A Place for September Song

September Song

When I was a young man courting the girls
I played me a waiting game
If a maid refused me with tossing curls
I'd let the old Earth take a couple of whirls
While I plied her with tears in lieu of pearls
And as time came around she came my way
As time came around, she came

CPW at Pat O'Brien's in the Big Easy on New Year's Eve 1970

When you meet with the young girls early in the Spring
You court them in song and rhyme
They answer with words and a clover ring
But if you could examine the goods they bring

They have little to offer but the songs they sing
And the plentiful waste of time of day
A plentiful waste of time

Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I'll spend with you
These precious days I'll spend with you

            Lyrics by Maxwell Anderson

 CPW

A Place "to go"

Ah Sun-flower!

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, 

Who countest the steps of the Sun: 

Seeking after that sweet golden clime 

Where the travellers journey is done. 

Where the Youth pined away with desire, 

And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: 

Arise from their graves and aspire, 

Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

            -William Blake (1757-1827)

"Beam me up, Scottie!"

CPW

A Place to Hang Loose

Silent Noon

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing clouds that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden king-cup fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:
So this winged hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.

            - Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)   

We attempt to “hang loose” at Merry Mount and for most of the time we succeed. We are attentive to all signs that would encourage us to stay calm and stay in the moment.

Beginning on September 10, 2019, the annual dragonfly swarm emerged at Merry Mount.  In folklore, dragonflies symbolize good luck, purity, harmony and prosperity. Some cultures advocate focusing on one’s innermost desires and thoughts when visited by a dragonfly.

As Autumn approaches, we invite you to join us as we will look for opportunities to “hang loose”.

CPW

A Place to Sing

An occasion occurred this week that solidified my decision to limit my singing to the grounds at Merry Mount.  This decision is bitter/sweet but has reminded me of pertinent words penned by two giant poets: Frost and Whitman.  I offer you their words:

The Oven Bird

                                    Poetry by Robert Frost

                                   

                                    There is a singer everyone has heard,

                                    Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

                                    Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.

                                    He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

                                    Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.             

                                    He says the early petal-fall is past

                                    When pear and cherry bloom went down in 

showers

                                    On sunny days a moment overcast;

                                    And comes that other fall we name the fall.

                                    He says the highway dust is over all.                  

                                    The bird would cease and be as other birds

                                    But that he knows in singing not to sing.

                                    The question that he frames in all but words

                                    Is what to make of a diminished thing.

From Walt Whitman

I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)

Not words of routine this song of mine,

But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer

            bring…

I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,

Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond

            them,

A reminiscence sing.

Comrades

  Poetry  by Patrick Woliver

  At the first glimpse of the Evening star, Thrush music!

  The road behind me seems distant,

            yet somehow short.

  It glistens as the last of the light of the sun magnifies

            each grain of sand.

  Wildflowers stretch toward heaven, striving to retain

            their beauty.  Thrush music returns!

  O ageless singer, I, like comrades before me, know

            your song.  I understand your music.

  But as I look toward the sunset, I savor the

            magnificence of the remaining light.

At this time of closure, I wish to voice gratitude for my “Comrades”: Rett, Lee, and Robert; and to Pete for his genius displayed in his musical setting of The Oven Bird.

 CPW

A Place to be Skeptical and Contrary

Let's play Devil's Advocate

Let’s begin by breaking with convention.

sOme May saY  that MY Name should Have been THOMAS iNsteAd of patricK BUT i DisagrEE.  FOR iT haS onLy beeN durinG the pasT few yearS that i have beCome sOmewHat CONTRARY; i EVen ? the Under Lying Parable iN John 20:24-29.  

bUt HAS ThIs douBter goNe tOO faR FOR If i want YOU to uNder STanD thE mESsAgE iN tHiS BLOg' whY WOULD i NOT CoNfOrM  to tHe ruleS of grammar and CaPiTaLiZaTiOn?

Try this poem by E.E. Cummings:

Now Rett may tell you that living with “a contrary old curmudgeon” has its challenges, but, at least, she is presented with the other side of the story.

I posit that my contrariness is a result of how I have programmed my mind to work.  For too many years, I accepted information as fact without stopping to consider whether I believed the information. Now I have developed a mental sensor that automatically questions information, digests it, and then stores it away for further consideration. The process allows me an opportunity “to get to the truth”. 

After all, we do live in a world of “fake news”.

A result of my contrariness process is THOUGHT.

So I ask myself,  “is thinking enough, or does patriotism require action?”

I leave you with a piece by Wendell Berry:

The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer

I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my

 inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission

 to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.

 I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts,

 and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing,

 and reaped, as I knew, by luck and Heaven's favor,

 in spite of the best advice. If I have been caught

 so often laughing at funerals, that was because

 I knew the dead were already slipping away,

 preparing a comeback, and can I help it?

 And if at weddings I have gritted and gnashed

 my teeth, it was because I knew where the bridegroom

 had sunk his manhood, and knew it would not

 be resurrected by a piece of cake. ‘Dance,’ they told me,

 and I stood still, and while they stood

 quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced.

 ‘Pray,’ they said, and I laughed, covering myself

 in the earth's brightnesses, and then stole off gray

 into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.

 When they said, ‘I know my Redeemer liveth,’

 I told them, ‘He's dead.’ And when they told me

 ‘God is dead,’ I answered, ‘He goes fishing every day

 in the Kentucky River. I see Him often.’

 When they asked me would I like to contribute

 I said no, and when they had collected

 more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.

 When they asked me to join them I wouldn't,

 and then went off by myself and did more

 than they would have asked. ‘Well, then,’ they said

 ‘go and organize the International Brotherhood

 of Contraries,’ and I said, ‘Did you finish killing

 everybody who was against peace?’ So be it.

 Going against men, I have heard at times a deep harmony

 thrumming in the mixture, and when they ask me what

 I say I don't know. It is not the only or the easiest

 way to come to the truth. It is one way.

- Wendell Berry

CPW