Orion

Orion strides

high above street lights

in the city

walk through Prospect Park

last year’s leaves

hang slanted on the tree

prevailing  west wind

cyclists rush by

loud in conversation

next year le tour?

digging in leaf litter

american robin cocks its head

hears camera-beeps

mallards paddle

near lake shore

Canada geese march

amended haiku

This is a combo of two previous -

daffodils

on last fall’s leaves

crow moon

International Women's Day

Waterproof coat
tied round waist
cautious idiot

(spring-like warmth - I couldn't trust it)

the bridge joins
boroughs
and women today

(http://www.joinmeonthebridge.org)

8.3.12 I watched the rather small march across Brooklyn Bridge today.

supermarket shop

weekly shopping

in a different country

is exotic

A beautiful building - once a bank.

moon, stars, lights

Tonight a full moon

hides the stars even better

than city light.

Full crow moon

cawings herald

end of winter

Prospect Park haiku

Prospect Park's bare trees
standing in last fall's leaves
daffodils

before the school walk . . . haiku

before the school walk
we fly through space with
Obi-wan Kenobi

more haiku

(near Greenwood cemetery)

garden near graveyard

snowdrops and gnomes and

“happiness blooms”

landscaped garden 

massive dwellings on the hill

for the dead

from a Brooklyn hill

see a hand raised in greeting

liberty’s statue

(in Barnes and Noble)

so many people

laptop for company

in book shop café

haiku for a traveller

1.3.12

chasing evening light

flying towards the flaming west

a four hour sunset

later changed to:
flying west
following daylight - 
four hour sunset

2.3.12

a sleeper wakes
body clock says half past eight
real time three thirty


3.3.12

here rain and grey skies
on Facebook sunshine

cup of tea please!

weekend ritual

walk, piano lesson

croissant and tiny toy

late afternoon sun

kids run, scoot and swing

we chat and shiver

waiting for dinner

email notification

of bright meteor

La Fontaine - Le Corbeau

        LE CORBEAU ET LE RENARD

       Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
           Tenait en son bec un fromage.
       Maître Renard, par l'odeur alléché,
           Lui tint à peu près ce langage :
       Et bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau,
    Que vous êtes joli ! que vous me semblez beau !
           Sans mentir, si votre ramage
           Se rapporte à votre plumage,
     Vous êtes le Phénix des hôtes de ces bois.

À ces mots le Corbeau ne se sent pas de joie,
           Et pour montrer sa belle voix,
   Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie.
   Le Renard s'en saisit, et dit : Mon bon Monsieur,
              Apprenez que tout flatteur
     Vit aux dépens de celui qui l'écoute.
   Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage sans doute.
           Le Corbeau honteux et confus
   Jura, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne l'y prendrait plus.

London Snow - Robert Bridges

London Snow by Robert Bridges

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,

In large white flakes falling on the city brown,

Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,

Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;

Hiding difference, making unevenness even,

Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

All night it fell, and when full inches seven

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,

The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;

And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness

Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:

The eye marvelled - marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;

The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;

No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,

And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;

Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder!'

'O look at the trees!' they cried, 'O look at the trees!'

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,

Following along the white deserted way,

A country company long dispersed asunder:

When now already the sun, in pale display

Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;

And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,

Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:

But even for them awhile no cares encumber

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken. A poem which came to the mind of one of my walking companions today as we trudged through old snow towards Rockingham.  From poems about woods, to snowy woods, and on to snow in London . . .

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening - Robert Frost

Another poem about woodands - and very appropriate for today - snow on the ground.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Kipling - The Way through the Woods

They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods  Before they planted the trees. It is underneath the coppice and heath, And the thin anemones. Only the keeper sees That, where the ring-dove broods, And the badgers roll at ease, There was once a road through the woods. Yet, if you enter the woods Of a summer evening late, When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools Where the otter whistles his mate. (They fear not men in the woods, Because they see so few) You will hear the beat of a horse's feet, And the swish of a skirt in the dew, Steadily cantering through The misty solitudes, As though they perfectly knew The old lost road through the woods. . . . But there is no road through the woods. I'm posting this because we walked through the woods, and couldn't remember who wrote the poem.  I thought it was de la Mare - it has something of the feel of Walter de la Mare - The Listeners - "Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grass Of the forest's ferny floor; And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller's head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; "Is there anybody there?" he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:-- "Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word," he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.  and Robert Frost - The Road not taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Some people have refused honours

Here's a list from the Guardian. Includes Henry Moore, LS Lowry and others.

