Poetry for wild Brigid, remembering

 

Another favourite poet who writes on rivers, wild flowers, weeds. And everyting else that matters. Alice Oswald:

Story of a Man

last time a man was sealed in skin
like an inspoken word sealed in
it was mid-spring, most people arm in arm, most trees whispering
and he could just make out the fluttering light

it was warm, it was days you walk out without a coat
and little rain showers dash across the carpark
and he stood there, like a man on film, going on with his heartwork
at last at last he could think clearly

this is myself, he said,
rubbing round all four sides of my breeze-block patience
this is one or two flying strands of my eyes
this is my heart’s halo’s prismatic subdivisions

there were people bringing chairs to the fire-escapes, peering down.
it was mid-spring
and all day, all he could breathe
was the crow’sfoot tracks of his sighs’ small hollows in the air.

then in the half light, it half thawed,
he half, with a mist-hand, waved
alive in his skin-ruins.
at last at last he could think clearly

Poetry at the full moon in Leo

I see this full moon referred to as a ‘wolf’ moon and I suppose it could be called a jackal or hyena moon out here on the veld, stark white and  dazzling. Enormous as anivory disc hanging overhead, unshadowed and  gleaming.

Time for the Fifth Annual Brigid Poetry Festival, for those celebrating Imbolc in the northern hemisphere as well as those of us  out here in the heatlands where the wheel finally cools and  turns to autumn and mellow fruitfulness. And these days I’m reading the ‘new nature poets’ on water, the sluice gates opening, the fear of drought abated, the physicality and symbolic force of  water: Don Paterson’s Rain, Philip Gross on the River Severn in The Water Table and the Scottish naturalist and  poet Kathleen Jamie:

The Dipper

by Kathleen Jamie

It was winter, near freezing,   

I’d walked through a forest of firs   

when I saw issue out of the waterfall   

a solitary bird.   

It lit on a damp rock,   

and, as water swept stupidly on,   

wrung from its own throat   

supple, undammable song.   

It isn’t mine to give.   

I can’t coax this bird to my hand   

that knows the depth of the river   

yet sings of it on land.

What do women want?

Sheryl WuDunn talking to Guernica on the global emancipation of women and the  key role of education:

Bangladesh educated everybody. They realized education was important, and they cared about health care. Everyone had to have access to health care. Their maternal mortality rate is much lower than similar cultures. Pakistan’s statistics are terrible; Bangladesh is, of course, smaller but a very similar culture. So for everyone that says you can’t change culture, well look, this is a perfect example. [In the] nineteen seventies [Pakistan and Bangladesh] were the same culture. I mean there was a slight difference because Bangladesh has an intellectual tradition and a few other differences. But they were basically the same country. [Bangladesh] decided to educate girls and give access to health care, and it’s night and day. The way they have developed, it’s night and day. There are more girls in high school in Bangladesh than boys. They have one of the most prominent women’s universities that other women in Southeast Asia go to. I mean, it’s just funny; their health statistics on women are much better than in Pakistan, and you’ve got two of the largest micro-lending institutions, Grameen Bank and BRAC, the Nobel Prize winner coming from Bangladesh.

The impeded stream that sings

Bracing myself for loss, living through aftershock. But staying present to the moment, the  spaciousness within. From Wendell Berry:

“There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

The axe falling through a life

Had some bad news: my landlord (formerly co-owner) has decided to subdivide the property where I live and build some extra garages. It means that my garden will be destroyed — trees for the birds chopped down, wildlife driven out, my herb garden  bulldozed, etc. Anyhow, I have no choice but to live with it. I can’t afford to move right now and protests are falling on deaf ears.

We don’t have the same tenant’s rights or protections you have overseas. My landlord can find someone else to rent  tomorrow and I  will battle to find anywhere here to live with decent security. He is able to evict me on one month’s notice or raise the rent as much as he likes.

I entered into an informal arrangement with him to buy this house some years back — because I wasn’t a South African citizen, I couldn’t get a bank loan. He reneged on our verbal agreement. There is nothing to be done  — it has to be accepted.

I am just taking it day by day. The surveyor came around and measured up the back area.   I expect a great deal of heartache in the months to come. A learning curve. My housemate is very upset and feels helpless — she has to deal with a knee replacemnt op in March and  I want us to stay here until she is better. Then we might see if there is anywhere we can find — no, there won’t be a garden, but somewhere safe with a fenced area for the dogs.

It is strange but something I have noticed before — my heart literally hurts in my chest as I go around watering plants and  do household chores. And as I move around, I do know in my  core that I created a rewilding haven for a few years, was able to spare a few creatures and plant trees, create thickets for birds to nest, a sanctuary, a fruitful wilderness. That may be all any of us are able to do in this brief life, in this brutal nature-hating culture.

