With or Without an Epitaph

AN ANCIENT CITY
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Palaces of Nimroud Restored, 1851
by James Fergusson (1808 –1886)

From the 1853 collection of scholar and excavator
Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894)

Where to find Nimrud on the map:
20 miles south of Mosul / Nineveh

Not shown on map:
Jerwan is 25 miles north of Mosul / Nineveh
Why these three ancient cities: Jerwan, Nimroud, and Nineveh?

First of all, let me say that if you are sitting down to read the poems of contemporary American, Jim Barnes, you had better have a World Atlas handy, because you are going to need it! In a good way! The geological and emotional strata of these poems run deep and wide. Five college towns in Ohio -- can you trace the route across the State? Small hometowns in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, with names unknown to many (well known to me). Cafes, museums, ruins, villas -- all over Europe! You must envision where they are, where the poet has been and takes you now, where you may one day go on your own steam. E.g., The Fertile Crescent:

At Jerwan

Stretching south toward Nineveh
the fertile lands Sennacherib
surveyed have now neither grain nor gold
for the hand holding compass and fold.

Long before the droning night came
down for the spoils and the wind with blame
for the deadly absence and the fall,
frowning figures left their places

on the crumbling marble monuments
and sank into the dry river bed
where the hot hand that fell still means
to fall on the holy heads of gods.

No gardens hanging from the banks,
no stone aqueducts now standing
lone, level, or otherwise.

Far from
Ishtar and Nineveh only this:
dust, thirst, desert despair,
the dream of Sennacherib gone wrong.

by Jim Barnes (b 1933)
in Sundown Explains Nothing, 2019

Artist’s Depiction of the Jerwan Aqueduct
Sennacherib (750 - 681 BC) ruled Assyria from 705 BC to 681 BC, and beautified the capital city of Nineveh with aqueducts, canals, hanging gardens, temples, and a “palace without a rival.” Yet, as Barnes points out, all that magnificence has been replaced by "lone, level" sands, eerily distant. The reader is reminded of proud fictional (or maybe not) Ozymandias, king of kings:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

My son Ben, on vacation in London, also took a moment to remind me of Ozymandias, sending me this photograph of the tomb of eccentric 17th-century medical quack Lionel Lockyer. Ben added his own clever caption . . .

"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."

. . . and the following commentary:

"On the other hand we've all heard of Ozymandias,
so maybe he was on to something?"

Or at least Shelley was!"

[True, it is not all that unusual to hear
the name of Ozymandias twice in one week
-- and at least twice before on this blog!]
Back in the day, Lockyer (c.1600 – 1672) successfully marketed a miracle pill that apparently cleansed the entire digestive system by causing simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea. Though it sounds exceedingly unpleasant, his product had a huge following during his lifetime; and upon the occasion of his death, he took the opportunity to write as his epitaph one final advertisement for his "Pilulae Radiis Solis Extractae" (extract of sunlight!), more commonly referred to as "Lockyer's Pill":

Here Lockyer: lies interr'd enough: his name
Speakes one hath few competitors in fame:
A name soe Great, soe Generall't may scorne
Inscriptions whch doe vulgar tombs adorne.
A diminution 'tis to write in verse
His eulogies which most men's mouths rehearse.
His virtues & his PILLS are soe well known...
That envy can't confine them under stone.
But they'll survive his dust and not expire
Till all things else at th'universall fire.
This verse is lost, his PILL Embalmes him safe
To future times without an Epitaph

Lockyer thought for sure his pills would outlast his faux sonnet. Ozymandias and Sennacherib envisioned generation after generation surveying their mighty works. Yet in each case, the future went its own way, choosing a different fate for the would - be heroes, leaving behind a "dream . . . gone wrong."

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Lausanne
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

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

First Snow In Indiana

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

~ Garage Lights ~
Waiting for Gerry's return from the Indianapolis Airport
When it snowed two weeks ago, on Halloween, I could have sworn it was the first time in my life that I've ever seen snow in October. Having lived in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Indiana -- well, those are not the States where one sees snow in October, not even on the last day!

Snow on Halloween? In Indiana?
When half the backyard is still green? Well, I never!

Then along came yesterday's snow, on my sister Peggy's birthday, and even that seemed too early. Have I ever seen snow on her birthday before? I don't think so! I don't care if it is the second week of November, that's just too soon! I decided to check out the Indiana Climate Archives, which informed me that there had indeed been "measurable" snowfall in Indiana on October 18, 1989. What?! I actually lived in Indiana on that day, but I have no memory of such! Oh, if only I'd been recording weather lore in my journal back then. But alas. Well, this time, I took plenty of pictures:

I love my friend Dana Hall's description of this eerie, early snow:
"Exciting but a little surreal and scary, right?"
The pumpkins are an added bonus!

Several friends noted how much we might have enjoyed this snow back when we were seven years old! But at fifty - seven, it's a mixed blessing. On their Christmas Portrait, the Carpenters provide a light - hearted reminiscence:

Oh the first snowfall of the winter
Was a day that we all waited for . . .

