Bly once said, of growing older: "I was very surprised to find out, as my poems pick up more and more of the past of human beings, the ancient culture, more and more of the grief and the suffering of human beings — the poems become funnier! I don't understand that, but I love it. I feel that there's some way that as the mind gets more mature, in the midst of a lot of grief, it's able to dance a little!"
There's much to be said for "play" and for "form". Bly's use of music --appropriately titled in the book "Eating the Honey of Words" is gratifying. Whether the "eh-eh" bleat of a goat in "reckless" and "red" and "chevrolet" (not to forget French chevre as goat) the predominance of swallowed "l's" (pull, stubble, whole hill, single, frail)or simple repetitions, he catches the reader in the scene with sounds. "To pull in air was like reading a whole novel." requires quite a bit of pushing out to sound the words -- but one moment expands into story and we look at the "we" that has goats and washes up, and feel the we of "ordinary" looking on at the magic of what Bly observes on the farm in the early morning.
The personification of the earthworms looking up like shy people trying to avoid praise", the awkwardness of goats and turkeys, and dual sense of "washed up" all have a dance to it -- a joyful recklessness of just being.
Tale of the Reed Flute by Rumi
In the beginning, the great separation and how better told than by a reed, cut to make music... Kathy noted the problem of no period here:
Due to separation, I want chests torn to shreds
To describe the pain of desire
which could also be read to be understood as a period after "shreds"
and an awkward syntax of:
To describe the pain of desire
Anyone distant from his origins
Will seek to return to them.
How do we understand these words which describe two different "pains of desire"?
We want what we don't have; we want others to feel our pain; we lament -- but what do we truly lament?
I read the short translation of Nahid Yousefi:
Everyone's heart is broken one way or another
Whether by strangers or by friends
There is no objection if it is broken by a stranger,
But by the friend, why?
Rumi's poem allows a second look at what we expect, desire, truly want -- for so often it is a fleeting whim. True understanding -- the "secret" the reed possesses,
what we feel hearing it, but cannot put into words, we often overlook.
**
3 POEMS by A.E. Stallings -- totally delightful -- form, wit, and wanting every line!
"Aftershocks" -- a short sonnet which starts with this line:
We are not in the same place after all.
How after 8 lines, we are rocked out of place with a question mark
with a wonderful linguistic kiss as we go from literal to metaphysical considerations. The word play, slight references to Bishop's Villanelle "One Art" just enhances the problem of just what it is to be "grounded".
RepRoach was simply sheer delight. What representative of reproach do you pick?
After a Greek Proverb (A.E. Stallings p. 299 Poetry, Jan. 2011)
¨Ουδέν μονιμότερον του προσωρινού”
(nothing is more permanent than the temporary"
is a marvellous villanelle.
Inspiring discussion... the feeling of having read something-- enjoyed it, related to it, bolstered to have a line which puts temporary into perspective.
"We’re here for the time being, we answer to the query,"
query with em-dash; with period; with comma.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Day after Solstice: UU Dec. 15; O Pen Dec. 14 + 21
Solstice and three discussions of poetry dealing with titles like
Winter Night, Christmas Circular letter, Sabbaths, Shapes, White Morning, Corona, Bread Boy, Enemies, Stifled.
Without knowing the "stakes" of the poem -- without knowing the discovery the poet shares with the reader, it would look like each title announces an aspect of the Christmas season, even "Stifled", written by "anonymous" as a summary of political frustrations in congress. It reminds me of all the flavors of Christmas notes --
the cousin who comments on world affairs, the missionary who comments on spiritual work; the weather reports, family measurements, or the philosophers who note human behavior and the natural world.
Sarton captures a prayer-like feeling with an Antiphon -- as if birch trees in winter under starlight call for a different kind of radiance than what we expect with dawn.
How does this relate to "preparing for a new year" and the familiar call to "prepare for a re-birth"? There's "no telling" -- "who can say that darkness falls" ?
I love the way Sarton captures mystery -- the way W.S. Merwin in White Morning
loops us into an end of summer in the pasture rich with vetch, velvet of wild thyme and straggling eglantine -- leading us, without any punctuation or guideline through an "age of mist" to the sound of crows in white air, "their wings dripping"...
and whether it is the lights breaking in their tongues, or the cold, and this sense of stories that mainly have to do with vanishing.
