Our children are our legends.
You are mine. You have our name.
My hair was once like yours.
And the world
is less bitter to me
because you will retell the story.
From Legends
Eavan Boland
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Dedication
Many years ago (over a half-century now) in the town of Papeete on the island of Tahiti, there lived a man who managed to survive by constantly scavenging garbage cans and piles of refuse and street gutters. His features were asian, but no one seemed to know where he had been born, where he had come from. No one knew his true name. He rarely spoke, and then only to himself. He concentrated entirely on his work, his face locked in a grimace.
One day four young boys, began following him, keeping their distance, but never letting him out of their sight. Soon they began making fun of him and what he did, joking that he probably ate the garbage and all kinds of other horrible tasting stuff, and how stupid he was for doing that. They said these things often, not caring if he heard them because they knew he couldn’t understand them. They named him Chik Chak, yelling it at him as if he were a dog to be trained to recognize it. Sometimes they chanted it as they followed him, and once in awhile he stared back over a shoulder at them and anger distorted his face. Off and on for months they shadowed him.
Then one day they left the island, never to return. They rarely spoke of the man and what they had done to him, and when they did it was only another memory from their childhoods, nothing special.
I was one of those boys.
I will continue to ask his forgiveness for the rest of my life. The Legions In the Mud posts are dedicated to him, to all those held in slums and pits and dumps, ridiculed and forgotten.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Indispensable
Anyone who uses a bicycle as their primary transportation quickly understands that constant and unflagging awareness of their surroundings on whatever kind of road they're using is key to their survival. And while the need for protection in the form of helmets is pretty much indisputable, I will maintain that another item – especially a particular variant of it – is just as valuable.
This bit of genius is the Take-a-Look Mirror from Bike Peddler. It can be fastened to a helmet or glasses. If using the latter, flat-sided stems provide the easiest fit, but round work as well. I've used one of these for years (literally one – I've never had to repair or replace it), and I cannot overemphasize how valuable it's been. It can be adjusted to give you precisely the angle you need to keep an eye on the traffic behind you. While it does take some trial-and-error to get that angle right, it doesn't take long, and re-setting it (not something you have to do often) is easy, since vibration from riding doesn't jiggle the mirror out of its setting. The acrylic mirror allows you to see details clearly at well more than a hundred yards distant. Best of all, this mirror allows you to dart your gaze at it for only an instant to see what you need to before turning back to the road ahead.
Available in many bike shops as well as online, it sells for fifteen to twenty dollars.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Poetic Observations • 8
. . .
The cottage had lost its roof long since and it was filled tight with lilac, not yet in bloom, while nettle and elder had overwhelmed the outbuilding behind; but there was still a stone bench by the door, and Stephen sat upon it, leaning against the wall. Down here in the hollow the night had not yet yielded, and there was still a green twilight. An ancient wood: the slope was too great and the ground too broken for it ever to have been cut or tended and the trees were still part of the primaeval forest; vast shapeless oaks, often hollow and useless for timber, held out their arms and their young fresh green leaves almost to the middle of the clearing, held them out with never a tremor, for down here the air was so still that gossamer floated with no perceptible movement at all. Still and silent: although far-off blackbirds could be heard away on the edge of the wood and although the stream at the bottom murmured perpetually the combe was filled with a living silence.
. . .
From The Reverse of the Medal
Patrick O'Brian
The cottage had lost its roof long since and it was filled tight with lilac, not yet in bloom, while nettle and elder had overwhelmed the outbuilding behind; but there was still a stone bench by the door, and Stephen sat upon it, leaning against the wall. Down here in the hollow the night had not yet yielded, and there was still a green twilight. An ancient wood: the slope was too great and the ground too broken for it ever to have been cut or tended and the trees were still part of the primaeval forest; vast shapeless oaks, often hollow and useless for timber, held out their arms and their young fresh green leaves almost to the middle of the clearing, held them out with never a tremor, for down here the air was so still that gossamer floated with no perceptible movement at all. Still and silent: although far-off blackbirds could be heard away on the edge of the wood and although the stream at the bottom murmured perpetually the combe was filled with a living silence.
. . .
From The Reverse of the Medal
Patrick O'Brian
Saturday, May 21, 2016
'Hold the harvest!'
