Arcana of Grief

After last week, I was ready to plunge into that period of my life from 1977 to 1980 that represented my interest in politics and religion.  My desire at the time was to understand and articulate a Christian Socialism that would be radical and yet still steeped in the mythic and mystical traditions of my faith. I dug out my political books and began to review a few poems, but paused. I need to think about this before I go further.  Writing poems about nature or my feelings as a writer or about my lover is one thing - politics? something else. First, I am just not sure how good these poems are.  They were written with specific events in the forefront of my mind at the time.  And unlike most of the other items I have put in this blog so far, they weren't organized to be published.  So in the meantime, I am going to work backwards chronologically and hopefully be able to discern the line between good work and juvenalia.

Today's poem was written for my sister, Kate, on June 24, 1989 on the death of a beloved cat of hers.  Since we are going to be celebrating Christmas at Kate's lake house and she is cooking, I have also included a short poem quoted in Observations on Popular Antiquities by John Brand, London 1913, from the section Yule Doughs, Mince Pies, etc. (Oddly, I just noticed it mentions rosemary as well. hmmm.)


ARCANA OF GRIEF


This is for Hank.


Pillowcase,  rosemary for remembrance.
Put this into the earth
Cold fur    dry eyes    stiff limbs
Decompose into Earth, Water
Fire and Air.


Say the words of ritual.


Already your thoughts are cleansed
In the pool of memory and 
You seek about for a new
Repository of care;


The delicacy of drink and 
Sleep curled bed,
The face at the window and
Voice of insistence.
You seek a living companion.


His loss twist and changes everything
In the retort of death.


"Even in the mostcoming wind, we breathe parting."


Say the word


                       Say it.


And the ritual will be complete.

 

They are likewise indicated in King's Art of Cookery - 


"At Christmas time --
Then if you wou'd send up the Brawner's Head,
Sweet Rosemary and Bays around it spread;
His foaming tusks let some large Pippin grace,
Or 'midst these thundring spears an Orange place;
Sauce, like himself, offensive to its foes,
The roguish Mustard, dang'rous to the nose,
Sack, and well spic'd Hippocras the wine
Wassail the bowl with antient ribbands fine,
Porridge with Plumbs and Turkeys with the chine.

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Reading Trotsky and Listening to Borodin

To my knowledge, no picture exists of me during my last years of college.  Therefore, you must imagine me and my friend, Gary Borders, trudging through the snow in Orono in our long black wool coats.  Gary's hat was classic proletarian, mine was a black Greek fisherman's cap;  our beards the pure righteous darkness of youth.  In our bags were Gramsci and Lenin and Mao; and articles for the Maine Peace Action Committee newsletter. We saw ourselves (sometimes, anyway) as the rearguard of a revolutionary vanguard.  After Vietnam . . . before anti-nukes . . .Nicaragua was a chance be on the right side for a change . .  lost Lefties, really. Who knew what lay before us in the coming decades?  Certainly we didn't.  We imagined a revolution of some kind . . . listened to our Holly Near and looked back on the pure politics of the 60's.  We knew that it was up to us, up to the 'New Intellectuals' to define the cause, to understand and articulate what was the motor force of History.  Who knew?

Reading Trotsky and Listening to Borodin


We sit huddled in our dingy kitchen
over a pot of chicken soup.
Bleary-eyed and tired,
I think of
Russian peasant suppers,
of heavy boots on earthen floors
thick-bearded men and broad shouldered
women in scarves.
I think of
kulaks, purges, police;
of knocks on doors,
laughing apparatchiks,           of Stalin.
Of huddled men in the arctic night.
I think 
and am reminded that 
the struggle goes on
                               and on
                                           and on.




February, 1980