A Bright Golden Haze

"AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN"
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

" . . . all the fields . . . glow
Like flashing seas of green . . .
[like] running fiery torchmen"

Finding these red leaves among the evergreens reminded me of Helen Hunt Jackson's juxtaposition of poppies among the wheat. In the imagery of her sonnet, the red petals are first "torchmen" then "wine." As in bread and wine, spiritual sustenance as well as physical:

Poppies on the Wheat

Along Ancona's hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore.

The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain,
But I,—I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.

by Helen Hunt Jackson (1830 – 1885)
Connection to Emily Dickinson

"A Bright Golden Haze"

Throughout the course of his life, author Hamlin Garland, lived from sea to shining sea; but his fiction, non-fiction, and poetry remained focused on the American Midwest and -- as this poem illustrates -- upon the land beneath his feet. Similar to Jackson's sonnet above, bread and wine are honored here, amidst a dazzling array of color, from russet to amber to olive:

Color in the Wheat

Like liquid gold the wheat field lies,
A marvel of yellow and russet and green,
That ripples and runs, that floats and flies,
With the subtle shadows, the change, the sheen,
That play in the golden hair of a girl,—
A ripple of amber—a flare
Of light sweeping after—a curl
In the hollows like swirling feet
Of fairy waltzers, the colors run
To the western sun
Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.

Broad as the fleckless, soaring sky,
Mysterious, fair as the moon-led sea,
The vast plain flames on the dazzled eye
Under the fierce sun’s alchemy.
The slow hawk stoops
To his prey in the deeps;
The sunflower droops
To the lazy wave; the wind sleeps—
Then swirling in dazzling links and loops,
A riot of shadow and shine,
A glory of olive and amber and wine,
To the westering sun the colors run
Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.

O glorious land! My western land,
Outspread beneath the setting sun!
Once more amid your swells, I stand,
And cross your sod-lands dry and dun.
I hear the jocund calls of men
Who sweep amid the ripened grain
With swift, stern reapers; once again
The evening splendor floods the plain,
The crickets’ chime
Makes pauseless rhyme,
And toward the sun,
The colors run
Before the wind’s feet
In the wheat!

by Hamlin Garland (1860 – 1940)
Connection to Henry George / source

"Like liquid gold"
See also: Earth Day & Facebook

All photos:
Kirksville, Missouri ~ October 2024
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, January 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

There Are Children in the Leaves

CHILDREN IN THE FOLIAGE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

" . . . for the leaves were full of children . . ."
~ T. S. Eliot ~

" . . . there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
and they will lean that way forever . . . "
~ Leonard Cohen ~

My last post featured Davey,
the little boy in one of my favorite childhood storybooks
who stacks up all the hay in the Christmas stable,
having some fun along the way:

Here are some real children, dear to my heart,
engaged in similar activity.

Look at these happy kids,
turning straw to gold!

Ellie & Aidan, in their backyard
October 2024

Aidan & Friends, playing after school
November 2024

Ellie & Aidan
All Saints Day 2025

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

~ From "Little Gidding" (Part V)

Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
.Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present. . .
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

~ From "Burnt Norton," Parts I & V

Both selections by T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)
From The Four Quartets
~ always inspirational for the New Year ~

Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, January 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Leaves & Straw
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Last Year ~ This Year
Ellie ~ Aidan

Straw to Gold

HAYFOOT, STRAWFOOT!
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

" . . . here's a spinning wheel
use it once you’ve learned
there’s a way to turn the straw to gold . . ."
~ Emmylou Harris ~

I've been collecting Christmas books from way back, starting from about the time that I could walk and talk. I could never dream to match Betsy Beinecke Shirley, Jock Elliott and George Meredith, but I now have approximately 250 festive titles filling out the modest holiday section of our home library. Apparently, Davey was my first.

A notation from my mother on the inside cover of my crumbling, long - beloved, vintage spiral pop-up paperback informs me that my "Great Aunt Carrie Weiser Heideman, of Coffeyville, Kansas, gave this delightful book to the twins [that would be me and my brother Bruce] early in the Christmas season of 1959."

