smokingboot (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smokingboot) wrote2021-06-26 01:25 pm
smokingboot) wrote2021-06-26 01:25 pm
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The buckles on these diamond shoes, also a tale of two Amandas.
R has booked us a quick week in Malta, seeing as it's on the Green List.
It looks fascinating!
On some level I would rather wait, shack up the shekels and get to sub saharan Africa where tourism is desperately needed to support conservation. Likewise, though Cambodia/Vietnam at the end of the year sounds great, for similar money we could have gone to Rwanda, Kenya, the Serengeti or back to Botswana. I know, I know I'm an Africa bore, plus covid and the green list (sounds like a really rubbish indy band) and yes, I know the end of year vacation will be out of this world.
But the thing is, we really need this break. And Malta has everything except the Wild.
Surya's ashes are here. We haven't thrown them yet. Our lovely cat sitter came around with a big canvas of Surya's face close up, and a framed collection of photos of them all, ready for the wall.
We are not over it nor even close.
The night before last I had terrible dreams, including one where, lying on my front under the bed, said bed collapsed on top of me, pressing increasingly heavy on my back until I screamed and woke myself up. R told me I cried out a lot in my sleep that night. I woke at 11 am, then fell asleep in the afternoon, then went to bed early. My dreams last night revolved around trying to speak to two friends for the same amount of time so as not to make either feel less cared for. There was a place I was meant to be, a tour or a cruise or something, and it looked as though I was going to miss it. Unable to care about that, I walked with a mate through some woods, listening to music she liked.
Meanwhile, my mate Amanda asked me to write a poem that might 'unite' the UK in a way less cringeworthy than that stupid Team song. In fairness, it's not the song's fault. Context is everything. It appears to have been written for or by school children 8/10 years ago, only to emerge now favoured by tories desperate to make us fall in and stand together behind them. The song sheet itself tells a story; https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=202158211781539&set=gm.2301132330018076 bunting and a poppy and lions, but never a sign of unicorns or dragons or any symbol of the other countries within the Union. This is not a UK identity but an English one, perhaps understandable in a small English school, but entirely inappropriate paraded before the countries of Britain 5 years after Brexit, when racism/ exclusion has marked so much public behaviour and policy.
Amanda challenged me for something like Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem. Even supposing my abilities could match those of the president's poet laureate, the truth is, our is a very different experience. We don't 'climb a hill', we don't aspire for better, we don't strive upward, least of all together. Blake's Jerusalem, the song that should be England's anthem, is about what England might have been, its dream history, the truth of what it is and what it can build.
But England at least is trapped by a past of golden tales that always end in we won haha! Striding ever backwards as fast as possible ...
First time I went to Oz I recall meeting a museum curator who shook her finger saying 'I hear in British schools they still teach that Captain Cook discovered Australia!' I remember an older friend saying that her mother pointed her at an Atlas with most of the world covered pink. 'That's all ours,' her mother told her. This was in the 50s. Apparently all we needed to do to get this back - assuming that it's OK to take other people's land and stuff - was for our boys to 'get a spine.' Here's the tragedy; our folk have been trained to look back to a past where they were thoroughly exploited and exploited others, a history of brass overlaid with gold, and to return to this has somehow become the greatest aspiration. It cannot be done because the reality and the dream are almost entirely unrelated. If we had the one we would be no nearer the other.
But this is the poem. It's called 'For Amanda.'
Born in Horatio Hornblower's house
Net curtains old and yellow
The local hospital needed nurses
from all over the world, all over the world.
There was a school for Protestants, one for Catholics
And a pond that hid green cheese for moonrakers.
Born amid the red-grey bricks of England
where standing stones kept the story, ghost soldiers drummed,
The sun smiled on priapic giants
And Arthur was always nearby
Arthur and the red-headed women
Boudicca, Elizabeth, Proserpina
Every moonrise you could hear
the deep throated bay through the rye
and the waiting woods and the White Tower watching
Til the waters turned them back
Gwyn Ap Nudd held yet the dragon lands
And from the North simply this message;
'Tis not your place to chain the Polar star.'
There were wars and crowns tumbling together
And people cheered for victories that killed them
For coins that never reached them
The valiant died, most silent but
Lily-handed men smiled a grand story
How this and that land should be thrall
How this and that face belonged elsewhere.
Harvest for a few before all crops fail
A story for times when pride must serve as bread.
Asking me now to sing and unite these!
But if the might of Rome could not do it
And the watchtowers alight could not do it
And years of peace and plenty could not do it
Maybe it should not be done.
Say rather the folk took their own way
Followed the ignis fatuus
Til the marshes lapped their backs
When faces they loved slipped beneath the mud
And the god of hinges winked at them
And they knew what he was; but still they followed.
Where then are the words to make us one?
Only this to be said; all deceptions end.
Albion falls, but she may also rise,
Always becoming, seeking better form,
Some fair Jerusalem close to the sea
Where folk speak truthfully and with kindness.
Here then indeed might be some sceptred isle,
A garden of forgiving, where they plant generously,
Fearing no loss, but trusting all cast upon the soil
Feeds something and is fed,
And in that place the stranger and the friend
Meet with comfort, rest and revelry.
In such a land, all might be blessed together
And hearts seed homeward on the sunset hills.
