small Hungarian unit in the Alps a young lieutenant

sent out a scouting party into the icy wastes.

At once

it began to snow, it snowed for two days and the party

did not return. The lieutenant was in distress: he had sent

his men to their deaths.

On the third day, however, the scouting party was back.

Where had they been? How had they managed to find their way?

Yes, the men explained, we certainly thought we were

lost and awaited our end. When suddenly one of our lot

found a map in his pocket. We felt reassured.

We made a bivouac, waited for the snow to stop, and then

with the map

found the right direction.

And here we are.

The lieutenant asked to see that remarkable map in order to

study it. It wasn’t a map of the Alps

but the Pyranees.

Goodbye.

From On the Contrary and Other Poems by Miroslav Holub (Newcastle-on-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1984 – translated from Czech by Ewald Osers)

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January 30, 2015

POEM: BRIEF REFLECTION ON CATS GROWING ON TREES

When moles still had their annual general meetings

and when they still had better eyesight it befell

that they expressed a wish to discover what

was above.

So they elected a commission to ascertain what was above. The commission despatched a sharp-sighted fleet-footed

mole. He, having left his native mother earth,

caught sight of a tree with a bird on it.

Thus a story was put forward that up above

birds grew on trees. However,

some moles thought that this was

too simple. So they dispatched another

mole to ascertain if birds did grow on trees.

By then it was evening and on the tree

some cats were mewing. Mewing cats,

the second mole announced, grew on the tree.

Thus an alternative theory emerged about cats.

The two conflicting theories bothered an elderly

neurotic member of the commission. And he

climbed up to see for himself.

By then it was night and all was pitch-black.

Both schools are mistaken, the venerable mole declared.

birds and cats are optical illusions produced

by the refraction of light. In fact, things above

Were the same as below, only the clay was less dense and

the upper roots of the trees were whispering something,

but only a little.

And that was that.

Ever since then moles have remained below ground:

they do not set up commissions

or presuppose the existence of cats.

Or if so only a little.

In On the Contrary and Other Poems by Miroslav Holub (Newcastle-on-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1984 – translated from Czech by Ewald Osers)

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January 22, 2015

POEM: DEMETER

Where I lived – winter and hard earth.

I sat in my cold stone room

choosing tough words, granite, flint,

to break the ice. My broken heart –

I tried that, but it skimmed,

flat, over the frozen lake.

She came from a long, long way,

but I saw her at last, walking,

my daughter, my girl, across the fields,

in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers

to her mother’s house. I swear

the air softened and warmed as she moved,

the blue sky smiling, none too soon,

with the small shy mouth of a new moon.

In The world’s wife: poems by Carol Ann Duffy (London: Picador, 1999)

January 15, 2015

GROUNDED WISDOM FROM KABIR

I read the songs of Kabir, partly for their power and beauty, partly for their touching humanity and partly to learn something as a contemplative practitioner. The songs themselves, according to John Stratton Hawley, have survived in late manuscripts from different parts of India, modified over time by the region, religion and caste position of their listeners. When it comes to translation, Hawley notes that Robert Bly presents a Kabir who stands for self-reliance (like Emerson), principled disobedience (like Thoreau) “and a set of practices that honors the meeting of mind and body and celebrates the intense emotions that connect them (like Bly himself?)”

So I feel I’m in good company when putting two songs together in a way that makes the second answer the first, in the pursuit of my own inquiry. It’s about this: how do I avoid the trap of working on my small personal narcissism only to embed a larger spiritual narcissism?

Here is the first, scene-setting song.

Friend, please tell me what I can do about this world

I hold to, and keep spinning out!

I gave up sewn clothes, and wore a robe,

But I noticed one day the cloth was well woven.

So I bought some burlap, but I still

Throw it elegantly over my left shoulder.

I pulled back my sexual longings,

And now discover that I’m angry a lot.

I gave up rage, and now I notice

That I am greedy all day.

I worked hard at dissolving the greed

And now I am proud of myself.

When the mind wants to break its link to the world

It still holds on to one thing.

Kabir says: Listen my friend,

There are very few that find the path.

Here, in the second poem, I find a way through – by not going anywhere. I read the “wanting-creature” below to be bound up in ‘Spiritual’ wanting, rather than the average sensual kind.

