LOOSELY SPEAKING...

LOBSTERS ON PARADE

Across the abyssal plain,
in waters weighted with the entire ocean
and as utterly black as night can be,
lit only by the thrashing sparking flaring
of creatures bizarre by any notion
of ourselves, the lubberly kind…

Across these heavy deeps
in measured tread of little feet crustacean,
they march, determined in their quest
with thoughts in mind, if there is any thinking,
of dancing fandangos in slow motion
with lady lobsters, fair and fine…

Across the rippling sands
the lobsters march in single-file profusion
parading to their dancing grounds
driven by intent of reproduction
with no digression or confusion
Miles of lobster swains divine…

_{copyright February 2005 by CLRedding}

THE MAGIC HOUR a sonnet of art and age

Stare not at the Sun, we’re oft reminded,
But in the Magic Hour, as the Poets tell
Eyes can gaze and be not blinded–
The day’s work’s done, for good or ill.

The Farmer comes home from the field,
The Baker from the baking;
The Vintner casks the final yield,
The Maker ceases making…

The Magic Hour, the Artist cherishes–
The Hour of rosy-golden light–
The Hour as the daylight perishes,
Before the final fall of night…

The last bird sings, his song transcending
All labors and trials of the day that’s ending.

_{CL Redding 2006}

Loss

I thought you’d live forever, though I know it can’t be so–
I’ve always known I’d lose you, though I thought you’d never go…
There’d be time some perfect day to speak the long-unspoken word,
To tell you all I needed to, to be sure that you had heard…
That there’d be time to listen, to show how much I care
To be sure you know I love you, before you aren’t there.

But I have been so busy, and believed you’d always be
within my voice’s reach, and where my eyes could turn and see
that you are waiting, smiling, until my moment’s best
for attending to your moment, all those words and all the rest…
But time grows short–the leaf, it fades, falls drifting through the air
And it will touch the ground and still, before I can be there.

Sorrow, for the incomplete, the tales and songs unfinished…
Guilt, for all the chances passed so both our lives diminished…
Loss, for opportunities that knocked time and time again…
Anger, that you left too soon, and never warned me when…
Shame, because it is my fault, for the things I never gave
because it was so much easier to think you’d never leave.

_{by CL Redding revised Nov 2022}

Autumn Storm

The earth does what it does
and always has–

Storm bellowing,
Flood rushing,
And the reeds bend;
Trees sway and sometimes
go roots up;
The waters wild
sweep the land
forgetting former banks
erasing dams
the diligent beaver built.

_____________________

The tempest swoops in
off the ocean
where it trained,
charging like a heavyweight
out of his corner,
Knocks
the ancient weather vane
a-tizzy,
sets the ponies running in the wind;
Slaps
the last of autumn’s fire
off the swaying trees–
They, and later
the weather vane as well
fly on the wind,
the ponies
whipped up as wild
and rambunctious
as the lashing rains.

Squirrels
in tree-top nests disrupted
suddenly
learn to fly
and small birds hide
as best they can
and cats
of independent disposition
come inside

Where we, close-huddled
by the fireplace
hope that the wood
already in the house
will be enough,
have candle lanterns ready
and flashlights
close to hand,
with extra batteries…

The kids are energised,
taking it in turns,
cranking on the new-fangled
old fashioned swamp-radio
that never needs a battery replaced,
and praying for a sudden cold
and maybe feet of snow,
and make extravagant plans…

Even when the blast
exhausts itself
to fitful gusts
and wanders off,
the rain drums on,
a flat percussive
shingle-drenching
crevice-seeking
drumming over-head…

The water fills
the hollows of the land
and saturates the soil,
drives out small rodents
from their earth;

And even the dog is whining
that, in fact,
he’d rather not go out
today
but must, he must,
oh dear,
and not alone…

And the water buckets down
and drums and drums
and finally lulls
the last of us to sleep,
that flashlight by the bed…

The dawn comes
luminous and calm–
as if the weather
never had a single
brutal thought,
never blustered,
never raged,
never came in reeling
like a drunk,
never loosed the ponies
nor beat the land to
sodden helplessness…

The day comes on
gently, cheerfully,
the light a little harsher
through trees denuded
their columns etched and dark,
still gleaming with the wet…

Birds sing,
Squirrels scold,
Cats consider going out,
The dog can hardly wait!

The kids are disappointed
not really getting
what disaster is…

And someone must go out
and find the weather vane
then climb up the misty roof
and put it back
onto its naked pole.

THE STALKING

The thing I hunt,
it lurks in every shadow
that ever consumed a human soul:
In crevices and pits and fens
it hides, and snarls softly–
knows I’m here…
I hear it breathing, very near,

and I am ready–
must be ready for it
–when it rages up
and out from pit and fen–
to cast my spear, my spell–
I mean to conquer and compel!

Even now, upon
the mountains’ cutting edge
the glowing moon, it sets a-light
and limns the highest peaks–
It pales the night,
obscures the blessed stars,
this first jagged crescent blade
of cold moonlight rising…

Great Gods, I feel it near!
It stands beside me in the night!
I cannot sort its cursed breath from mine…!
Ah Gods! I must be strong,
I must prevail…!