It's a bit too steeped and soft but it's the best that I can do, in the style of numinous Ravilious land. I guess such poems are meant to give heart, and this is what Amanda wanted.
It looks fascinating!
On some level I would rather wait, shack up the shekels and get to sub saharan Africa where tourism is desperately needed to support conservation. Likewise, though Cambodia/Vietnam at the end of the year sounds great, for similar money we could have gone to Rwanda, Kenya, the Serengeti or back to Botswana. I know, I know I'm an Africa bore, plus covid and the green list (sounds like a really rubbish indy band) and yes, I know the end of year vacation will be out of this world.
But the thing is, we really need this break. And Malta has everything except the Wild.
Surya's ashes are here. We haven't thrown them yet. Our lovely cat sitter came around with a big canvas of Surya's face close up, and a framed collection of photos of them all, ready for the wall.
We are not over it nor even close.
The night before last I had terrible dreams, including one where, lying on my front under the bed, said bed collapsed on top of me, pressing increasingly heavy on my back until I screamed and woke myself up. R told me I cried out a lot in my sleep that night. I woke at 11 am, then fell asleep in the afternoon, then went to bed early. My dreams last night revolved around trying to speak to two friends for the same amount of time so as not to make either feel less cared for. There was a place I was meant to be, a tour or a cruise or something, and it looked as though I was going to miss it. Unable to care about that, I walked with a mate through some woods, listening to music she liked.
Meanwhile, my mate Amanda asked me to write a poem that might 'unite' the UK in a way less cringeworthy than that stupid Team song. In fairness, it's not the song's fault. Context is everything. It appears to have been written for or by school children 8/10 years ago, only to emerge now favoured by tories desperate to make us fall in and stand together behind them. The song sheet itself tells a story; https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=202158211781539&set=gm.2301132330018076 bunting and a poppy and lions, but never a sign of unicorns or dragons or any symbol of the other countries within the Union. This is not a UK identity but an English one, perhaps understandable in a small English school, but entirely inappropriate paraded before the countries of Britain 5 years after Brexit, when racism/ exclusion has marked so much public behaviour and policy.
Amanda challenged me for something like Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem. Even supposing my abilities could match those of the president's poet laureate, the truth is, our is a very different experience. We don't 'climb a hill', we don't aspire for better, we don't strive upward, least of all together. Blake's Jerusalem, the song that should be England's anthem, is about what England might have been, its dream history, the truth of what it is and what it can build.
But England at least is trapped by a past of golden tales that always end in we won haha! Striding ever backwards as fast as possible ...
First time I went to Oz I recall meeting a museum curator who shook her finger saying 'I hear in British schools they still teach that Captain Cook discovered Australia!' I remember an older friend saying that her mother pointed her at an Atlas with most of the world covered pink. 'That's all ours,' her mother told her. This was in the 50s. Apparently all we needed to do to get this back - assuming that it's OK to take other people's land and stuff - was for our boys to 'get a spine.' Here's the tragedy; our folk have been trained to look back to a past where they were thoroughly exploited and exploited others, a history of brass overlaid with gold, and to return to this has somehow become the greatest aspiration. It cannot be done because the reality and the dream are almost entirely unrelated. If we had the one we would be no nearer the other.
But this is the poem. It's called 'For Amanda.'
Born in Horatio Hornblower's house
Net curtains old and yellow
The local hospital needed nurses
from all over the world, all over the world.
There was a school for Protestants, one for Catholics
And a pond that hid green cheese for moonrakers.
Born amid the red-grey bricks of England
where standing stones kept the story, ghost soldiers drummed,
The sun smiled on priapic giants
And Arthur was always nearby
Arthur and the red-headed women
Boudicca, Elizabeth, Proserpina
Every moonrise you could hear
the deep throated bay through the rye
and the waiting woods and the White Tower watching
Til the waters turned them back
Gwyn Ap Nudd held yet the dragon lands
And from the North simply this message;
'Tis not your place to chain the Polar star.'
There were wars and crowns tumbling together
And people cheered for victories that killed them
For coins that never reached them
The valiant died, most silent but
Lily-handed men smiled a grand story
How this and that land should be thrall
How this and that face belonged elsewhere.
Harvest for a few before all crops fail
A story for times when pride must serve as bread.
Asking me now to sing and unite these!
But if the might of Rome could not do it
And the watchtowers alight could not do it
And years of peace and plenty could not do it
Maybe it should not be done.
Say rather the folk took their own way
Followed the ignis fatuus
Til the marshes lapped their backs
When faces they loved slipped beneath the mud
And the god of hinges winked at them
And they knew what he was; but still they followed.
Where then are the words to make us one?
Only this to be said; all deceptions end.
Albion falls, but she may also rise,
Always becoming, seeking better form,
Some fair Jerusalem close to the sea
Where folk speak truthfully and with kindness.
Here then indeed might be some sceptred isle,
A garden of forgiving, where they plant generously,
Fearing no loss, but trusting all cast upon the soil
Feeds something and is fed,
And in that place the stranger and the friend
Meet with comfort, rest and revelry.
In such a land, all might be blessed together
And hearts seed homeward on the sunset hills.
It's a bit too steeped and soft but it's the best that I can do, in the style of numinous Ravilious land. I guess such poems are meant to give heart, and this is what Amanda wanted.