So this magic of waiting, this intimacy of being, ensconced in a whiteness Merwin is generous enough to share with the reader -- the "I" not appearing until the 9th line, but then so present, up to the penultimate line, "with friends in the shade they have all disappeared/ most of the stories have to do with vanishing.
As Jim says, "so this nature opening up the mind bit -- how did that work out for you?"
The same with Dante Micheaux's poem, "Enemies -- in the sunlight, they, or you, become invisible... and the rich line: "Remember what makes one human, / animal, is not the high road / but the baseness in the heart.
One as unique person; or example of universal principle, human as animal, alive; high and low as base -- the baseline start -- or whatever it is in the heart that is not loftly...
As with Celan's Corona -- crown, or arrangement of petals, or flames of the sun,
Who is friend: man and leaf? or man and autumn? The WE that allows us to shell time, return it to its shell -- the beauty of a word that is both noun and verb,
the one the evidence of what is left; the other the act of dispensing with what holds what will be left. Just as a day of the week can be seen in the mirror,
and the sense that much more is mirrored... we check -- are you male? female?
what dark words are exchanged? This inner being shared, on view -- an invitation to know that it is time for a stone to be as flower, unrest to have a heart, that it is time for time to be. One can almost translate the last sentence, "such is time."
One word, many meanings -- so it is with Ruth Stone's "Shapes" -- as noun,
a plurality of form -- but what is the shape of hands, what is the completion of a moment in a film, one line of a poem, a sketch -- in that pause in space, "a violent compression of meaning/ in an instant within the meaningless." Again, the lack of certainly in the outline, the blur -- the just out of sight -- and accepting it.
And what stories do we tell? What do we write to each other at Christmas? The news of births, deaths, some travel, the small pieces that mark a month in a way our mind wants to remember... And then, perhaps an idea of a man coming to the country to bargain for trees... and the idea of taking a tree at three cents, to send to a dollar friend...
It is hopeful to hear someone like Wendell Berry note that even on the heels of justified despair at the waste we've made of the world, we can still find "angels of the thicket" -- unaccountable happiness -- "the way it turns up like a prodigal/who comes back to the dust at your feet/ -- or the uncle you never knew about, who flies a single-engine plane onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes into town and inquires at every door until he finds you asleep midafternoon...
it even comes to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
Winter Night, Christmas Circular letter, Sabbaths, Shapes, White Morning, Corona, Bread Boy, Enemies, Stifled.
Without knowing the "stakes" of the poem -- without knowing the discovery the poet shares with the reader, it would look like each title announces an aspect of the Christmas season, even "Stifled", written by "anonymous" as a summary of political frustrations in congress. It reminds me of all the flavors of Christmas notes --
the cousin who comments on world affairs, the missionary who comments on spiritual work; the weather reports, family measurements, or the philosophers who note human behavior and the natural world.
Sarton captures a prayer-like feeling with an Antiphon -- as if birch trees in winter under starlight call for a different kind of radiance than what we expect with dawn.
How does this relate to "preparing for a new year" and the familiar call to "prepare for a re-birth"? There's "no telling" -- "who can say that darkness falls" ?
I love the way Sarton captures mystery -- the way W.S. Merwin in White Morning
loops us into an end of summer in the pasture rich with vetch, velvet of wild thyme and straggling eglantine -- leading us, without any punctuation or guideline through an "age of mist" to the sound of crows in white air, "their wings dripping"...
and whether it is the lights breaking in their tongues, or the cold, and this sense of stories that mainly have to do with vanishing.
So this magic of waiting, this intimacy of being, ensconced in a whiteness Merwin is generous enough to share with the reader -- the "I" not appearing until the 9th line, but then so present, up to the penultimate line, "with friends in the shade they have all disappeared/ most of the stories have to do with vanishing.
As Jim says, "so this nature opening up the mind bit -- how did that work out for you?"
The same with Dante Micheaux's poem, "Enemies -- in the sunlight, they, or you, become invisible... and the rich line: "Remember what makes one human, / animal, is not the high road / but the baseness in the heart.
One as unique person; or example of universal principle, human as animal, alive; high and low as base -- the baseline start -- or whatever it is in the heart that is not loftly...