Published in 1950 and currently out - of - print, used copies are rare and costly (around $100). Luckily, a few years ago, I was able to find an affordable copy as a Christmas surprise for my twin, so at long last, we each have one of our own. My mother's inscription, for readers of the future, continues:

"Everyone who has read it or heard it read has fallen in love with it. Please treasure it so that many others will be charmed by its beautiful story."

As you can see, it came in a gift box, complete with various accessories, such as a pair of pin - up donkeys, a candy land game, and a 3D straw basket name tag:

We kids loved all of these components, and the story itself was a childhood favorite:

Davey and the First Christmas

Let’s pretend there was a boy, and Davey was his name.
Whose family lived in Bethlehem when Christmastime first came.
Davey had a special pet – a donkey small and gray,
And what the two of them did best was getting in the way!

Davey named the donkey Tim. He never rode him though.
Either Tim was built too high or Davey was too low!
Davey’s father had an inn where people came to stay;
And lots and lots and lots of them were coming there one day.

His father was as busy as six or seven bees!
So Davey said, “I want to help, can’t I do something, please?
Tim would like to help you, too. Find a job for us to do!”

“Listen, son,” his father said, “Last week you broke three jugs.
You scared my two best customers with your pet lightening bugs!

You tracked in mud on my clean floor, you tripped and dropped the bread.
And though I loved the fish you caught – why leave them on my bed?

I’ve put up with your helpfulness as long as I am able.
So do me one big favor now, get out – and clean the stable!”

Davey sadly went and stood beside the stable door.
It hardly seemed that anyone could clean that dirty floor.
He and Tim both felt so bad they started in to cry —
But then (thought Davey), “Yes, we can! Well, anyhow – let’s try.
First, let’s chase those chickens out. That’s what we’ve go to do.

So Tim began to flap his ears while Davey shouted, “Shooooo!”
The chickens clucked and flew and ducked, they fluttered wild and scary,
Until their feathers filled the air like snow in January.

Yes, Davey chased those chickens out, He and Tim together.
But now he had to get a sack and pick up every feather!

You should have seen how hard they worked! They stacked up all the wheat,
They straightened up the harnesses till they were nice and neat.
They fought with spiders bravely till they chased out every bug.
And since we must admit the truth -- they broke another jug!

The very biggest job of all was stacking up the hay.
Davey climbed up to the loft and put it all away.
“Look, Tim. You see how high it is? I’ll make just one more trip.”
Then clear up by the stable roof his feet began to slip!

Down came the hay and Davey, too. The stable looked so queer –
All you could see was piles of hay – one sandal, and one ear!

Slowly they came out on top, and Davey didn’t whine,
Though hay stuck out all over him just like a porcupine!

He put the hay all back again and stacked it up with care –
But left one armload down below to fill the manger there.

So Davey’s work was done at last; and when it all looked neat
He picked some flowers to trim the barn, and some for Tim to eat.
“I hope it’s clean enough,” he thought. “At least I did my best.”
And feeling very, very tired, he curled up for a rest --

Who woke up Davey from his sleep? Just guess them if you can.
Mary was the woman’s name, Joseph was the man.

Mary said, “Oh Joseph, look!” This is a lovely place!”
Then, seeing Davey there, she said, with such a shining face,
“Your father’s inn had no more rooms, tonight we’re staying here.
So tell me now, are you the boy who cleaned the stable, Dear?
And did your donkey help you work? We want to thank him, too.”

Though Davey was still half asleep, his heart was glad clear through.
So that is how a little boy, two thousand years ago,
Stayed on to hear the angels sing, and see the Star aglow.

As soon as Baby Jesus came to use the manger bed,
Then Davey’s sack of feathers made a pillow for His head.
No one told Davey anymore that he was in the way. His work had helped get ready for the world’s first Christmas Day!

Poem by Beth Vardon
Illustrations by Charlot Byj (1920 – 1983)

"A stable lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky
The stars shall bend their voices
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
And straw like gold will shine
A barn shall harbour heaven
A stall become a shrine . . . "

from the poem by Richard Wilbur
Next Fortnightly Post ~ There Are Children in the Leaves
Sunday, December 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Leaves & Straw
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

P.S.
So many colorful details to scrutinize,
such as these jugs:

Setting Up the Nativities

~ Posting two days late ~
In conjuction with the First Sunday of Advent.

