Young Poet Listening

"The poet doesn't invent. He listens."

-Jean Cocteau

Today I'm handing my blog over to my grandson, the Little Scholar. Eight years old, he finished second grade last Friday and brought home a stellar report card to show for it.  His backpack was filled with papers, Pokeman cards, pencils, crayons, and old treasures rediscovered in the deep recesses of his desk.  Oh, I had forgotten the unbridled joy of a child's last day of school!

Among his papers was this writer's journal (photo above), mandated, no doubt, by his teacher, but embraced by the Little Scholar. In it, he describes himself as a "poet and author." Wow. I wonder how I might have described myself at his age. What would you have written about yourself?

Here is one of the poems from his journal, which the Little Scholar has offered to share with you:

The Sounds in a Rainstorm

A storm is full

of the nicest sounds,

It BOOMS! and BANGS!

and rumbles,

With kids JuMpInG in puddles,

The wind and flags

are flapping fast,

Suddenly it is quiet,

            and peaceful again.             

- Tony Lucas

I'm very happy that young students are being exposed to poetry and prose. It bodes well for our community. When children are taught to listen to the world around them and interpret what they hear, beauty is bound to happen.

Thanks for reading, and if you are so inclined to leave a comment today, you can be sure that the reply will come from the Little Scholar himself.  Have fun with kids this summer!

The music selection today was very easy..."Storm" or the 3rd Movement of Antonio Vivaldi's "Summer" of "Four Seasons".  I think the Little Scholar got a kick out of hearing that his name, Anthony, tranlates to 'Antonio' in Italian.

I presented him with three versions of this selection; one filled with special effects from techno-pop diva Vanessa Mae, one with a fabulous young electric guitarist from Kazakhstan, and one straightforward chamber orchestra version. To my utter surprise and delight, he selected the latter version. When asked why he chose that one, he answered, "It sounds like it's supposed to sound"...another purist in the family!

This is the Israel Chamber Orchestra with Paul Levin on the violin and David Zebba in the conductor's chair.  Enjoy! 

On Looking Up





The Visitors - Weldon Spring, 2011

BirdWings

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror

up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,

here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

if it were always a fist or always stretched open,

you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting

and expanding,

The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as birdwings.

Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Selene

we don't see the jagged edges of the moon.

her luscious soft light bouncing in the night

she rules with a light touch unlike her lover

hot sun

night and day melt into each other

until we dream that they are one divine undivided whole

W.Bryce Riley

The Weavers

Through the warp and the weft

they are there.

Through the inhale and the exhale

they are there.

Through the zenith and nadir

they are there.

As the birds that soar and tilt and float

they are there.

The tapestry is large,

The work unceasing,

Yet, you do not work alone.

Look up!

They are there.

Joellen Floyd Lucas

"Lark Ascending"  by Ralph Vaughn Williams, played by Michael Bochmann and the English Symphony Orchestra. Please enjoy.

Let There Be Light

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in."
- Leonard Cohen


Girl with Pearl Earring, Jan Vermeer, Oil on canvas, 1665
Louvre Museum, Paris, France


What makes this painting so special? Most experts will tell you it's Vermeer's understanding of light, using it to highlight the earring with such intensity that he pulls the observer's eye toward the center of the painting filled with darks and lesser highlights. What an impressive mastery of his subject and the observer!

The great masters of Chiaroscuro like Raphael, Caravaggio, and Vermeer began to explore concepts of light and dark in the Renaissance era, and today the concept of light remains as provocative as ever.

Blues Come Through, Alice Dalton Brown

I looked at a print of the painting above, and nearly couldn't believe it wasn't a photograph. (I don't know the original medium used, but I suspect it's a watercolor.)  Dalton Brown, a Contemporary Realist who was born in Pennsylvania in 1939, studied art at the Academie Julian in Paris. She's known for her attention to detail and, like most great artists, "finding the sublime in the everyday." I'm simply amazed at her understanding of the interplay between light and shadows.

The dark, murky shadows of the light-deprived winter season have finally given way to the crisp, clear shadows that accompany the bright spring sunshine.  As the sunbeams came streaming into the house this morning, I couldn't help but reflect on the power of light and how deeply it affects us all.