As with Celan's Corona -- crown, or arrangement of petals, or flames of the sun,
Who is friend: man and leaf? or man and autumn? The WE that allows us to shell time, return it to its shell -- the beauty of a word that is both noun and verb,
the one the evidence of what is left; the other the act of dispensing with what holds what will be left. Just as a day of the week can be seen in the mirror,
and the sense that much more is mirrored... we check -- are you male? female?
what dark words are exchanged? This inner being shared, on view -- an invitation to know that it is time for a stone to be as flower, unrest to have a heart, that it is time for time to be. One can almost translate the last sentence, "such is time."
One word, many meanings -- so it is with Ruth Stone's "Shapes" -- as noun,
a plurality of form -- but what is the shape of hands, what is the completion of a moment in a film, one line of a poem, a sketch -- in that pause in space, "a violent compression of meaning/ in an instant within the meaningless." Again, the lack of certainly in the outline, the blur -- the just out of sight -- and accepting it.
And what stories do we tell? What do we write to each other at Christmas? The news of births, deaths, some travel, the small pieces that mark a month in a way our mind wants to remember... And then, perhaps an idea of a man coming to the country to bargain for trees... and the idea of taking a tree at three cents, to send to a dollar friend...
It is hopeful to hear someone like Wendell Berry note that even on the heels of justified despair at the waste we've made of the world, we can still find "angels of the thicket" -- unaccountable happiness -- "the way it turns up like a prodigal/who comes back to the dust at your feet/ -- or the uncle you never knew about, who flies a single-engine plane onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes into town and inquires at every door until he finds you asleep midafternoon...
it even comes to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Poems on Poet Walk - Nov. 30 Ashbery, Brooks, Carruth + Nye
Why do we pick a poem? Would we pick the same poem at a different time? Have you ever wondered why you liked something in one way, at one time, then changed your mind? or discovered something new that intriguedyou in a different way, or made you dismiss what originally attracted you? What goes into our “selection” and “appreciation process”?
ABC: Ashbery's "North Farm" is accessible and yet, addresses a subject as complex as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. What is the nature of our desire for more than we think we have, (or don't have) and desire for what we think we need? The opening of this 14 line poem, "Somewhere someone is..." starts in an indefinite sense of space, hurtles the verb "travel" forward with the adverb "furiously", and whizzes through blizzards, heat, torrents, to a three-part question on the 3rd line. "But will he know where to find you, recognize you, give you the thing he has for you"?
Concurrent is the sense of gratitude, that in spite of hard conditions, there is enough. Bursting sacks, streams filled with sweetness, and the ominous detail: "birds darken the sky". The final question pivots with "is it enough" with different extensions: a dish set out at night, but is it enough as well, that we think of him sometimes (like the somewhere) but also "sometimes and always, with mixed feelings."
The repetition of "you" as the last word of 4 lines, the lower case h for twice-mentioned "he" and him, the singular use of "we" reinforce a sense of the understood, targeted "you", a hidden, mysterious "he" and a sense of relief to be included as reader in the "we" with mixed feelings.
Gwendolyn Brooks "a song in the front yard" read by Almeta Whitis on the eventual "cell phone tour" plays with time, so that the voice can be speaking as young girl, or grown up "bad" woman. The flat rhyme of the last two lines of each quatrain
is just enough to be enjoyable, especially with uneven line length.
The adjectives: hungry, (on the same line as rough, untended)
charity children, brave stockings add texture, setting up the "front yard" appearance with the allure of "back yard". In a way, the poem seems to be more a portrait of a judgmental mother who is missing out on knowing the many sides of her daughter. Why the title of "song"? Perhaps because a song can express yearning, sing the blues, tell the story like ballad, and rise up to carry beyond the parameters of the front yard, where it starts out.
The Cows at Night -- we have discussed before -- but Maura brought us the link
of the trumpet and tuba calling in the cows -- who will come home even without "When the Saints go Marching in" -- but what fun!
The enjambments allow a pause for phrases to sink in on the line they leave,
as well as carry the meaning to the next word.
leaving for light / faint stars
through the mist / of mountain-dark
sad / and beautiful (sad is repeated as end word, mid-word and first word)
The delight of seeing: I saw / the cows.
(great breathings)
how/
could I explain / anything.
We discussed the last line -- what would happen if it were omitted:
And then / very gently it began to rain. It helps soften the sense of being caught in a moment, a sadness, not knowing what to do, yet not wanting to leave.