MANGER SCENE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

La Navidad by Aguijarro
~ on facebook ~

Advent (today)! December (tomorrow)! Christmas decorations! It seems like just the other day -- but must have been more like February -- that I was boxing up the ornaments and feeling bereft. Taking down the tree always feels so sad to me, like maybe Christmas will never come again.

I can never do it all at once, so there I was, slowly working my way through the task, when Ellie (age 3 at the time) noticed that some of the holiday tchotchkes had disappeared. She asked me where they had gone, and I started to say that I had put them away because it wasn't Christmas ANYMORE -- but guess what she said?

"Because it isn't Christmas YET!" I loved her perception that, no matter how far away, a happy future Christmas is yet to come, as opposed to my dreary old mourning for the Ghost of Christmas Past! Right?

And lo it has come to pass: that future Christmas, as foretold by Ellie, has now become the present. Almost unbelievably, it is once again time for setting up the Nativities! A few years ago, in addition to our table-top display, I got out some pop-up Nativity books for her to play with . . .

but I had the figures
— kind of like small cardboard paper dolls —
stored separately in a baggie . . .

Ellie was puzzled when she saw that her pop-up creche
was empty: “Hey, where’s the family scene?”

Now she knows what to look for! In 2024,
she inspected my Mary Engelbreit set and announced:
"We have one of these Jesus things at our house!"

Corners

I turn each corner still
hoping for the Virgin Mary to appear
She'll be dressed in cardboard blue
the way she was in Sunday school
and stepping out in front of me
she'll lead me through another town.

Afterward,
her many miracles
still bulging from that shopping bag of hope,
she'll leave me standing by myself and
wondering.

I know that love
like radios and ripe bananas
is auctioned in the market place

and all things meant to last were made
pre-1940.
Still a man can smile while waiting for
the light to change
and hope the Virgin Mary on her busy rounds
will stop to drink strong coffee
on the English Common
or in North Beach square.

Kennedy and King,
you had the means but not the time.
And though the Virgin Mary
is nothing but a dream
her hair is soft and silky in the night. (1968)

Rod Mckuen (1933 - 2015)
found in Twelve Years of Christmas
[More by Rod McKuen]

Ellie's 2nd Christmas
Ellie's 3rd Christmas
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, December 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ 2019 Manger Scene
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

"Half in love with easeful Death"

NIGHTENGALE: "IMMORTAL BIRD"
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

The Nightingale Sings (1923)
by Mikhail Vasilievich Nesterov (1862 – 1942)

"Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain . . . "

from "Ode to a Nightingale"
by John Keats
To cease -- or maybe just to disappear, as did singer-songwriter Connie Converse, on August 10th, 1974, a week after her 50th birthday. That day, Converse packed her car with a few belongings and drove out of Ann Arbor for the last time. Whether she took her own life then or later; whether she started life anew somewhere else -- perhaps in Kansas City or New York City -- remains unknown. She was never seen again; neither her body nor her car has ever been found.

Was she half in love with easeful death? More than half? What degree of hope was commingled with her sadness? She sent a few farewell letters to her closest friends and family telling them not to look for her:

"TO ANYONE WHO EVER ASKS: (If I'm Long Unheard From) . . .
Human society fascinates me & awes me & fills me with grief & joy;
I just can't find my place to plug into it. So let me go, please . . . ."
I am thinking also of Keats, who died so young, at age 25, but had already been "many a time . . . half in love with easeful death." The first time I read "Ode to a Nightengale" in 11th grade, I knew that I had always been and always would be half in love with easeful death -- but only half, or maybe just a quarter. Who isn't? Well, lots of folks, apparently, but that has never been my reality.

As a trusted counselor once advised me:
You're a writer, you're supposed to be sad.