Survival guide

From the poet Amy Gerstler:

ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR

Chew your way into a new world.
Munch leaves. Molt. Rest. Molt
again. Self-reinvention is everything.
Spin many nests. Cultivate stinging
bristles. Don’t get sentimental
about your discarded skins. Grow
quickly. Develop a yen for nettles.
Alternate crumpling and climbing. Rely
on your antennae. Sequester poisons
in your body for use at a later date.
When threatened, emit foul odors
in self-defense. Behave cryptically
to confuse predators: change colors, spit,
or feign death. If all else fails, taste terrible

Temple of the cat goddess

My lovely, wilful and imperious little grey cat died four years ago. I still reverence him in memory and miss him more than I can say.

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 2 000-year-old temple in Alexandria dedicated to a cat goddess. The find confirms that the Greek dynasty of Egyptians continued the worship of ancient animal deities. (Well, if anyone needs confirmation.)

The temple, discovered in the Kom el-Dekkah neighbourhood of the city, is believed to belong to Queen Berenike II, wife of Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the third century BE, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities has said. [And yes, we'd like to know who she was other than a king's wife -- perhaps a high priestess in her own right? A seer? Or just a cat lover?] The Greek-speaking Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt for almost almost 300 years after the foundation of the city by Alexander the Great  until Queen Cleopatra was ousted by the Romans.

Archaeologists found statues of Bastet, worshipped by the Greek-speaking Egyptians as the moon goddess. For thousands of years the Egyptian Pharaohs believed Bastet was a lion-headed goddess, a relative of the sun-god Ra and a ferocious protector.

But her influence waned as the Pharaohs declined, and the Hellenistic Egyptians resurrected her as the equivalent of the ancient Greek deity Artemis. [Well that is what the news report says, but maybe she just transformed herself, took on a new aspect -- or maybe she was driven underground. Or maybe we are just speculating from ignorance and there are  living temples to Bastet all along the reedy mudbanks of the Nile.]

Viva Bastet, the  lion-headed cat and protector.

The undying rage of Andrea Dworkin

 

Reviled, hated, mocked, despised, disregarded, but her books are still read, her  ideas are still incendiary. And the rape culture  she named and  fought against is still with us.

Andrea Dworkin, 1991:

You know that most women are hurt in their homes. You know most women are murdered in their homes. A political movement, as I understand it, exists to change the way social reality is organized. And that means that we need to understand everything about the way this system works. And that means that every woman who has had experience with sexual violence of any kind has not just pain, and not just hurt, but has knowledge.

Knowledge of male supremacy. Knowledge of what it is. Knowledge of what it feels like. And can begin to think strategically about how to stop it. We are living under a reign of terror. Now what I want to say is that I want us to stop accepting that that’s normal. And the only way that we can stop accepting that that’s normal is if we refuse to have amnesia every day of our lives.

If we remember what we know about the world we live in. And we get up in the morning, determined that we are going to do something about it.

Lorca’s humming bird of love

 

Translated here by Gilbert Purdy:

Gacela of Unforseen Love

No one understood the perfume
of the dark magnolia of your belly.
No one knew you martyred
a hummingbird of love between those teeth.

A thousand Persian carousels slept
in the moon plaza of your forehead,
while four nights I lashed myself
to your waist, enemy of snow.

Among the plaster and jasmine, you saw
I was a pallid branch of seeds.
I sought through my breast
to give you letters of ivory saying always,

always, always: garden of my last breath,
your body escaped forever,
the blood of your veins in my mouth,
your mouth already without light for my death.

Gacela del Amor Imprevisto

Nadie comprendía el purfume
de la oscura magnolia de tu vientre.
Nadie sabía que martirizabas
un colibrí de amor entre los dientes.

Mil caballitos persas se dormían
en la plaza con luna de tu frente,
mientras que yo enlazaba cuatro noches
tu cintura, enemiga de la nieve.

Entre yeso y jazmines, tu mirada
era un pálido ramo de simientes.
Yo busqué, para darte, por mi pecho
las letras de marfil que dicen siempre,

siempre, siempre: jardin de mi agonia,
tu cuerpo fugitivo para siempre,
la sangre de tus venas en mi boca,
tu boca ya sin luz para mi muerte.

She may not love you now

Sappho calling Aphrodite:

Shimmering,
            iridescent,
                        deathless Aphrodite,

child of Zeus, weaver of wiles,
                                                    I beg you,
do not crush my spirit with anguish, Lady,
but come to me now, if ever before
you heard my voice in the distance
and leaving your father’s golden house
drove your chariot pulled by  sparrows
swift and beautiful
over the black earth, their wings a blur
as they streaked down from heaven
                                       across the bright sky—

and then you were with me, a smile
playing about your immortal lips
as you asked,
                        what is it this time?  
                              why  are you calling again?
And asked what my  heart in its lovesick raving
most wanted to happen:
                                         ‘Whom now
should I persuade to love you?                      
Who is wronging you, Sappho?
She may run now,  but she’ll be chasing soon.
She may spurn your gifts, but soon she’ll be giving.
She may not love you now, but soon she will,
                                                      willing or not.’

Come to me again now, release me
from my agony, fulfill all
that my heart desires, and fight for me,
                                                      fight at my side, Goddess.