We ended with Naomi Shihab Nye's "Shoulders". (Also read at UR Library Dec. 7)
list of poems sent:
North Farm: Ashbery
A song in the front yard : Brooks
The Cows at Night: Carruth
May my heart always be open to little -- ee cummings (not discussed)
Shoulders -- Naomi Shihab Nye
It Wasn't the Wind: Linda Allardt (not discussed)
A Woman and Her Dog : Stephen Lewandowski (not discussed)
ABC: Ashbery's "North Farm" is accessible and yet, addresses a subject as complex as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. What is the nature of our desire for more than we think we have, (or don't have) and desire for what we think we need? The opening of this 14 line poem, "Somewhere someone is..." starts in an indefinite sense of space, hurtles the verb "travel" forward with the adverb "furiously", and whizzes through blizzards, heat, torrents, to a three-part question on the 3rd line. "But will he know where to find you, recognize you, give you the thing he has for you"?
Concurrent is the sense of gratitude, that in spite of hard conditions, there is enough. Bursting sacks, streams filled with sweetness, and the ominous detail: "birds darken the sky". The final question pivots with "is it enough" with different extensions: a dish set out at night, but is it enough as well, that we think of him sometimes (like the somewhere) but also "sometimes and always, with mixed feelings."
The repetition of "you" as the last word of 4 lines, the lower case h for twice-mentioned "he" and him, the singular use of "we" reinforce a sense of the understood, targeted "you", a hidden, mysterious "he" and a sense of relief to be included as reader in the "we" with mixed feelings.
Gwendolyn Brooks "a song in the front yard" read by Almeta Whitis on the eventual "cell phone tour" plays with time, so that the voice can be speaking as young girl, or grown up "bad" woman. The flat rhyme of the last two lines of each quatrain
is just enough to be enjoyable, especially with uneven line length.
The adjectives: hungry, (on the same line as rough, untended)
charity children, brave stockings add texture, setting up the "front yard" appearance with the allure of "back yard". In a way, the poem seems to be more a portrait of a judgmental mother who is missing out on knowing the many sides of her daughter. Why the title of "song"? Perhaps because a song can express yearning, sing the blues, tell the story like ballad, and rise up to carry beyond the parameters of the front yard, where it starts out.
The Cows at Night -- we have discussed before -- but Maura brought us the link
of the trumpet and tuba calling in the cows -- who will come home even without "When the Saints go Marching in" -- but what fun!
The enjambments allow a pause for phrases to sink in on the line they leave,
as well as carry the meaning to the next word.
leaving for light / faint stars
through the mist / of mountain-dark
sad / and beautiful (sad is repeated as end word, mid-word and first word)
The delight of seeing: I saw / the cows.
(great breathings)
how/
could I explain / anything.
We discussed the last line -- what would happen if it were omitted:
And then / very gently it began to rain. It helps soften the sense of being caught in a moment, a sadness, not knowing what to do, yet not wanting to leave.
We ended with Naomi Shihab Nye's "Shoulders". (Also read at UR Library Dec. 7)
list of poems sent:
North Farm: Ashbery
A song in the front yard : Brooks
The Cows at Night: Carruth
May my heart always be open to little -- ee cummings (not discussed)
Shoulders -- Naomi Shihab Nye
It Wasn't the Wind: Linda Allardt (not discussed)
A Woman and Her Dog : Stephen Lewandowski (not discussed)
Dec. 8 Bly, Howe, and Ginosko
Thanks John, Noel, Jen, Joyce for the good discussion yesterday.
Everyone: Here are the names of the poets for the first two:
Tightening the Cinch: Robert Bly
What the Living Do: Marie Howe — both the title of her book, and the title poem.
How do we deal with loss and remain "engaged"? What strikes us — what in our daily-ness makes us yearn "for this to last"? I love that "neighboured" is a verb — reminding us of our shared humanity.
John's summary seemed perfect.
Bly shared a sense of angst, Howe, a sense of yearning; "Elegy" by Ben Howard had a warm sweetness to it; Wendell Berry offered a little mini-sermon on the importance of reverence; and Ann Carson, a perfect epitaph which embraces our being — it reminds me of Taoist — thought to word, to action, to habit…
And brings us back to examining "thought". She understands our perception of being "scattered" -- pins it without commanding us, like Bly to "hold on" -- rather life is held gently in parentheses (this simple thing.)