Land. A piece of land, even one so small as to be regarded with contempt by rulers and their lackeys, remains something desperately hoped for by millions of people. Beaten down for trying to acquire and hold it, tricked out of their possession of it, they will ever persist in their struggles, no matter where they live or who they are called. This has gone on for thousands of years.
In the late 1800s, the Irish formed the Land League, and fought for their right to control and own the ground upon which they were born and lived and died. The poem excerpted below, appeared around the world, and inspired many others in like efforts.
. . .
Oh by the God who made us all, the seigneur and the serf,
Rise up and swear this day to hold your own green Irish turf.
Rise up and plant your feet as men where now you crawl as slaves,
And make your harvest fields your camp, or make of them your graves.
. . .
From Hold the Harvest!
Fanny Parnell
In the late 1800s, the Irish formed the Land League, and fought for their right to control and own the ground upon which they were born and lived and died. The poem excerpted below, appeared around the world, and inspired many others in like efforts.
. . .
Oh by the God who made us all, the seigneur and the serf,
Rise up and swear this day to hold your own green Irish turf.
Rise up and plant your feet as men where now you crawl as slaves,
And make your harvest fields your camp, or make of them your graves.
. . .
From Hold the Harvest!
Fanny Parnell
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Places From the Past • 1957
The Mechanics' Institute Library. Founded in 1854, and still a working library. My father showed it to me when I was nine. I got a card there and when we went into the city he dropped me off there while he did errands. Inside were spiral staircases leading to the stacks - thousands of hardcover books on subjects that would provide an excellent education for those left in the wake of the Gold Rush, for all the sons and daughters of the working class. Chess has been played there since it opened, and I was fascinated by the mysteries of the game, and the classic typography and illustrations and design of so many books that were no longer being published. It was like finding a trove of buried treasure that reinforced my desire to read everything possible.
I urge you to visit it, both for it's historical and cultural significance, and in recognition of the fine work done by its staff.
57 Post Street
San Francisco
California
I urge you to visit it, both for it's historical and cultural significance, and in recognition of the fine work done by its staff.
57 Post Street
San Francisco
California
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Fool's Hope
For Marcus Wynne
It was the doors that constantly reminded him. The windows, they were so few and never to be opened anyway, and what was there to see? Walls of rock all the way ’round and nothing growing on them and so high that the sun struggled to show itself above them. Nothing else, and be ever so grateful the Ultimate Fire had left that much. But doors, everywhere. All sizes, and every size too large. Some smooth-sided and others with panels carved enough to keep a blind man’s fingers dancing for a week; some left unpainted or even unvarnished and others heavy with the weight of jewels up and down and across, but all – every single one – with knob too high for him to ever reach. Thus he was reminded of his place compared to those around him, and of the singular fact that told all who he was: Barley the Fool, Court Jester to House Scalpa and Lord Ahdose ruling it, may He remain in favor with the gods. It was not the way he, Barley, thought of himself of course. No, he was Barley Oakfist, whose father in spite of many things claimed and denied was Kedge Oakfist, Sea Lord of the Western Deep, Captain-General of the Last Fleet and of the great harbor Portmadoc. There were landholds for farming; thick forests of trees still green standing in serried ranks up the sides of fjords to the north; lakes turned white with the thrashing of fish … all this his and his father’s. But he worked no land, did not harvest crops, never stood in the shade of trees, had no hope of taking fish on his hook – none of this, never being able to say: I hold this, as father before and son after, I hold this, I. What noble would say him equal? Whose high-born daughter would gladly take him to bed and dream not of another joining her body to what little there was of his? Father vanished and Fleet scattered as gulls before the white squalls, and Portmadoc enjoyed only by those who refused light to fall upon their pleasures. So Barley Oakfist he was only in his thoughts, and if anyone was waiting for him to behave otherwise, they would wait no longer than he, and if that was unfair, at least it made a kind of sense. Barley the Fool the Court Jester turned his attention to the work due that night, the clothes to be worn and the words to be said, and where to look and not to look, what to hear and not hear … all the matters that could earn him favor, the only kind of armor he was allowed to wear. Lord Ahdose would