Dawdle!

Nikolai Ustinov

Dawdle!

Today's big worry, hurry.

Don't be last, go fast.

Find the room to zoom,

Paddle and skedaddle.

Well ding ding, that's wrong.

Immerse in the reverse.

Pay no heed to speed;

The way to go is slow.

Make your goal a stroll;

Eschew the leap, just creep.

Heed the call to crawl;

Don't play tag, just lag.

On escapes, just traipse;

avoid the fray; delay.

Give the nod to plod;

Shun the scuffle: shuffle.

Don't make tracks, relax.

It's a cinch to inch.

Make your Grail the snail.

Think “status quo” – go slow.

Mae Scanlan

“Make your Grail the snail.”

I like that. (Mae Scanlan is, by the way, one of the unaknowledged masters of poetry. I'm here to tell you that. I have my personal school of thought, and it acknowledges good poetry in dusty forgotten corners.) “Light” poetry, “comic” poetry is the most difficult of all. Tragedy, cynicism, bitterness – these are easy. Humour is hard. Excellent “comic” poetry is a triumph over sorrow and evil, and a ladder out of the pitfalls of human nature, and this is the most difficult art of all. To acknowledge the bad and turn toward the good.

Anyway, enough of my rant. You might be surprised to learn that staying home in this Wuhan Epidemic is not, for those of us who have young children, peaceful, or boring. It is a challenge to personal space, to minute-by-minute flexibility, to role changes, to, well, I can't think of anything it doesn't challenge. So, for someone like me, slowing down is even more of an issue. Patience? Okay! So I am Teacher, Mother, Cleaner, Worker, Lover, Friend – all at once and without cessation?

So help me, a poem like this matters. Words to keep in mind, thoughts to remember in moments of stress. I wouldn't underestimate them.

“Immerse in the reverse.”

“Avoid the fray, delay.”

Mae knew what she was talking about.

There Will Come Soft Rains

Unknown

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows calling with their shimmering sound;



And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild-plum trees in tremulous white;



Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire



And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.



Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;



And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale

  This poem is happening now. I was just outside in the rain and I did smell the wet earth. "There will come soft rains..." A gentle, comforting line. Especially now, locked away from my usual life, crowded in together with my dearest-yet-difficult, having had to change my routine, and take on new and ill-fitting roles - "There will come soft rains.." A promise that came true. And how lovely the rain is. What a relief to think of Spring and all her creatures going about their usual business without noticing us and our worries or wars. They go on singing, growing, calling, whistling, flying, crawling. It helps somehow, to think of them. "There will come soft rains..." 
I'm going to take that as permission to hope for good things to come.

On the Ning Nang Nong

Golden Books

On The Ning Nang Nong 

On the Ning Nang Nong Where the cows go Bong!
And the monkeys all say Boo!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping
And the tea pots Jibber Jabber Joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang!
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So it's Ning Nang Nong!
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning!
Trees go Ping!
Nong Ning Nang!

The mice go Clang!
What a noisy place to belong,
Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!

        Spike Milligan

Being stuck in the house with your family for weeks on end does something to your brain.

So We'll Go No More A Roving

Caspar David Friedrich

 

So We'll Go No More A Roving

So, we'll go no more a roving

   So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

   And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

   And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

   And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

   And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

   By the light of the moon.

Gordon, Lord Byron

When I read this, it seems like a different shade of the strange emotion I feel as I look out at the people walking by, people from my neighbourhood, people actually looking around and observing, even looking at me in my window – people who must live near enough to walk here, whom I've never seen till now. Or the people in the staggered line at the grocery store – silent, nervous, hesitant to smile. People! So close and yet so far. Will we ever go back to that interchange of pleasantries, that hug or handshake, that walk arm in arm? I hadn't thought of it as freedom, that casual proximity. But I see it now. I miss it. I miss walking in the park. But those gates have been shut and lines have been drawn, and we carefully measure the distance between us. Hearts may be as loving, but bodies are constrained. The poem may not be about a pandemic, but the sense of loss and reluctant acceptance of reality is all too familiar.

Easter Hymn

Arcabus

Easter Hymn

Death, and darkness get you packing,

Nothing now to man is lacking,

All your triumphs now are ended,

And what Adam marred is mended;

Graves are beds now for the weary,

Death a nap, to wake more merry;

Youth now, full of pious duty,

Seeks in thee for perfect beauty,

The weak, and aged tired, with length

Of days, from thee look for new strength,

And Infants with thy pangs Contest

As pleasant, as if with the breast;

Then, unto him, who thus hath thrown

Even to contempt thy kingdom down,

And by his blood did us advance

Unto his own Inheritance,

To him be glory, power, praise,

From this, unto the last of days.

Henry Vaughan

 

A Seedling

Benoit Trimborn

A seedling shoulders up some crumbs of ground:

The fields are suddenly green for miles around.

HO-O

fr. A Net of Fireflies

translated by Harold Stewart

Sneaky spring. She did it again.

when faces called flowers

Catrin Welz-Stein

when faces called flowers float out of the ground

and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-

but keeping is downward and doubting and never

-it's april(yes,april;my darling)it's spring!

yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly

yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be

(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound

and wishing is having and having is giving-

but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense

-alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!

now the pretty birds hover so she and so he

now the little fish quiver so you and so i

now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found

and having is giving and giving is living-

but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing

-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!

all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky

all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea

all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

e.e. cummings

I've been waiting forever to post this poem – but April's here, so the time is right. The mountains are dancing - ! That's so funny – it makes me think of Tolkien's Ents, the trees in their dance. It would be pretty glib to say that mountains don't dance, though – I mean, how do you know? The Bible says they clap their hands, so why couldn't they dance, too? Cummings says the birds and fish are frolicing and gamboling – and I think he's right. Isn't it possible that they enjoy themselves? I remember spring on the farm when the cows were let into the newly-green meadow for the first time. You've never seen such a hootenany! Tails in the air, gawky leaps and jumps, thunderingly disorganized stampedes in no particular direction... happy cows! If cows, why not birds and fish, why not mountains – why not us?

And then that line – that amazing line -

“when more than was lost has been found has been found” - I could say that over and over. More than was lost. More than was lost! Is that possible? It would take a lot of faith, to believe that. Dancing mountain faith.