Here is a term Robinson Jeffers (mentioned in Bly's poem) coined. Look how powerfully, he translated his thought to word.
"Jeffers coined the phrase inhumanism, the belief that mankind is too self-centered and too indifferent to the "astonishing beauty of things." It offers a reasonable detachment as rule of conduct, instead of love, hate and envy.... it provides magnificence for the religious instinct, and satisfies our need to admire greatness and rejoice in beauty." (from wiki)
Thank you all for the rich sharing! I look forward to next week!
Best,
Kitty
PS. Noel — thank you for the 10 questions posed to John Ashbery! He answers with his signature aplomb and wit without pretension! His answer to "Do you think about death": "I've never thought about it. There are not that many things to write poetry about. There's love and there's death and time passing and the weather outside, which is horrible today. I'm so glad I'm not writing poetry today. The weather gets to me when I write.
PPS to myself: Ginosko: from Greek. To know.
Everyone: Here are the names of the poets for the first two:
Tightening the Cinch: Robert Bly
What the Living Do: Marie Howe — both the title of her book, and the title poem.
How do we deal with loss and remain "engaged"? What strikes us — what in our daily-ness makes us yearn "for this to last"? I love that "neighboured" is a verb — reminding us of our shared humanity.
John's summary seemed perfect.
Bly shared a sense of angst, Howe, a sense of yearning; "Elegy" by Ben Howard had a warm sweetness to it; Wendell Berry offered a little mini-sermon on the importance of reverence; and Ann Carson, a perfect epitaph which embraces our being — it reminds me of Taoist — thought to word, to action, to habit…
And brings us back to examining "thought". She understands our perception of being "scattered" -- pins it without commanding us, like Bly to "hold on" -- rather life is held gently in parentheses (this simple thing.)
Here is a term Robinson Jeffers (mentioned in Bly's poem) coined. Look how powerfully, he translated his thought to word.
"Jeffers coined the phrase inhumanism, the belief that mankind is too self-centered and too indifferent to the "astonishing beauty of things." It offers a reasonable detachment as rule of conduct, instead of love, hate and envy.... it provides magnificence for the religious instinct, and satisfies our need to admire greatness and rejoice in beauty." (from wiki)
Thank you all for the rich sharing! I look forward to next week!
Best,
Kitty
PS. Noel — thank you for the 10 questions posed to John Ashbery! He answers with his signature aplomb and wit without pretension! His answer to "Do you think about death": "I've never thought about it. There are not that many things to write poetry about. There's love and there's death and time passing and the weather outside, which is horrible today. I'm so glad I'm not writing poetry today. The weather gets to me when I write.
PPS to myself: Ginosko: from Greek. To know.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Poems for St. Nicholas Day -- 5 carols selected by Duffy
Poems for December 6 –
The Bee Carol -- Carol Ann Duffy
Hark – by John Agard
Mumbai Kissmiss by Imtiaz Dharker
Slowed Down Blackbird by Alice Oswald
The Passion of the Holly (air: The Sans Day Carol* see links below) by Ian Duhig
+ links + stories!
Carols according to the 1928 edition of The Oxford Book of Carols, are 'simple, hilarious, popular and modern'. They are a kind of folk song where direct poetry and accessible music eagerly meet. The oldest of our carols date from the 15th century and 'give voice to the common emotions of healthy people in language that can be understood'. British Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy
The Bee Carol:
Rhyme, just enough, with slant rhymes, the bright ee sound of Eve, key, bee,
silver frieze/freeze -- both a way to preserve - and the tension of what is (and isn't or won't be) leave/believe; the short i sound in shivering winter, gift, cling, flightless, lengthens to the long silent hive...
Who would think of bees at Christmas in the cold... the queen protected by the faithful... like a ghazal, instead of a couplet, each quatrain ending with "winter cluster of the bees" (except the/ within the/ feed / bless the)
and a rethinking of "gift". Playful, yet poignant.
Hark -- with no exclamation point -- harkens on puns, rich alliteration and lilts with yuletide vocabulary -- mince pies turn into "don't mince" on pies, rhyming with "gourmandize" just as stock up, stockings and crack up, crackers and lithe "l"s link
telly, legless, feel, trolley.