insist on a story, one with a lesson that could be employed to instruct his men in matters of loyalty and devotion to one’s master. Lady Ahdose would feign interest in her husband’s choice and then ask – in a tone of voice resembling that of a captain giving orders to a shield-wall – for something lighter: a comedic fable of the sort told by the wandering balladeers of Meda, or, perhaps, a parody of the members of the court. Barley shuddered. Performing for the Lady Ahdose was not unlike walking the plank across a bear-pit: one slip, one small misstep and your found yourself in the embrace of something dark, terrifying and extremely unpleasant. If Lord Ahdose did not immediately grasp the point of a story, at least he made some effort to reach forth and find it. The Lady would look as if she had been asked to submit her slender, perfect fingers to Yagdeef tattoo-picks, and then, if the offender was lucky, order banishment to the Nukaisa Moor. Usually though … assignment to the scrub-gang in the execution yard, rice husks and water only, and altogether much too soon burial in the vast shitpit outside the castle. It is the beginning of winter, Barley reminded himself. Wear the yellow— no the red, the red wool jerkin – wearing the yellow might invite Lady Ahdose to inquire into such delicate matters as the level of one’s personal courage, for instance. Striped trousers tucking into sheepskin boots, and a hat of … gold velvet? No, that had been given to him last spring by the Dalmatesse princeling who had loved the pirate stories. Lady Ahdose did not love, did not like, did not wish to even acknowledge pirate stories – so much for the gold velvet hat. Instead, the traditional fool’s cap, the idiot creation with the tinny tin bells dangling from the brim. Humiliating, but safe. Barley dressed slowly, carefully attending to every detail. He tried to think only of the coming performance. Windows did not matter, nor doors – not even the message received in the morning that his son, his tall, long-limbed handsome son who could barely bring himself to acknowledge his misshapen father, would be in the troop of Scalpa cavalry arriving at the castle on the morrow. Gossip from grooms and breakers at the stables had it that the cavalry was returning from the Headland Cliffs, three years service and most of their comrades left burnt on burial racks high above the ground. Peersun the Master of Horse had taught his son to write before the lad had actually volunteered for service, and had somehow received letters from his heir. Vivid accounting of brilliant sword-strokes and pistol-shots and timely dispatch of enemies by the young man, and only perfunctory mention that some had fallen. Sometimes the dead and maimed had been named, and as time passed and the butcher’s bill grew ever longer, Peersun no longer encountered volunteers, and respect for the King had turned sullen and reluctant. In his mind’s eye Barley saw his son ride onto the grounds of the castle, safe and whole. Oh gods let him smile at me with pride just once— The clang! of the Royal Secretary’s staff striking the polished bellstones in the Great Hall rolled and echoed through rooms and along corridors,and although the sound was muffled by the time it reached Barley’s ears, it made him twitch as if he had been struck by bolts from a Barrier eel. Time to go. Time to make his bows and smile and laugh and dance - and never ever a hint that his soul knew anger and grief. Barley the Fool the Court Jester walked to the door of his room and dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the dog-door in the panel of un-sanded wood. By the time he reached the Hall his flesh would be scraped and stinging, but that the dog-doors were there at all - that he was there at all - was considered accomodation enough, and reminded him that when he reached, he could be sure only of grasping his memories and dreams …
Fall, 1983 Revised 2015
It was the doors that constantly reminded him. The windows, they were so few and never to be opened anyway, and what was there to see? Walls of rock all the way ’round and nothing growing on them and so high that the sun struggled to show itself above them. Nothing else, and be ever so grateful the Ultimate Fire had left that much. But doors, everywhere. All sizes, and every size too large. Some smooth-sided and others with panels carved enough to keep a blind man’s fingers dancing for a week; some left unpainted or even unvarnished and others heavy with the weight of jewels up and down and across, but all – every single one – with knob too high for him to ever reach. Thus he was reminded of his place compared to those around him, and of the singular fact that told all who he was: Barley the Fool, Court Jester to House Scalpa and Lord Ahdose ruling it, may He remain in favor with the gods. It was not the way he, Barley, thought of himself of course. No, he was Barley Oakfist, whose father in spite of many things claimed and denied was Kedge Oakfist, Sea Lord of the Western Deep, Captain-General of the Last Fleet and of the great harbor Portmadoc. There were landholds for farming; thick forests of trees still green