Oh the first snowfall of the winter
What a joy for a boy to behold . . .

It's the good old sentimental season . . .
When a man becomes a boy once again . . .

Music by Joseph F. "Sonny" Burke (1914 - 80)
Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster (1907 - 84)

With Veterans Day so recently past, my thoughts turned to the snowy battle scene depicted by poet Richard Wilbur in "First Snow in Alsace." The World War II night guard in Wilbur's poem "becomes a boy once again," in more somber circumstances than the Carpenter tune describes, but with equal joy. He boasts warmly that "He was the first to see the snow." Seen through through "the new air white and fine," even the war - torn surroundings have been magically transformed by the first snow that falls indiscriminately, innocently, neutrally.

In fact, it hasn't been all that long ago since the young soldier was a child himself, playing in the snow. His daydreams of youthful winters take him -- not fifty years -- but a mere "Ten first - snows back in thought":

First Snow in Alsace
The snow came down last night like moths
Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,
Covered the town with simple cloths.

Absolute snow lies rumpled on
What shellbursts scattered and deranged,
Entangled railings, crevassed lawn.

As if it did not know they'd changed,
Snow smoothly clasps the roofs of homes
Fear-gutted, trustless and estranged.

The ration stacks are milky domes;
Across the ammunition pile
The snow has climbed in sparkling combs.

You think: beyond the town a mile
Or two, this snowfall fills the eyes
Of soldiers dead a little while.

Persons and persons in disguise,
Walking the new air white and fine,
Trade glances quick with shared surprise.

At children's windows, heaped, benign,
As always, winter shines the most,
And frost makes marvelous designs.

The night guard coming from his post,
Ten first-snows back in thought, walks slow
And warms him with a boyish boast:

He was the first to see the snow.

Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)

Addional Connections
1. Here is another poem that takes the reader on an absolutely beautiful walk in newly fallen snow. Whereas Wilbur is crossing Alsace, "Walking the new air white and fine," Wylie walks elegantly "In a soundless space . . . through the still town / In a windless space":

Velvet Shoes
Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow,
At a tranquil pace,
Under veils of white lace.

I shall go shod in silk,
And you in wool,
White as white cow's milk,
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall step upon white down,
Upon silver fleece,
Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below.
We shall walk in the snow.

Elinor Morton Wylie (1885 - 1928)

2. In "The Arrested Artistry of Elinor Wylie," editor John G. Rodwan, Jr. observes that Wylie's poetry has been compared to that of Richard Wilbur and that she was devoted to the life and work of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

3. Speaking of Shelley, I don't know if this poem about the mutability of art and love was one of Wylie's favorites, but it's one of mine. It lacks the hope of Wilbur's "First Snow in Alsace," but shares a similar sense of human frailty, endurance, and irrevocable loss, complete with seasonal imagery of falling leaves, and cold wind:

When the Lamp is Shattered
When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead-
When the cloud is scattered,
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute-
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possessed.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee,
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter,
When leaves fall and cold winds come.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
[see also "Ozymandias" & "Ode to the West Wind"]

4. Another blogger makes a connection between "When the Lamp is Shattered" and Wilbur's haunting Christmas hymn "A Stable Lamp is Lighted".
[See also "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World"]

5.StoryPeople always gets it right! Thanks Brian Andreas!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, November 28th

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

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

Travelogue 1: Berlin

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

from How German Is It
by Walter Abish

What is a thing? he asked rhetorically. Brumhold, it must be pointed out, was not referring to a particular thing. He was not, for instance, referring to a modern apartment house, or a metal frame window, or an English lesson, but the thingliness that is intrinsic to all things, regardless of their merit, their usefulness, and the degree of their perfection. The reference to perfection, however antithetical and invidious it might appear to be to the thinking of Brumhold, was made because the mind is so created that it habitually sets up standards of perfection for everything: for marriage and for driving, for love affairs and for garden furniture, for table tennis and for gas ovens, for faces and for something as petty as the weather. And then, having established these standards, it sets up other standards of comparison, which serve, if nothing else, to confirm in the minds of most people that a great many things are less than perfect. (19 - 20)

In Bavaria as in the rest of Germany everyone is passionately in love with the outdoors, in love with what they refer to as Natur, and the splendid weather is an added inducement for the people to put on their Lederhosen and spend several hours serenely tramping through the woods, studiously looking at trees and birds, haphazardly selecting one path, then another, without exactly knowing where the path might lead. The splendid weather is also an inducement for everyone to breath deeply, to fill their lungs with the fresh country air. Ahhh. It is an inducement as well for many to open wide the windows of their apartments. Everywhere one looks one can see the open windows of Wurtenburg and, walking down one of the narrow and deserted side streets, one can overhear snatches of conversation of people who are preparing to go out for a walk or a drive in the country, or about to receive a visitor, or about to make love, their voices -- their lazy voices, their melodious voices, their shrill impatient voices expressing sentiments, feelings that can e said to t\match the warm summer day. And then, to boot, accompanying the snatches of conversation are the old popular tunes that surprisingly are still performed on the radio, because there still appears to be a great demand for old tunes, old marches . . . military bands, anything that will keep the past, the glorious German past, from being effaced forever' (26)