Curmudgeonly egalitarian speaks out . . New Year Honours - Why?

I'm quoting George Orwell here, from 1944 - and still we have the system.

"Looking through the photographs in the New Year's Honours List, I am struck (as usual) by the quite exceptional ugliness and vulgarity of the faces displayed there. It seems to be almost the rule that the kind of person who earns the right to call himself Lord Percy de Falcontowers should look at best like an overfed publican and at worst like a tax-collector with a duodenal ulcer... "...When you remember that nearly the whole of the rest of the world has dropped it, it does seem strange to see this flummery still continuing in England, a country in which the very notion of aristocracy perished hundreds of years ago. The race-difference on which aristocratic rule is usually founded had disappeared from England by the end of the Middle Ages, and the concept of "blue blood" as something valuable in itself, and independent of money, was vanishing in the age of Elizabeth. Since then we have been a plutocracy plain and simple. Yet we still make spasmodic efforts to dress ourselves in the colours of medieval feudalism. "Think of the Herald's Office solemnly faking pedigrees and inventing coats of arms with mermaids and unicorns couchant, regardant and what-not, for company directors in bowler hats and striped trousers! What I like best is the careful grading by which the honours are always dished out in direct proportion to the amount of mischief done: baronies for Big Business, baronetcies for fashionable surgeons, knighthoods for tame professors. But do these people imagine that by calling themselves lords, knights and so forth they somehow come to have something in common with the medieval aristocracy? Does Sir Walter Citrine, say, feel himself to be rather the same kind of person as Childe Roland (Childe Citrine to the dark tower came!), or is Lord Nuffield under the impression that we shall mistake him for a crusader in chain-armour? "However, this honours-list business has one severely practical aspect, and that is that a title is a first-class alias. Mr X can practically cancel his past by turning himself into Lord Y. Some of the ministerial appointments that have been made during this war would hardly have been possible without some such disguise. As Tom Paine put it: "These people change their names so often that it is as hard to know them as it is to know thieves.""

- 'As I Please', Tribune, 07/01/44.

The whole caboodle makes me cringe and I hate it when people I respect accept honours - the latest being David Hockney, who receives the Order of Merit.  OK, not a knighthood, but why does he need it - we surely know how good his work is, and he has made plenty of money.  I love his early drawings and his prints of California and Yorkshire.  And I admire his capacity for work.

I may be an egalitarian curmudgeon - well, not maybe -  I am, of course.


Well, bugger my boots, I hadn't remembered he'd refused a knighthood in 1990.
Graun article

Great use of Twitter

I love this idea.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-16332930

Redwing on the holly

But no camera to hand, and couldn't bear to move while it was there in view. Lovely creature, like a thrush, but smaller, and with red under the wings, clearly visible when it fluttered to keep its balance and grab the berries on the ends of branches. Not many berries left, though.  I checked the other bush, and almost missed the goldfinches on the feeder.

Higgs-Boson joke

at several hands' distance via facebook

 Higgs Boson walks into a Catholic Church. Priest says 'What are you doing here?'. Higgs replied 'You can't have Mass without me'

Pendle Hill story

I'm noting this link - as a rationalist, I think one thing - as an enthusiast of dark stories . . .

A link to synch with idiosyncracy

Too good to  miss - too long to copy - click on title or click here  - the vagaries of English orthographical diversity.

More family stuff - baby brother is 60!

A few pics from the party at the White Hart in Duffield last weekend. I didn't get any decent ones when it was dark and dance-time.

Poetry and Science

Excellent short article by Ruth Padel.

My thoughts for what they're worth - 

Seeing the full moon in a clear sky on a cold night like last night can take the mind on a journey both poetic and scientific. I think the urges to understand and to express mystery have the same source - our endless curiosity and need to communicate and speculate.