Physically and metaphorically, I'm letting the light in today. I've opened all the shades and thrown up the sashes on this perfect spring day. (A high of 75 F. is expected today. How perfect is that?) As the brilliant Leonard Cohen tells us, I'm going to try to accept the cracks in my world and understand that it is through those very cracks that the light will enter. 

Today, I wish you light through the cracks.


Wow. Leonard Cohen. He is one of the greatest poets of our day, to my mind, and certainly one of the most gracious performers to ever live.

Of course the music selection today is his brilliant "Anthem" from which the quote above is exerpted. Many versions are out there for you to explore (here is a very unique version posted by my friend, Steven, over at his blog, the golden fish), but this one is filled with the grace of Cohen's soul from beginning to end. Please watch his face as he performs, allowing the music and the poetry of his lyrics to enter completely into him, and so, into us.

As much a I enjoy the beauty of the music and the words, I enjoy the final introductions of the people with whom he shares the stage, given and receieved with such reverence for one another. Enjoy. 

Saturday Sojourn - Reckless Spring

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it

were voices instead of colors, there would be an

unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the

night." - Rainer Maria Rilke

What a difference a day makes. It was as if Spring had overslept and was suddenly awakened by the alarm clock. "Hurry!" she exclaimed to the trees, shrubs, flowers, and birds. "We're late...get busy!"

I went outside to find that things were blooming quite recklessly, not with the usual springtime order of events. The leaves on the deciduous trees suddenly decided to unfurl in all their sweet chartreuse splendor...

Though there is still no sign of the unusually stubborn daffodils and tulips, colors on the shrubs and trees collided against each other...

Wild Dogwood (yellow blossoms)

The beauty of the songbirds... purple martins, bluebirds, finches, and cardinals, combined with the less melodic crows, grackles, and jays, to produce a cacophony of sound that never ceased.

And the mysterious "Brigid's Gate" down the path from our house, which looked so barren this past winter...

Now looks like this...

...and I suppose before too much longer, it will be completely hidden from sight.

I missed the usual commune I've come to expect in the last few days with Brother Heron. Instead, he ceded the pond at Weldon Spring's nature path to a fisherman in human form, one who was much larger, noisier, and less graceful than he.

When I finished my meditation, though (seated at a pondside bench) I opened my eyes to see him (the heron...not the very large man) fly overhead to the sanctuary of the back woods.  So at least we said hello today.

Apparently, spring this year will be a raucous event filled with the chaos that invariably accompanies oversleeping. Each spring is different, I suppose, and this one promises to be memorable.

Today I hope you witness spring...somewhere.

The music I selected today is a little longer than most I choose (I never want to take up too much of your precious time), but I promise you this one is worth the seven and a half minutes out of your day.

This is Beethoven's "Sonata Op 57, 3rd Movement", or "Appassionata." This video is of Valentina Lesitsa in rehearsal before a Vienna concert in 2009. Like Spring today, it's filled with excitement, passion, and a bit of chaos. I think you'll be amazed by how fast Lesitsa's fingers fly at the end. Enjoy!

Mom's Day



"There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm."- Willa Cather



I'm heading across the state to Kansas City today to tend to my mother and some unexpected health issues. I'm hoping to be back by this evening, but that depends on how the day goes.

I know you understand.

I leave you with a verse from my new favorite poet,

Edna St. Vincent Millay.

  

God's World

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!

Thy mists that roll and rise!

Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

 
Long have I known a glory in it all,

But never knew I this;

Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart, -- Lord, I do fear

Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;

My soul is all but out of me, -- let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 ♥ Kindness is the key to everything.♥

This is Antonin Dvorak's "Songs My Mother Taught Me"
played by Igor Malinovsky. Please enjoy.

Windswept

"If you reveal your secrets to the wind,
you should not blame the wind for revealing
them to the trees." - Khalil Gibran

  

Windswept - John William Waterhouse
1902 oil on canvas

Many of us have been having a love/hate relationship with Brother Wind this winter. I have felt more irritation from the wind than I have in years past, and I refuse to believe it's because of my age  (come on, I know that's what you were thinking). After all, I'm only one year older than I was this time last year when the wind wasn't such a terrible source of irritation, right?

I went for my usual daily constitutional yesterday afternoon in my usual park, and felt the usual irritation at being assaulted by a cold wind. It's 50 degrees, I thought...why does the wind have to be so cold? 