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:

What is this river you want to cross?

There are no travellers on the river-road, and no road.

Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or resting?

There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.

There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.

There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!

And there is no body, and no mind!

Do you believe that there is some place that will make the soul less thirsty?

In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;

There you have a solid place for your feet.

Think about it carefully!

Don’t go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,

And stand firm in that which you are.

Kabir Ecstatic poems Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1992 (The English translations are free enough for Robert Bly to call them ‘versions by Robert Bly’. There is an earlier set of translations published by MacMillan in New York in 1915 by Rabindranath Tagore assisted by Evelyn Underhill under the title Songs of Kabir. Whilst I don’t follow Bly in calling the English of the earlier work “useless”, I do find that Bly’s interpretation has more passion and power. The Bly work includes an insightful afterword Kabir and the transcendental Bly by John Stratton Hawley).

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January 9, 2015

POEM: STOLEN SECONDS

Romany Rivers is my sixth and final poet from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield. This poem concerns the struggle of a mother to find space for her own personhood. She is “a British born Witch, Reiki Master and Artist living in Canada, exploring a life of personal passion, spirituality and creativity … When not writing, creating or running around after two energetic children, Romany turns her hand to individual healing sessions and community projects that provide family support”. The collection as a whole also includes work by Beverley Price, Martin Pallot, Tiffany Chaney, Lorna Smithers, and Robin Herne.

Stolen Seconds

Sometimes I steal into the garden

And stand by the washing line

Laundry forgotten in my hands as my eyes search the skies

Looking for something

Seeing everything

Noticing nothing

I breathe deeply

And release one long shuddering sigh

A breath held without conscious thought

Waiting for just a few minutes peace to fly free from the constricted chest

I look down

At my trembling hands

Clutching my clothes

Representations of the miniature people

Who take up enormous space within my daily life

Leaving little room for me as I shrink and shrivel to give them more room

I let go

Of the laundry

Of the breath

Of the stress

Of the tiredness

Of the constant needing, feeding, reading, singing, sighing, playing and praying for peace

I let go

And close my eyes

Wondering if tears will kiss my cheeks in gratitude

For the silent still moments

Stolen swiftly

Beside the washing line.

January 5, 2015

POEM: WINTER IS …

Beverley Price is my fifth poet from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield, and she continues a northern winter theme. Beverley “is a weaver of dark prose and poetry, dreamer of Gothic imagery, cat lover and nature worshipper. Her work deals with the bitter fact that love is not always chocolate boxes and roses mixed in with the imagery of her pagan roots and love of mythology”. The collection as a whole also includes work by Martin Pallot, Tiffany Chaney, Lorna Smithers, Robin Herne and Romany Rivers.

Winter Is …

Winter, the trees stand bare.

Snow covers the ground.

A secret message, just for me to share.

It died on the breeze, not making a sound.

Blunted by the whitewash.

Reinforcing my desire.

Whisper leaves, the story told.

The urge to feel and enquire.

The winter wolves are coming.

I would love to be there.

And round about, the waste of time.

This winter is usual and rare.

Now, winter time is full of light.

Winter had become my lover.

Hot with your love, and summer to discover.

December 26, 2014

UNCONQUERED SUN

Yesterday’s post from the Antinous for Everybody blog,

Antinous for Everybody

The obscure, mysterious Mother

bears the radiant, obvious Son.

He is glorious in His self-giving,

triumphant sacrifice, but She

is the necessary ground

of His being and of ours.

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December 24, 2014

POEM: CIRCLE OF THE SOUL

A third poet from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield. Tiffany Chaney is a poet and artist residing in North Carolina. Her poetry collection Between Blue and Grey won the 2013 Mother Vine Festival Award for Best in poetry. Tiffany can be found on http://www.tiffanychaney.com/

The collection as a whole also includes work by Lorna Smithers, Robin Herne, Romany Rivers, Martin Pallot and Beverley Price.

Circle of the Soul

Wake,

wake the witness,

silent Sulis

of the pond.

Pretend the nameless

are named.

Pretend the formless

are framed.

Wake,

wake the witness.

Wait,

until it is your turn

of the wheel.

Satiate

the self with

the making of souls,

until having played

pretend you can fall

asleep again.

Wake, and witness,

so we may recall.

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Tag: Poetry