How Sad, How Lovely
Album by Connie Converse (August 3, 1924)

Title song: How Sad, How Lovely

How sad, how lovely
How short, how sweet
To see that sunset
At the end of the street
And the day gathered in
To a single light
And the shadows rising
From the brim of the night
Too few, too few
Are the days that will hold
Your face, your face
In a blaze of gold
How sad, how lovely
How short, how sweet
To see that sunset
At the end of the street
And the lights going on
In the shops and the bars
And the lovers looking
For the first little star
Like life
Like your smile
Like the fall of a leaf
How sad, how lovely
How brief

Music & lyrics by Connie Converse

"What Converse seemed to know in her songs was that there was somewhere better, or a little more satisfying. . . . I find myself uncomfortable with how people — not just in the case of Connie Converse, but broadly — tend to flatten the idea of what sadness is, or looks like, without considering its varied face."

from the article "The Art of Disappearance"
by poet/essayist Hanif Abdurraqib
in The New York Times Magazine, August 11, 2022
My friend Jan* wrote: "I was so moved by Abdurraqib's article, that I wrote a letter to the NYT Magazine (published Sunday, August 28, 2022). If you suffer from depression, thoughts of suicide, or even sometimes wish you could simply disappear, you might find affirmation and hope in this beautiful article. You might also want to visit the music of Connie Converse."

Related Readings

Where could Converse live but days?

Days
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

by Philip Larkin
British poet (1922 - 1985)


Were the unkind voices berating her?

"You wake up and you feel -- what? Heaviness, an ache inside, a weight, yes. A soft crumpling of flesh. A feeling like all the surfaces have been rubbed raw. A voice in your head -- no, not voices, not like hearing voices, nothing that crazy, just your own inner voice, the one that says "Turn left at the corner" or "Don't forget to stop at the post office," only now it's saying "I hate myself . . . you try to find pleasure in little things . . . but you can tell you're trying too hard. You have breakfast with your husband, your sweet unknowing husband, who can't see anything but the promise of a bright new day. And you say your apologies -- you're sorry, you're always sorry, it's a feeling as familiar as the taste of water on your tongue" (252 - 253).

from The Dogs of Babel
by Carolyn Parkhurst
American novelist (b 1971)
(see Highlights from 2006 & 2007 & 2019)


If only we could move through time as well as space:

"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!

Elizabeth Akers Allen
American poet and journalist (1832 - 1911)
*Additional thanks to Jan for her encouraging words: "All of these passages are so moving and apt. I love the way you pull literature together and make such meaningful connections. I always tell my students about my friend Kitti who said, very wisely, 'Literature helps me live my life.' " [More by Jan]

A beautiful explication of Keats' poem

Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, November 30th ~ First Sunday of Advent

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Connie Converse
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Black River of Loss

PRE - HALLOWEEN MOON
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

With thanks to Jay Beets for dramatically
improving the quality of my photograph

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

by Mary Oliver (1935 - 2019)

Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls are here to remind us that life is filled with loss. How could we forget? The revered Mary Oliver writes that everything in life leads to loss, not just any loss but a river of loss, not just any river but a "black river of loss." However bleak it sounds, we earthlings somehow learn to cope.

How do we live with the certainty of impending, inevitable loss? Poet Jane Kenyon offers the simple and time - honored strategy of counting your blessings. Knowing that our days are numbered, we must enumerate and acknowledge even the smallest joy, the quotidian, such as pouring fresh milk on our cereal or taking the dog for a walk [Mary Oliver: Same!].

Otherwise

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

by Jane Kenyon (1947 – 1995)

Perhaps better than any other example I can think of, the mystical H.D. has described the heart - breaking transition to that dreaded day when all is indeed "otherwise":

Never More Will the Wind

Never more will the wind
cherish you again,
never more will the rain.
Never more
shall we find you bright
in the snow and the wind.
The snow is melted,
the snow is gone,
and you are flown:
Like a bird out of our hand,
like a light out of our heart,
you are gone.

by H.D. (aka Hilda Doolittle, 1886 – 1961)

Artwork by B. Liddy

See also W. H. Auden ~ Ray Bradbury ~ Henry Rollins

Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, November 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ photos by Jay Beets
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Good-bye October, Hello November!