****************

Gerry at the Pergamon Museum, 2003
Eleven years ago (May 2003), Gerry and I found ourselves in Berlin for a few days. Our trip to Berlin was good, though way too short to do justice to such a wonderfully hopeful and optimistic place. I must say that it was easy to imagine myself living there, something I've never felt in London or Paris. The city resonates with positive energy, and is filled an inspiring juxtaposition of the very old / the brand new / and the rebuilt . . . plus dozens of incredible museums. We didn't make it to the Judisches Museum or Agyptisches Museum (to see the bust of Nefertiti), but we did see all the Greek & Roman antiquities at the Pergamon Museum -- which you may have heard of, though I must confess that I hadn't. For me, the most amazing thing there was the huge Gate of Ishtar and the Babylonian Processional Street, reconstructed from the days of Nebuchadnezzar (605 - 562 BC). No photograph or post card could possibly do it justice (check out the web for many good views)! You just have to stand there in awe, surrounded on both sides by towering walls of brilliant blue & gold glazed tile, decorated with an ongoing parade of sphinx-like lions and dragons. Astounding! High upon the walls in a neighboring room are huge oil paintings showing what the Persian desert looked like when these ruins were discovered (1899 - 1914) -- "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away":

Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
The incredible thing is that this wonder of the world was there, buried under all that sand! After seeing the Ishtar Gate, we went to see remnants of the Berlin Wall and spent a couple of hours at the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, very sobering to read all the testimonials of so much despair. Another somber exhibit of human suffering is the Kathe-Kollwitz Museum, which was just a few doors down from our hotel, the Kempinski Bristol, on Fasenenstrasse. Also on this block is the charming Literaturhaus and Wintergarten outdoor cafe, where we stopped for an afternoon Kartoffelsuppe break.

The gala dinner for Gerry's conference was held at the Museum fur Kommunikation, where we got to descend into the dimly lit archives and see the famous Blue Mauritius stamp (again, great pictures can be found on the web if you want to see). Just for the novelty of it, we also stopped by the Musikinstrumenten Museum when we were in the area of the Philharmonic, just across from the very recently reconstructed Potsdamer Platz. From the outside we saw the Reichstag (didn't go up in the dome) and the Brandenburg Tor and the Martin Gropius Bau, which has fabulous exterior detailing.

In Berlin with my Panama Bag, 2003
Coincidentally, a few months before our trip, Sam's 4th grade class was assigned a travel project, in which math and geography joined hands, as he planned and budgeted the perfect vacation! Conveniently for us, Sam picked Berlin for his research topic! He was very busy using Yahoo and Expedia.com to search out tourist attractions, convenient hotel locations, reasonable airline fares, seasonable family entertainment, and available restaurant choices. We couldn't resist trying out some of the restaurants he had tracked down on the web -- the Dressler Restaurant, for dessert on our first evening in town, and Reinhard's, on our final evening, for a delicious dinner --complete with Berliner Weisse mit Schuss, rot for Gerry and grun pour moi! Gerry indulged in a big plate of German sausages and pork chops and black pudding, while I opted for one of the seasonal white asparagus specials. Yum!

Both places were on Kurfurstendamm, just within a few blocks of our hotel, even though Sam had no way of knowing that at the time of his research! In fact, he had picked an entirely different hotel for his fantasy trip, and our first activity upon arrival was to take a long walk up to the grounds of Schloss Charlottenburg and locate Sam's nearby hotel, the Econtel . . . which appeared very trendy indeed from where we were standing . . . and just happened to be across the street from a Sports Club and a vivid green soccer pitch! The perfect location for Sam! Now, how did he know that?!

I hope that before too many years pass, Sam -- and Ben as well -- will be able to see all of these sights for himself. I can see now that Sam was right -- Berlin is a great and nearly inexhaustible location for a family vacation. Next time, I'd love to stay over long enough for a day trip to Potsdam and Park Sanssouci and Pfaueninsel (all recommended by Sam in his report). Also, Berlin appears to be a wonderful city for students, so who knows, maybe one day when Ben and Sam are in college . . . . I think that covers the highlights of our brief stay -- not forgetting, of course, Gerry's Friday morning presentation, which was well attended despite the early hour of 7:30! We had only a few moments for shopping, but we used them wisely by rushing out to the nearest candy counter to stock up on Ritter Sport chocolate bars, a treat we grew to love back in the years when Peg lived in Frankfurt / Heidelburg and kept us supplied! The only stressful part of the trip was just the routine travelers' exhaustion which seemed to overtake us on the flight home to Philadelphia. But we're over that now and ready to go back again!

One last thing --
the cars there follow all the traffic lights
and yield to bikers and pedestrians . . .
that alone made it seem like heaven!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, June 14th

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

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