The moon escapes the broken horizon,
rises full
and brilliant in the sky…

My enemy likewise reaches up,
it chokes my cry–!
It rises from the shadows and the fens
Of my deepest inner soul…

And howls in ecstasy
and celebrates the darkness
and the rising of the moon…!

_{by CL Redding revised 10/2022}

Late October Morning

Morning has broken–
its edges shattered by the wind;
Dawnlight leaks through
the torn hem of overcast;
Tree boughs new-relieved of color
flutter and bounce and dance
to the strains of winter music
of the coming of colder days
and slight rain considers
riding down the wind
as snow.

_{by CL Redding 10/22}

Why Education in America Stinks

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=socialmedia&fbclid=IwAR0b0xPRL0VXs1mPqsUhVaFFbJFWuzQ7yi5ukx9Q1YH3jfWt9AXkIAif5PE

The root problem in American education comes from the fact that Americans don’t actually much like children. It’s a nation so young compared to one like Finland, that the relationship of authority towards children is more like older sibling/adolescent to younger child than parent/adult to child.

Underneath the surface where, at the privileged end of the spectrum children are spoiled with stuff and managed by ‘helicopter’ parents, where parents would do anything for their darling offspring, including cheating to get them into ‘desirable’ schools, in fact, children are status symbols, proof-of-concepts, more like things than individual, autonomous-spirited people.

At the impoverished end of the spectrum, children just happen, or even if wanted, poverty makes raising them a burden, and out of the necessities of desperation, children are often physically as well as emotionally neglected. Kids are on a track to be burdens to family, to become burdens on society. Ironic, isn’t it, that it is society itself that drives this dyanamic?

What it comes down to is this overall culmination: That children in this society are not cherished for themselves as individuals. Below the surface, they are resented, they are minimalized, they are punished for being children. Our history shows it: the society in general has undervalued children and anything to do with children, undervaluing their carers and teachers, under-supporting education, and designing educational systems that rely on punishment for achieving learning. In fact, punishment seems to be the point.

All the worst hallmarks of adolescence are displayed in American society: Selfishness, resentment, intolerance and disrespect for anyone or anything older or different, refusal to be taught, failure to understand how much we don’t know, competitive aggression against those who are younger, weaker, bullyable.

We will only begin to do better when there are more individuals who make decisions and choices, and act from maturity, than the adolescence that dominates American society now.

I have often wondered how anyone survives adolescence. But they do. We do. I do try to keep faith that America will, and while we’re here, the human race, as well. We will be so brilliant, if we do!

_{by CL Redding 10/2022}

Autumn Winds

Dancing on the wind
clinging to the boughs
that were life in spring
and summer home…
In autumn finery they show,
parade and prance,
let go at last and dance
on air as if
mortality is not a thing at all.

_{by CL Redding 10/2022}

DUNE 2021

Yesterday we saw the new DUNE, another great story of the coming of a messiah… Or is he? That’s the question on everyone’s mind in the story. And if he is, then whose messiah is he?

It was, of course, spectacular, also beautifully made, and over two and a half hours long. It is clearly labeled Part One, so from a certain point onward I was listening for a final-words moment. Happily, after all that time, when they came, I was content. It chose a good solid place to land, answered most of the questions about what things are and how the work, and who’s who, and what they’re after. The only thing it really left open was, And what happens next…? I look forward to Part Two which will possibly be out in a year or so.

I’ve heard it critiqued as too long, and in places, too slow. I don’t agree. But then I like the full-immersion in atmosphere to balance the action. I want the awe!

A great part of DUNE with its immense worms moving below the sand like huge locomotives, then emerging to engulf whatever has annoyed it, has always been about the awe-factor. Awe takes time to build, time to overwhelm all other feelings and senses. Part of the wisdom of the film maker is to build that feeling, but not to exhaust it. So we get to see the worms in Part One, we get to be amazed, but still look forward to the later scenes that will be even more astonishing, that will go all the way to awe!

This version has to rise above the level of astonishment and awe that David Lynch’s version didn’t quite achieve with me, at least. Of course, that might have been also due to seeing it on a much smaller screen, and trying to pack the entire story into one film. And also of course, the special effects technology was not then what it is now.

I’m reminded of the climactic scene of MOBY DICK, the Gregory Peck version from 1956: the moment when the great white whale lunges full length up out of the sea, and having only glimpsed his eye and his long sides before, this, to my juvenile self, was awesome! In that moment, the full wonder of the whale, and the extent of Ahab’s hubris is revealed. I want to feel this again, when DUNE: Part Two finally arrives!

Of course, where there are messiahs and those who aim to be messiah-makers, there is always hubris. There is plenty of that in DUNE. The basically bad House of Harkonen are filled with the hubris of thinking there can be nothing more powerful than themselves because they have the wealth to buy anything. The Bene Gesserit, the religion underlying the Empire, takes on itself the long, long game of using eugenics and people to create the messiah they want, imagining that when he comes along, he will be theirs to manage. There is particular satisfaction, especially in these real-world times, to seeing hubris punished. That’s the thing about hubris: It is always punished.

It is in IMAX theaters, too, and I kinda wish I’d seen it on the HUGE screen! I just might have to go see it again.