Like an Ant

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon
by Sir Edward John Poynter (1836 - 1919)

"Learn how to live
a joyful and constructive life in this world,
like ants. . . . The secret of a meaningful life
is not in the long-gone throne of Solomon and the like."
Sa'eb Tabrizi (1601 - 77)
Sa'eb's reference to Solomon's "long-gone throne" reminds me of the statue of Ozymandias:
" . . . Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies . . .
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my words 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 kingdoms of Solomon and Ozymandias did not endure, their vast achievements dwarfed by an ant and a grain of sand. Padgett Powell, author of The Interrogative Mood presents a series of existential questions concerning this same dilemma of time, size and perspective. His inquiries suggest that we may have placed ourselves too high above the ant, especially when it comes to grasping the secrets of the universe:

"Is the human individual more important
than the individual ant, and if so by a factor,
what would you say, of what?" (10)

"Will you sing with me now: Oh let us be heroes,
let us have emotions pure or not pure be men
or not men, let us buzz and rumble the hill and
dale of daily insignificance just as confidently,
just as threateningly, just as humbly in its
cute red velour as does the velvet ant?" (34)

"Is it really tenable that a person has a a soul,
whether he has a cell phone or not,
and a grasshopper does not?" (160)

[See my book blog for more insightful questions from
The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell (b 1952)]

I like the way the lines of this painting by Leonard Orr
can be seen to resemble the elaborate architecture
of an underground ant colony!
Plaster cast reconstruction of an ant nest,
as illustrated in Wikipedia

I turned to Orr's paintings, confident that I would find something to illustrate ant - ness (as in, ant colony, ant hill, ant nest, ant industriousness, and so forth). Len generously responded: "If my painting manages to convey antness (the quidditas of ant, as Stephen Dedalus perhaps said), I am pleased."

"Although not immediately obvious,
there are quite a few people hiding here it seems."
~ facebook comment to Leonard Orr from Andrea Livingston ~

I decided on this painting, in part because of the accompanying commentary. Livingston's remark fits right in with the question of how different, really, are humans from ants. When I mentioned that I also wanted to include the passage about termites from Samuel Beckett's novel Watt, Len was one step ahead of me:

"For the only way one can speak of nothing
is to speak of it as though it were something,
just as the only way one can speak of God is to
speak of him as though he were a man,
which to be sure he was, in a sense, for a time,
and as the only way one can speak of man,
even our anthropologists have realized that,
is to speak of him as though he were a termite." (77)

Samuel Beckett (1906 - 89)
In the following poems, it is the family dog whose superior comprehension of the meaning of life edges out any knowledge that we mere humans might possess:

from Her Grave
Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
He is wiser than that, I think. . . .

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her as yo do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her long slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
almost nothing.

Mary Oliver (b 1935)
from New and Selected Poems (14 - 16)


Trickle Up?
Does human evolution have a future?
Even our dog is troubled by the limited
significance of our presence. He whines
at the door wanting to get out.

Ernest Sandeen (1908 - 1997)
from the Collected Poems (278)

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her long slumber?
~ Mary Oliver ~

Beautiful watercolor evocation
of autumn and bear - ness
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, December 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Thanks David Kimbrel ~
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

As Darkness Falls Into Light

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

THE SHORTENING WINTER'S DAY IS NEAR A CLOSE














AFTERGLOW (L) & GLOWING SUNSET (R)
All three paintings by Scottish Landscape Artist,
Joseph Farquharson, 1846 - 1935
This past Sunday, I attended a choral evensong, one of my favorite autumn traditions. The service closed with the lovely hymn "The Day Thou Gavest," and the words and music of this evensong standard have been playing in my head ever since. You might also be familiar with the tune from Rick Wakeman's dramatic instrumental anthem for Anne Boleyn that Gerry pointed me in the direction of: click here to enjoy in concert! You will also find that a shorter version appears on Wakeman's CD The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

The music, "St. Clement," was composed either by the Rev. Clement Cotteville Schofield or by Sir Arthur Sullivan; and the lyrics were written by British hymnologist John Ellerton in 1870:

The Day Thou Gavest
(click to hear choral rendition)

The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended;
The darkness falls at Thy behest;
To Thee our morning hymns ascended,
Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.

We thank Thee that Thy church unsleeping,
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.

As o'er each continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.

The sun that bids us rest is waking
Our brethren 'neath the western sky,
And hour by hour fresh lips are making
Thy wondrous doings heard on high.

So be it, Lord! Thy throne shall never,
Like earth's proud empires, pass away;
Thy kingdom stands, and grows for ever,
Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

by John Ellerton

This beautiful hymn ranks as one of the top choices for funeral music, and no wonder -- the first stanza is a perfect metaphor for the close of life, the end of day, and the sad reality that this conclusion rarely comes at our own behest, but at that of another, greater power. There's also a little bit of Ozymandias lurking in the last stanza -- sand more vast than any proud empire could ever hope to be.

Hong Kong Sunset
Beyond the first stanza, why do I like this hymn so much? Queen Victoria favored it as a fitting metaphor for her Empire "on which the sun never set." It was sung at her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and again in 1997 when Britain handed control of Hong Kong to China. However, I have never counted myself an imperialist, nor do I claim to be a great proponent of the the church triumphant or the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

What I hear in these lines -- and in the word church -- is a reference to the power of the universe, a much larger force than mere humanity, untainted by motive, striving not in its own best interest but just being, in a way that's difficult for an earthling to grasp. It feels to me like what The Prophet calls "Life's longing for itself."

Perhaps the Universe too has a longing for itself. The world longs to turn; the sun longs to set. This is precisely what Anne Sexton suggests in her poem "Lament." She offers this description of how the universe responds to a day of tragedy:

"The supper dishes are over and the sun
unaccustomed to anything else
goes all the way down."
The humans weep at the loss of a friend; the sun does not know any different.

The unsleeping church in Ellerton's hymn reminds me of the parental voice in the old Welsh lullaby, "All Through the Night," a song assuring us that love alone is keeping watch:

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and vale in slumber sleeping
Love alone its watch is keeping,
All through the night . . .

While the weary world is sleeping,
All through the night . . .

~ as sung by Connie Kaldor
on her CD Lullaby Berceuse

Another beautiful rendition of this lullaby can be heard in the Denholm Elliot film version of A Child's Christmas in Wales

The most beautiful close of day paintings that I know of are those by Joseph Farquharson who painted numerous vividly hued winter sunsets, all with such evocative names as "The Shortening Winter's Day is Near a Close" (at top), "Afterglow" and "Glowing Sunset" (see above), "Day's Dying Glow," "The Sun Had Closed the Winter's Day,"
and this one --
Glow'd With Tints of Evening
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, November 14, 2011

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