Well, why not? It's February in Missouri, for heaven's sake. As I forced myself to relax (is that an oxymoron?), I eased into the wind and breathed. I stood up straight, squared my shoulders, and looked up ahead of me, instead of hunching forward, looking down.

Before I knew it, I was snapping photos of things I was seeing. I found myself saying hello to other intrepid visitors, to their pets, their children, and anyone else who dared to look Brother Wind in the face.  After a good mile or so, a poem came to mind. It's a familiar verse, one I've read at least a hundred times. Was it Keats? no. Dickinson? no. Shakespeare? Well, no.

It was, um...er...ahem...Dr. Seuss.

I do not like green eggs and ham, I thought. I do not like them, Sam I Am. I chuckled. Ha ha. My subconscious mind is so funny. It was chiding me for being so entrenched in my irritation of the wind. How silly. Brother Wind isn't going anywhere anytime soon, I realized, so I'd best learn to love him. At the very least, I should learn to tolerate him better than I do now. If Sam I Am could try to like green eggs and ham, I could do the same with the wind. Yes?

So in keeping with my brain's amusing new attitude, I went home and wrote down my thoughts in the form of a simple Geisel-esque poem. Here is my Sam I Am attitude adjustment:

Windswept

I try to like you, Brother Wind,
But, Oh! The mood you put me in.

Your careless and annoying play,

Can blow my happy thoughts away.

You mess my hair, you slap my face,

You give a cold and harsh embrace.

You box my ears and make them ache,
You cause my skin to crack and flake.

I love your cousin, Gentle Breeze,

Who strokes my cheek and tickles me.

But you? I dare not take the chance,

With one I cannot countenance.

But then I see him, Brother Hawk,
Ascending now on your skywalk.

And surfing on the unseen waves,

He flies atop one then, and stays.

Gliding up on moving air

He rolls, he turns, he dances there.

The clouds, they billow, soar and wave,

Then silently, they drift away.

You paint the sky with magic brush,

And suddenly you’re not so gruff.

Seeds and insects all prepare,

To fly this breezy thoroughfare.

They need no ticket, nor suitcase,

To soar along this lofty space.

You pick them up and drop with ease

Their gifts among the plants and trees.

The seeds take root, and soon they grow,

And look upon us down below.

Because of you, my Brother Wind,

We have both food, and medicine.

Perhaps I’ve been too harsh a foe,

These are the things that I should know.

Will you forgive me, gusty friend?

I never wanted to offend.

I’ll try to love you, Brother Wind,

But, Oh! The mood you put me in!
                                                        - Jo Floyd Lucas

 If you, too, have been bothered by the wind of late, I offer this as consolation. This is the trio Soave sia il vento from Mozart's comic opera, Cosi fan Tutte. The theme of this opera is what Mozart himself oh, so charmingly described as "fiancée swapping," just so you understand the three characters who are on stage.

Nicolas Rivenq, Miah Persson, and Anke Vondung sing the trio, and this excerpt was recorded at Glyndebourne in 2006. Ivan Fischer directs the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

The lyrics in Italian are so pretty:

Soave sia il vento,

Tranquilla sia l’onda,

Ed ogni elemento

Benigno risponda

Ai nostri desir

But they mean nothing unless you speak Italian.

Here is the English translation:

May the wind be gentle,

may the waves be calm,

and may every one of the elements

respond warmly

to our desire

Um. Yes, well, I'm sorry you had to sit through
the previous "poem" to get to this one.
This is definitely more like it...Enjoy!

Today I wish you gentle breezes.

Brigid's Gate

Brigid's Gate - Weldon Spring, Missouri

"A hush is over everything, Silent as women wait for love; The world is waiting for the spring." - Sara Teasdale


Brigid’s Gate
Go out into
The chiffon sky
Where waits the frosty air.

To see the ice
On yonder oak,
Entangled in her hair.


Walk down the path,
Now clad in white,
And greet the misty morn.


For Winter’s day
Has come and gone,
And Spring will soon be born.


Now look among
The crystal trees,
So regal and so fair.


And find the gate
That guards her realm,
And I will meet you there.


She beckons us,
To come her way
With pansy and primrose.


Delighting us
With song and verse
And poetry of prose.


Oh, leave the weary night behind,
Come toward the dawn,
She sings,


She smiles gently,
Embraces us,
And we have found the Spring.

Joellen Floyd
 
 
Today may you find a glimpse of Spring.