Visit to Leeds, and Abbey House Museum

An afternoon with Rose in the (Kirkstall) Abbey House Museum, where the toys kept her occupied for a good two hours on a wet and blustery afternoon.
Then I realised I hadn't taken any pics of Isaac, since he'd been at school all day, so here's one taken next morning.

Guinness cake

I made two of these 'pre-Christmas' cakes today.  Slightly altered recipe - no mixed peel, but currants instead.  Not bad considering I bought the ingredients from memory.

La Belle Dame sans Merci

I didn't know this Keats poem was based on a 1424 French poem by Alain Chartier La Belle Dame sans Mercy.


There's an interesting article on the poem and on Keats.

Full text

Festival of Christmas lights

I spotted my first house decorated for Christmas, and illuminated, on the evening of November 30th.  At the bottom of Rockingham Hill.

Eilidh goes skating

Harry's pencil drawing of Eilidh on her new roller skates.

An anecdote about translation

Confession time - I haven't yet read the article, but I couldn't resist passing on this little story from the comments beneath it.  I don't care if it's true or not, and I'm sure there are just as many rushed and stressed Irish and Spanish people as there are laid-back English and Americans:

The Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, and a Spanish professor were on the radio  discussing translation.  In order to illustrate his point about translations  failing to carry  the finer nuances of words,  the Spanish professor asked,

"For instance, in Irish, is there any word which means the same as "mañana"?


"Indeed," replied Kavanagh,"we have several words in Irish that mean the same as "mañana". None of them, however, carry quite the same sense of urgency!"

Kiddy art - just for fun

Leonie posted one of Eilidh's pictures on Facebook.

She claims that all she did at primary school was stick beans and macaroni on paper plates!  Not so, Leo! Though this was done at home, as far as I remember.

Prison's great for lapwings

I'm not sure what the story says about modern farming methods.

The reason the lapwings ended up in prison is the ground, which is flat with short grass, rich with other plant species, and holds plenty of insects for the growing chicks to eat. Lapwings nest on the ground, and the open, flat spaces allow them to spot would-be predators. The land has never been reseeded, fertilised or treated with chemicals.
Because it is an area where no humans tread, it is also free from people who would disturb the birds' new home, the Prison Service adds.

Good luck to them, and whoooo knows, they may do the prisoners some good?

People thinking

Two links from the BBC website magazine - both written by people who think . . . both hidden away under A Point of View.  I spotted them today, and the Self one was published in late October.
Will Self on euphemism and warfare

Mary Beard on tyrants

Goldfinch

I know they're not rare, but until this year we've hardly ever seen any on our feeders.

Taken through the kitchen window, and enlarged from the original, so definition not all it could be, but it's a start!

Day in Leicester

I

Yesterday, we hit the nearby city.  After the ritual of coffee and blueberry muffin, and the essential purchase of shoes and trousers, I wandered around, amusing myself by playing with (a few) of the camera settings.

I only wish I could understand the blog settings and get things to sit on the page where I want them!

Still and all, I more or less find my way round Leicester city centre these days - it hasn't played that disorienting street swivel trick on me for a while.

And finally, lunch in the museum cafe and a browse around the dinosaur fossils exhibition.

London aquarium visit - 2

London aquarium visit

j

This drinking lark is a serious business!

I love the patterns on the rays.

St Medard(us) , Little Bytham

The name on the church struck me as we drove through Little Bytham last Friday. I have never seen it in England before:

The church is a Grade I listed building. It is dedicated to two 6th-century French saints, St Medard and St Gildard (or Medardus and Gildardus); the dedication is unique in the UK. Virtually unknown in Britain, St Medard is still well-known in France, with at least 25 towns or villages named after him (as St Médard or St Méard).^[2] Gildard, thought to be his brother, is less well known.^[3] The villagefête is held annually on or near St Medard's feast day, 8 June.

St Médard is particularly known in France for his association with bad weather - and once, as a child, was protected from rain by an eagle which hovered over him.

His feast day is celebrated on June 8. It is believed that, as with Saint Swithun, whatever the weather on his feast day, it will continue for the forty days following, unless the weather changes on the feast of St Barnabas (11 June).

One day, soon, I shall make time to visit the village, which was once a railway junction. The East Coast mainline trains still run through on a viaduct.

and talking of weather . . . Brooklyn's had a foretaste of winter.