standing in serried ranks up the sides of fjords to the north; lakes turned white with the thrashing of fish … all this his and his father’s. But he worked no land, did not harvest crops, never stood in the shade of trees, had no hope of taking fish on his hook – none of this, never being able to say: I hold this, as father before and son after, I hold this, I. What noble would say him equal? Whose high-born daughter would gladly take him to bed and dream not of another joining her body to what little there was of his? Father vanished and Fleet scattered as gulls before the white squalls, and Portmadoc enjoyed only by those who refused light to fall upon their pleasures. So Barley Oakfist he was only in his thoughts, and if anyone was waiting for him to behave otherwise, they would wait no longer than he, and if that was unfair, at least it made a kind of sense. Barley the Fool the Court Jester turned his attention to the work due that night, the clothes to be worn and the words to be said, and where to look and not to look, what to hear and not hear … all the matters that could earn him favor, the only kind of armor he was allowed to wear. Lord Ahdose would insist on a story, one with a lesson that could be employed to instruct his men in matters of loyalty and devotion to one’s master. Lady Ahdose would feign interest in her husband’s choice and then ask – in a tone of voice resembling that of a captain giving orders to a shield-wall – for something lighter: a comedic fable of the sort told by the wandering balladeers of Meda, or, perhaps, a parody of the members of the court. Barley shuddered. Performing for the Lady Ahdose was not unlike walking the plank across a bear-pit: one slip, one small misstep and your found yourself in the embrace of something dark, terrifying and extremely unpleasant. If Lord Ahdose did not immediately grasp the point of a story, at least he made some effort to reach forth and find it. The Lady would look as if she had been asked to submit her slender, perfect fingers to Yagdeef tattoo-picks, and then, if the offender was lucky, order banishment to the Nukaisa Moor. Usually though … assignment to the scrub-gang in the execution yard, rice husks and water only, and altogether much too soon burial in the vast shitpit outside the castle. It is the beginning of winter, Barley reminded himself. Wear the yellow— no the red, the red wool jerkin – wearing the yellow might invite Lady Ahdose to inquire into such delicate matters as the level of one’s personal courage, for instance. Striped trousers tucking into sheepskin boots, and a hat of … gold velvet? No, that had been given to him last spring by the Dalmatesse princeling who had loved the pirate stories. Lady Ahdose did not love, did not like, did not wish to even acknowledge pirate stories – so much for the gold velvet hat. Instead, the traditional fool’s cap, the idiot creation with the tinny tin bells dangling from the brim. Humiliating, but safe. Barley dressed slowly, carefully attending to every detail. He tried to think only of the coming performance. Windows did not matter, nor doors – not even the message received in the morning that his son, his tall, long-limbed handsome son who could barely bring himself to acknowledge his misshapen father, would be in the troop of Scalpa cavalry arriving at the castle on the morrow. Gossip from grooms and breakers at the stables had it that the cavalry was returning from the Headland Cliffs, three years service and most of their comrades left burnt on burial racks high above the ground. Peersun the Master of Horse had taught his son to write before the lad had actually volunteered for service, and had somehow received letters from his heir. Vivid accounting of brilliant sword-strokes and pistol-shots and timely dispatch of enemies by the young man, and only perfunctory mention that some had fallen. Sometimes the dead and maimed had been named, and as time passed and the butcher’s bill grew ever longer, Peersun no longer encountered volunteers, and respect for the King had turned sullen and reluctant. In his mind’s eye Barley saw his son ride onto the grounds of the castle, safe and whole. Oh gods let him smile at me with pride just once— The clang! of the Royal Secretary’s staff striking the polished bellstones in the Great Hall rolled and echoed through rooms and along corridors,and although the sound was muffled by the time it reached Barley’s ears, it made him twitch as if he had been struck by bolts from a Barrier eel. Time to go. Time to make his bows and smile and laugh and dance - and never ever a hint that his soul knew anger and grief. Barley the Fool the Court Jester walked to the door of his room and dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the dog-door in the panel of un-sanded wood. By the time he reached the Hall his flesh would be scraped and stinging, but that the dog-doors were there at all - that he was there at all - was considered accomodation enough, and reminded him that when he reached, he could be sure only of grasping his memories and dreams …
Fall, 1983 Revised 2015
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