Friday, October 30, 2009

Happy Birthday to my Nephew Chris

Pictured here maybe fifty-five years ago with my older brother Tom.
Today (and maybe a little bit extra into tomorrow) Chris gets to be my favorite nephew.  I'm celebrating his birthday by going to Connecticut to see The Celtic Women.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Sylvia Plath - Part V - Birthday Observance

Today is the birthday of the poet whose poems and whose life story have been primary obsessions of my own life. I could never pick a favorite poem, nor could I pick a favorite line, but her description of the moon: "It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet with the O-gape of complete despair." is one of several lines that cross my mind every day. In the photo I, on a Plath pilgrimage to her Devon home, which was adjacent to a church and its tomb-stoned contiguity, stand before a yew tree which might be one she viewed from the window of her writing room, the one which she may well have been gazing upon as she composed "The Moon and the Yew Tree".





The Moon and the Yew Tree

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky——
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up. It has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness——
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars.
Inside the church, the saints will be all blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness—blackness and silence.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Another Favorite Postcard (#4 in series)

I once received a postcard from Loretta Lynn.  She was to appear at the Champlain Valley Fair in Essex Junction, Vermont, in August of 1987, and I mailed her a gift certificate from our restaurant for her and her band.  I love Loretta!  As it turned out her bus was hours late getting to town.  Some three months later she sent me this sweet card!  (Click on it to make it easier to read.)


I had been feeling lonesome this evening -- stuck out here in the sticks of the sticks, in the woods, up a long dark lane, alone except for the dog and two cats, but then I ran across this card and it made me feel good to think I had not been forgotten by Loretta "no matter how much time goes by."

Then the dog started her "danger lurks" barking.  I went to the door to check.  Coming onto the porch was a summer resident from further up the lane.  She gave me a loaf of Apricot Cranberry bread and a loaf of Blueberry Cranberry bread.  "I love to bake and I love to share," she said.

Feeling better now.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Two Ireland Photos

Memorial along Road 447, County Clare, near Funore Bridge.


Burial grounds near Funore Bridge, County Clare.


Saturday, October 24, 2009

Surfing USA

The Chief of a nearby Law Enforcement Agency told me that if you put a surfboard on top of a vehicle the IQ of each of the vehicle's occupants is automatically lowered by ten points.  I think he was kidding.


Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Favorite Postcards #3

I've saved hundreds of postcards I've received over the years.  This one, from 1981, might be not just a favorite but the favorite.  I love the picture, I love the script, and the 36 words, combined with the photograph (both the work of  Duane Michals), manage to equal say a 30-page short story -- the longing and melancholy of Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" come to mind.  And the sender of the postcard, a sweet friend of dear friends in Northampton ... well, I've not seen her since. 

(While in Montreal one weekend there was a show of Duane Michals' photographs at the Museum of Contemporary Art -- proof that, now and again, luck is bound to come your way.)


Saturday, October 17, 2009

Tintinnabulations


TINTINNABULATIONS

I

On a Wednesday in forty-nine,
in a fierce mid-morning July sun,
my family is gathered
in front
of Sacred Heart Church.
The bell is ringing as it has rung
all the Sundays of my life;
but, as I said, this is a Wednesday;
my dad's funeral
has torn asunder
faith's firm schedule;
the bell is ringing on and on;
much longer
than a Sunday's bell,
on and on and still on
as if it will not be stopped.

I had seen the thick rope
that fell limply from the steeple,
down along the back wall
of the choir loft,
and then into an anteroom
off the vestibule.
I had liked it that when
we passed into church
I might catch a glimpse
of the campanologist
at work.

II

Now, on this funeral day,
I hear my older sister Martha
announce smugly:
"It's a-gonna ring
seventy-one times."
She had always been anxious
to let it be known
how much she knew
which you probably didn't know;
she was not one to miss
the opportunity
of a moment's
superiority.

"Why? I asked.

"Because Dad was seventy-one
when he died. It's a-gonna
ring once for each year
that he was alive."

Martha then jerked her head
slightly up and back,
and then to the left, and,
ever so briefly,
closed her eyes.
This was
condescendence.

III

Touched that all this pealing
was customized, personalized,
honoring my dad,
I adjusted my senses to receive
the blessed sacrament
of loss.
I tucked into my pockets
the melancholic echoes
of those peals.
I was stashing melancholy,
making a deposit
into an account
from which I might
make withdrawals
for the rest of my life.

