Burning the Letters

UP IN SMOKE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Woman Burning Love Letters: Retrospection (c. 1840)
by Alfred Chantrey Corbould (1852-1920)

Totally living up to the watchwords of "connection and coincidence," this blogpost got its start a few days ago when Brian Bilston posted his list of "Discarded First Lines," reminding me, in turn, of Gregory Corso's list of "Saleable Titles." I knew I had saved some Corso poems in one of my college notebooks, so I pulled it off the shelf and was thumbing through . . .

found the Corso . . .

and, wait, what?!
. . . this poem that has been on my search list
for the last 7 or 8 years!

Back in 2018, I wrote to a few
of my classmates from college days:

Dear Deanna, Milly, and Ruth,

I am trying to track down a poem that Herman Wilson gave us years ago to analyze -- it was called "Burning the Letters," and I could swear that the poet's name was "Kiligrew" or something like that. But no matter how I google it, nothing along those lines turns up, and I can't find it in any of my old books / papers. Any ideas?

If only Herman were still with us, I bet he would know it right off the top of his head! Alas . . .

Was I thinking of Sylvia Plath's poem -- also entitled "Burning the Letters"? Possibly. Yet, the name "Kiligrew" felt more like it to me. Could I have merged the two poems / poets in my mind because they were on the same page or we studied them at the same time? It wouldn't be the first time for such a mix-up in my head.

But at long last, thanks to Bilston and Corso, the mystery has been solved! It wasn't Plath, nor was it Kiligrew. It was Grew -- Gwendolyn Grew! Now, if only I could learn something more about this poet. If anyone has any information on Gwendolyn Grew, please let me know!

Burning the Letters

One flutter of memory, then all becomes
First blaze, then char. A Fall of after-thought,
And leaf by leaf, a slant wind numbs
Summer from the bone-tree. ’’Nothing is not

Something,” she thinks. And it is nothing now
To send a season blazing. Day by day
What greened, a sun-machine upon its bough,
Unsuns, ungreens, discolors toward decay.

Up from the bed now she can see the pale
Last glow of paper X-rayed by the bright
Underglow of the flame. A becalmed sail
It stirs, uncertain. Then it bursts a-light.

Like leaf-veins, the black lines stand in relief
As fire travels them clean. Then a black bloat
Riffles the page. Footless as a night-thief
The fire draft stirs them then, sets them afloat

And sucks them up to darkness, each a bat.
Till the last line has swollen and gone out
With its black mouse-bird. “How long have | sat
Here in self-pity?” she begins to doubt.

And still she kneels, and with a poker stirs
A last bird from the blaze, loving its flight.
Nursing the not-much hurt. But it is hers,
And nurse it she will through one more acted night.

By Gwendolyn Grew
Anthologized in How Does a Poem Mean
Edited by John Ciardi & Miller Williams

Postcard #817 ~ Sherie Series
By Inter-Art Co., Southampton House, London

And it seems only fair to conclude
with Plath's poem for comparison:

Burning The Letters

I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket
What did they know that I didn't?
Grain by grain, they unrolled
Sands where a dream of clear water
Grinned like a getaway car.
I am not subtle
Love, love, and well, I was tired
Of cardboard cartons the color of cement or a dog pack
Holding in it's hate
Dully, under a pack of men in red jackets,
And the eyes and times of the postmarks.

This fire may lick and fawn, but it is merciless:
A glass case
My fingers would enter although
They melt and sag, they are told
Do not touch.
And here is an end to the writing,
The spry hooks that bend and cringe and the smiles, the smiles
And at least it will be a good place now, the attic.
At least I won't be strung just under the surface,
Dumb fish
With one tin eye,
Watching for glints,
Riding my Arctic
Between this wish and that wish.

