two poems

[bronze_ribbons]

It being Twelfth Night for a few hours more, I thought I'd repost a poem I originally typed into my first online journal back in December 2002. This was for Alchera Project number 12, option 2 ( the challenge was to create a twelve-stanza poem around the idea of the Twelve Days of Christmas).

My love, she dreamt she was brought to me,
The choicest of the farmer's covey,
Garnished with pears from his finest tree.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she swam to a cove
Where turtles frolicked and white birds throve
And calm was the sea and the sky above.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she went on parade,
Plumage unfurled in the grand promenade
--And then she was plucked, and roasted, and glazed.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she heard me calling.
She raced to the headland, and then she was falling,
All the while sighing, "Darling, my darling."

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she was placed in chains:
A strand to each limb. Then gilded and framed.
Asked of the artist, she yielded no name.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she walked out to the mill.
The geese were waddling beneath the sill
On which the miller had set pots of dill.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she had drowned in the river.
Her body retrieved by a knight, his silver
Gauntlet under her neck. With a shiver,

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she bathed in milk,
And like all the legends, her skin became silk.
But silk can be rent just as milk can be spilled --

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she wore a tiara,
Gliding across a school cafeteria
Decked out in streamers and paper wisteria.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she brought the lairds to war
By running away to Paris to score.
As lemmings they leapt. The lairds are no more.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, she dreamt she heard the reeds keening.
Heaven agreed the church needed cleaning
--But not for the bleach to obliterate meaning.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

My love, awake! the morning is humming.
Hear the stones chant and the tree branches drumming.
Awake, my love, the strangers are coming.

Sing we of ivy and holly.

- pld, 19 December 2002

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Also, although it's mentally filed in my head as fandom-related poetry (because of the conversation that triggered it), it occurs to me that the sonnet I wrote to/for catrinella last month about our efforts as writers might well resonate with some of all y'all: "Between the Hints".

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At shabbat service tonight, the readings and prayers circled more so around Israel and Jerusalem than usual -- not a surprise, what with both the crisis in Prime Minister Sharon's health (and, by extension, anxiety over what will happen next in the Middle East) and the ongoing World Zionist Congress elections (the synagogue backs MERCAZ USA platform and slate). But the emphasis was not unduly pointed, and the rabbi's homily was both short and graceful -- a meditation, almost, on the story of Joseph and the ups and downs of his life, and how, as summarized in Chaim Stern's Day by Day, "we do not know how our life's journey will turn out" -- Joseph didn't know, Sharon has surprised many, and as the rabbi put it, we each of us have our own unpredictable journeys to make.

I'm looking at my own copy of Day by Day, and in the same chapter (11 - week of Vayigash), there's a quote from Emerson that's uncomfortably relevant to some self-sorting-out that was occupying my head this morning -- specifically, my lifelong tendency to accumulate books and stock up on supplies and make countless lists for side-projects I don't get around to starting (let alone finishing, let alone doing well). I'm grasping oh-so-slowly-and-painfully how to declutter and to focus, but Lord is it hard:

It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully. We seek other conditions because we do not understand the use of our own, and go outside of ourselves because we do not know what it is like inside. Yet there is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk on our own legs. And on the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting on our own rump.

And, a few lines down, there's a quote from Paul Tillich that addresses the heart of what I'm really afraid of -- what's at the root of the insane dread that I might not have a specific book at hand when I need it, or the right ink for a rush job, or mislay the one article or song or letter that would have amped the current project into a whole 'nother level -- even though I know it's stupid, because when there's too much clutter and chaos, things don't get found or finished, nor do they bloom half as prettily as they do when they have enough space to unfurl properly.

Anyway, here's what Tillich has to say:

Faith in divine Providence is the faith that nothing can prevent us from fulfilling the ultimate meaning of our existence. Providence does not mean a divine planning by which everything is predetermined, as in an efficient machine. Rather, Providence means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation, which cannot be destroyed by any event.

(And of course my skeptic's mind is already arguing back, "every? any? hardly!" -- but as one of several wards against despair and paralysis? 'twill serve, at least for now.)