IV

Exactly forty years later --
but in the charmless new
round Sacred Heart
that had replaced the old one --
my mother's casket,
draped in a fine linen pall,
stood in the vestibule.

At eleven o'clock
the bell was sounded
eighty-one times --
or did I, remembering
Martha and the seventy-one
bells of forty-nine --
did I merely imagine
eighty-one peals
on my mother's funeral day?
I don't think I actually counted.
Today, twenty years later,
I'm not sure.
Memory fails.

And did I not hear then,
in nineteen eighty-nine,
electronic bells?
Had a switch
been merely flicked,
or a button
pushed cursorily,
to set off that day's
pealing?
Did I so want instead
for a man to be standing
in some side room
somewhere,
grasping a heavy cord of hemp,
counting carefully
to eighty-one,
taking pride in his
campanology?
Yes, did I so want this
that I imagined
eighty-one?

Did I so want this
that my ears
refused to hear
the true tintinnabulations
of modern times?
Did my imagination take over
to forestall distress
that yet another
mysteriously
meaningful/meaningless
ritual
had been dumped
into the landfill
where discarded rituals
are bulldozedly buried?

Did I merely want to forestall
an acute reminder that,
while I was not looking,
while I was not paying
certain attentions,
while I was not keeping
the sacraments,
the past, bit by bit,
had been stolen?

V

My brain is full.
Some things
have toppled out,
fallen aside, flown away.
I have retained, though,
the bells of forty-nine,
and the bells
of eighty-nine.
Every day I
pull them
from my pocket;
every day,
a melancholy racket.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Happy Birthday To My Niece Cindy

My older brother John, Cindy's father, very layed-back, was not one to show much emotion, but I happened to stop at his and his wife Helen's home the morning after Cindy was born.   John, just back from the hospital, was absolutely beside himself.  He could not stop expressing amazement at how perfect she was, at what a miracle her birth was, and how the world was entirely different now.  I'd not seen him so excited about anything prior to this.

Having known her now for 52 years I've seen time and again that his excitement was entirely justified.

Happy birthday Cindy with love from Uncle George!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Happy Birthday To My Nephew John (or John-John or Johnny)

That's him sitting on my lap.  Behind me is my sister Sheila, then her husband Tom Laing; to Tom's right is my mother; in front of her Tom and Sheila's daughter Mary Ann, then John's brother Robert with his brother Daniel leaning on a chair and waving Hi or hiding his face; and in front is Tommy Laing, Sheila and Tom's son.  I have lots of nephews and each and every one of them is my favorite but for today Johnny gets to be the favorite of the favorites.  And my constant reminder: click on the picture to make it larger.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Irish Whiskey

Flo, my long-time penpal from Ireland, visiting last week, brought me a bottle of Irish whiskey.  In its clever packaging it looks as drunk as I might be when I quaff it:

Unpackaged it becomes a soberly erect bottle of whiskey:


Having revealed itself to be not one bottle, but three.

I'll save it for some very special occasion, hoping I'll remain more erect than the bottle is in the original packaging, and that I don't disintegrate into a trio of Georges.  Afterwards I'll cherish even the empty bottles.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

A Celtic Harp Event

Sometimes I treat myself well such as when a few weeks ago I went to the program below.  Mairead Doherty was beautiful, poised, and lovely.  Her between-songs stories, mostly about the history of the harp, were enchanting.  Her accent was charming.  The music was wonderful.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Penmanship

A man at work (now retired) sent me a post-it each week.  His handwriting was consistently neat.  Inasmuch as my penmanship is awful, I envied his.  (You have to click to enlarge picture to make it clearer.)  

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Ireland

Autumn intensifies nostalgia.  Today my nostalgia is for Ireland.  I have company from there this week, including Flo, who became my penpal in 1953.  It was in the eighth grade at Mentone School that, for a quarter,  my classmates and I each could get an international penpal.  We were allowed to ask that our penpal be from a certain country.  I chose Ireland.  That quarter bought me such richnesses of friendship such as I could not have imagined, and I like to say, and it is true, that it was the smartest expenditure I ever made.

My company will be flying back to Shannon Friday.  I'll be wanting to go with them.

A cute bookstore in Kenmare, 1996; my sister Sheila & brother Bernard out front.