Slowed Down Blackbird:
Amazing poem using the eye to key into capital letters, a bit like reading German with nouns benefiting from the majesty of uppercase, but more than that. Upper case makes for a line-break feel, midline, but stop/start; how do you understand "The Slow is settling Stillness is afloat"
The slow is settling stillness;
afloat
It makes you think about punctuation, the placement of words;
Rhyme through out but sneaky: wind/behind (eye rhyme) snuggled between hedge/edge
afloat/note; but no sandwich rhyme.
leaves/breathes/grieves: for the stanza starting with "awkward things"
slant rhyme of underfoot
Snow substitutes it's N for L, so some might think, "no" for "lo" in the Winter season... and the first line sounds like the beatles Blackbird.
Slowed down, by capital S: seven "Slow", one Slowy, and Slowed in the title;
two "Stillness" and "Storm" ; one sky; one Now as the final word.
The Passion of the Holly takes the "Sans Day Carol"
changes milk to bone; silk to gone.
The black as coal, links to miners, who give daylight their living to make,
sacrified more when the holly wore black.
singing from he grave; you can hear us b/c we are singing of love.
Not quite rhyme vs. the original.
The stories associated w/ the Carol, the strength of the singing, the maintenance of
Cornish and parts of Great Britain which speak other than Queen's English; the strength of one Manchester teacher who had her 8 year old charges sing for 20 minutes, for just a moment, allowing them to be children, even the bullies,
and to drop the mask necessary to survive fear, violence.
Heartening.
Fun day of sharing!
The Bee Carol -- Carol Ann Duffy
Hark – by John Agard
Mumbai Kissmiss by Imtiaz Dharker
Slowed Down Blackbird by Alice Oswald
The Passion of the Holly (air: The Sans Day Carol* see links below) by Ian Duhig
+ links + stories!
Carols according to the 1928 edition of The Oxford Book of Carols, are 'simple, hilarious, popular and modern'. They are a kind of folk song where direct poetry and accessible music eagerly meet. The oldest of our carols date from the 15th century and 'give voice to the common emotions of healthy people in language that can be understood'. British Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy
The Bee Carol:
Rhyme, just enough, with slant rhymes, the bright ee sound of Eve, key, bee,
silver frieze/freeze -- both a way to preserve - and the tension of what is (and isn't or won't be) leave/believe; the short i sound in shivering winter, gift, cling, flightless, lengthens to the long silent hive...
Who would think of bees at Christmas in the cold... the queen protected by the faithful... like a ghazal, instead of a couplet, each quatrain ending with "winter cluster of the bees" (except the/ within the/ feed / bless the)
and a rethinking of "gift". Playful, yet poignant.
Hark -- with no exclamation point -- harkens on puns, rich alliteration and lilts with yuletide vocabulary -- mince pies turn into "don't mince" on pies, rhyming with "gourmandize" just as stock up, stockings and crack up, crackers and lithe "l"s link
telly, legless, feel, trolley.
Slowed Down Blackbird:
Amazing poem using the eye to key into capital letters, a bit like reading German with nouns benefiting from the majesty of uppercase, but more than that. Upper case makes for a line-break feel, midline, but stop/start; how do you understand "The Slow is settling Stillness is afloat"
The slow is settling stillness;
afloat
It makes you think about punctuation, the placement of words;
Rhyme through out but sneaky: wind/behind (eye rhyme) snuggled between hedge/edge
afloat/note; but no sandwich rhyme.
leaves/breathes/grieves: for the stanza starting with "awkward things"
slant rhyme of underfoot
Snow substitutes it's N for L, so some might think, "no" for "lo" in the Winter season... and the first line sounds like the beatles Blackbird.
Slowed down, by capital S: seven "Slow", one Slowy, and Slowed in the title;
two "Stillness" and "Storm" ; one sky; one Now as the final word.
The Passion of the Holly takes the "Sans Day Carol"
changes milk to bone; silk to gone.
The black as coal, links to miners, who give daylight their living to make,
sacrified more when the holly wore black.
singing from he grave; you can hear us b/c we are singing of love.
Not quite rhyme vs. the original.
The stories associated w/ the Carol, the strength of the singing, the maintenance of
Cornish and parts of Great Britain which speak other than Queen's English; the strength of one Manchester teacher who had her 8 year old charges sing for 20 minutes, for just a moment, allowing them to be children, even the bullies,
and to drop the mask necessary to survive fear, violence.
Heartening.
Fun day of sharing!
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