Rochelle Wisoff-Fields invites us weekly to join the Friday Fictioneers in their creative quests of a hundred words or less, prompted by a photo. Click on the frog to join in!
“Bleu, bleu, l’amour est bleu,” crooned the old man beneath his cap Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a lad of nineteen He stood before the sea, and his heart surged piteously Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a man of thirty-two “Comme l’eau, comme l’eau qui court,” sang he, wading into surf Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a cavalier of fifty-four His blood ran cold as a sea-voice joined in “Fou comme toi et fou comme moi,” then down he went in a sea-embrace till he sang no more.
I’m loving the Psalms this morning, especially those whose words have sunk deep into my heart. Of them, Psalm 121 always comes to mind. And how it causes me to say, in the words of Psalm 13: 6, “I will sing the LORD’s praise, for he has been good to me.”
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Psalm 121 (ESV)
Audrey Assad, “Good To Me” (lyrics below)
Good To Me (Audrey Assad)
I put all my hope on the truth of Your promise And I steady my heart on the ground of Your goodness When I’m bowed down with sorrow I will lift up Your name And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy
Because You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, good to me You are good to me
And I lift my eyes to the hills where my help is found Your voice fills the night – raise my head up to hear the sound Though fires burn all around me I will praise You, my God And the foxes in the vineyard will not steal my joy
Because You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, good to me You are good to me, yeah
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I will trust in Your promise
Yeah, Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I trust in Your promise
Your goodness and mercy shall follow me All my life I will trust in Your promise
Because You’ re good (You are good to me, good to me) So good (You are good to me, good to me) You are good to me
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden wrote “September 1, 1939” at the outbreak of World War II in Europe. It’s a poem that’s often quoted during times of crises such as ours, and only seems to highlight the recurring cycles of political dissimulation and media exacerbated fury that escalates into tragedy. While battling a virus, we’ve “cancelled” each other and branded each other racists and bigots. We’ve listened to politicians and oligopolies wildlydenounce opponents of their agendas as terrorists. We’ve been witness to unchecked brutality this past year as our cities burned with mob violence during which thirty people were murdered, and neighborhoods and livelihoods went up in smokewhile governors and mayors watched.
Auden began the poem with these words:
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.
In the penultimate stanza he cautions: “We must love one another or die.” The same holds true today.
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
excerpt from W. H. Auden’s September 1, 1939
Read the complete poem at poets.org. And hear the poet Dylan Thomas read it below.
I am not averse to reimaginations Given you walked out of my conversation As a noetic effect of its distillation
I am not chained to inharmonious juxtapositions When salubrious angels gather in celebration Of a desire prayed and given manifestation
I am simply thankful for your gravitation Towards me, bindingly, irradiate sub-atomic fusion Where once I envisioned only solitary annihilation
Yet this I wonder, and this in never-ending fascination How in moments your eyes gray meet my brown it’s recreation Of a space-time-matter continuum of conflagration
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
I don’t know about you, but I’m hanging on to summer as long as I can! For fellow simpaticos, here’s a late summer bloom and a Christina Rossetti poem to help.
A late summer garden rose
The Rose
The lily has a smooth stalk,
Will never hurt your hand;
But the rose upon her brier
Is lady of the land.
There's sweetness in an apple tree,
And profit in the corn;
But lady of all beauty
Is a rose upon a thorn.
When with moss and honey
She tips her bending brier,
And half unfolds her glowing heart,
She sets the world on fire.
-- Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Portrait of Christina Rosetti by Dante Gabriel Rosetti
For more on Rosetti, see my Common-Place Jottings post on “Rossetti Rhymes”
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Tintern Abbey in 1794, a watercolour by J. M. W. Turner
From William Wordsworth’s Lines Written (or Composed) a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798: this benediction of nature’s guardian light on his sister, with whom he went on a walking tour, inspiring this homage to nature:
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Orson Welles directed and starred as the titular Macbeth in the 1948 film, with Jeanette Nolan as Lady Macbeth.
Two moving speeches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, both in the same scene:
one a soliloquy on his own fate . . .
I have lived long enough: My way of life
Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
. . . the other lamenting a physician’s lack of cure for his wife’s guilt-worn sanity —
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