So, I poke at the carbon birds in my housedress.
They are more beautiful than my bodiless owl,
They console me—
Rising and flying, but blinded.
They would flutter off, black and glittering, they would be coal angels
Only they have nothing to say but anybody.
I have seen to that.
With the butt of a rake
I flake up papers that breathe like people,
I fan them out
Between the yellow lettuces and the German cabbage
Involved in it's weird blue dreams
Involved in a foetus.
And a name with black edges

Wilts at my foot,
Sinuous orchis
In a nest of root-hairs and boredom—
Pale eyes, patent-leather gutturals!
Warm rain greases my hair, extinguishes nothing.
My veins glow like trees.
The dogs are tearing a fox. This is what it is like
A read burst and a cry
That splits from it's ripped bag and does not stop
With that dead eye
And the stuffed expression, but goes on
Dyeing the air,
Telling the particles of the clouds, the leaves, the water
What immortality is. That it is immortal.

By Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963)
More on FN & QK

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, March 14th

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

Your Broken Heart

BE MY VALENTINE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Path

Go to your broken heart.
If you think you don’t have one, get one.
To get one, be sincere.
Learn sincerity of intent by letting
life enter because you’re helpless, really,
to do otherwise.
Even as you try escaping, let it take you
and tear you open
like a letter sent
like a sentence inside
you’ve waited for all your life
though you’ve committed nothing.
Let it send you up.
Let it break you, heart.
Broken-heartedness is the beginning
of all real reception.
The ear of humility hears beyond the gates.
See the gates opening.
Feel your hands going akimbo on your hips,
your mouth opening like a womb
giving birth to your voice for the first time.
Go singing whirling into the glory
of being ecstatically simple.
Write the poem.

by Jack Hirschman (1933 – 2021)

See also
"Keep the Faith" by Jack Butler
"Your Poem, My Poem" & "What Do Writers Want"

Hear this poem read aloud in the movie
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You never know where you might find a heart!

Chocolate Ravens & Ginger Hearts

Toast

Snowy ~ Hearts

"The human heart is vast enough to contain all the world."
~ Joseph Conrad ~

Be My Valentine!
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, February 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

Television Cat

MESMERIZED
IN FRONT OF THE TV ON A SNOW DAY
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

“What sort of philosophers are we,
who know absolutely nothing
of the origin and destiny of cats?”
~ Henry David Thoreau ~
What sort of a cat mom am I who has absolutely no idea what goes through Fuqua's mind when he watches TV? One of my friends wondered if Fuqua availed himself of the healthy snack of pears, there within easy reach. Well, it's true, Fuqua loves to bite the stems off the pears if given the chance!

In addition to Fantasia, he has been known to watch all of the Charlie Brown holiday specials, as well as the magic of illusionists Penn and Teller. A little feline sleight-of-hand . . .

"A cat is more intelligent
than people believe,
and can be taught any crime"
[or magic trick].
~ Mark Twain ~

In his more limber days,
Fuqua enjoyed the Beach Body exercise videos.

When it comes to the origin and destiny of cats, Mark Twain had the right idea, and I'm sure that Fuqua and his little brother Lester would agree:

I urged that kings were dangerous.

Clarence said, then have cats. He was sure that a royal family of cats would answer every purpose. They would be as useful as any other royal family, they would know as much, they would have the same virtues and the same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shindies with other royal cats, they would be laughably vain and absurd and never know it, they would be wholly inexpensive, finally, they would have as sound a divine right as any other royal house. ... The worship of royalty being founded in unreason, these graceful and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as any other royalties, and indeed more so, because it would presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence than the customary human king, and would certainly get it. (see p 515)

- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday February 14th

Between now and then, read

Previous cat quotes on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs

Thoreau: The Size of Grief
Twain: A Perfect House
Twain: Halloween Happy Cats

www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

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

As Mark Twain himself
wrote about his own cats:
"There is nothing of continental or inter-national
interest to communicate about those cats.
They had no history;
they did not distinguish themselves in any way."

But still . . .

These Two
I love the way that the Light of God
is shining right through Fuqua's ear!

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: