Remember our Dead on Memorial Day

SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS KEPT CLEAN


Today I  watched an hour long concert by that great deceased Bluesman BB KING. He sang a mournful song that was written by Blind Lemon Jefferson "See that my grave is kept clean."

"See That My Grave Is Kept Clean"

Well, there's one kind favor I'll ask of you
One kind favor I'll ask of you
Oh, there's one kind favor I'll ask of you
See that my grave is kept clean

There's two white horses in a line
Two white horses in a line
Two white horses in a line
Gonna take me to my burying ground

Well, my heart stopped beating
My hands are cold
Well, my heart stopped beating
And my hands are cold
Well, my heart stopped beating
And my hands are cold
I believe just what the Bible told

Did you ever hear a coffin sound?
Did you ever hear a coffin sound?
Did you ever hear a coffin sound?
Then you know that the poor boy's in the ground

Dig my grave with a silver spade
Well, you dig my grave with a silver spade
Dig my grave with a silver spade
Let me down the golden chain

Have you ever heard the church bell tone?
Ever heard the church bell tone?
Did you ever hear a church bell tone?
Then you know that the poor boy's dead and gone

I feel so good

One kind favor I'll ask of you
One kind favor I'll ask of you
It's one kind favor I'll ask of you
Please see that my grave is kept clean

Blues lyrics build on the repetition of  three, and they gain force and meaning in the hands of a master Blues artist  with each repetition.

This Memorial Day weekend  I visited and decorated the graves of my loved ones in three different cemeteries.  Every one of them had a lovely gravitas, and yet each was very different from the other.

I began my day with a trip to HOME DEPOT where  we bought 5 large  red geraniums. Our first stop was  the Mowry Family cemetery on Dexter Street in Cumberland.  The stone wall that once proudly acted  as a retaining wall is disintegrating.  Not due to natural causes--the wall has not collapsed--there are no stones lying about. It is gradually being dismantled by thieves who think, I guess, that the stones would look better on their property line.  But there is still a grassy dirt road the leads in and makes a wide U- turn, circumnavigates the three sides of the burial ground. This weekend of Memorial Day and the  need to flag Veteran's graves has pushed the town to cut the grass and clear and level the dirt road so that it was easy to drive in and access the old family burial ground.

I went there to decorate the graves of  my grandmother Ida Mowry and her mother Polly Brown. My Aunt Grace had taken me to those graves several times each year since childhood and when she was staying with me in the summer of her death, she asked me to promise to continue to  visit and decorate their graves. So I did, and I felt the warmth of her smile as I  saw the brilliant red flowers contrast with the white  marble stones.

Next stop was very nearby--Mount Calvary Cemetery on Curran Road.There I looked for and found the Coleman stone under the huge canopy of a spreading Oak. My mother Margaret, my Aunt Anna and my uncle Jimmy and my sisters Janie and Sheila are all buried there alongside my mother's parents Joe Coleman and Jane Conlon Coleman-- a long way from their  native Ireland and the shores of Lough Neagh. 
I  recalled  how Anna would go up and down the aisles of the grave stones, and as she knew so many, she would comment and wonder aloud why no one cared any longer to decorate their graves.
So I knew she would be watching and waiting for the two large geraniums to be placed in the side hangers that she had always kept filled with flowers real or artificial. I felt a weight had lifted when I saw the results of our work and the relief of Anna's approval.

We now continued North up Diamond Hill Road to the Woonsocket landmark, Oak Hill Cemetery.  There as I turned in from Rathbun, I noticed the new saplings  growing in that forest preserve. What caught my eye was the Jenckes family plot which  marks the rising path and a turn in the road.  When we reached there and parked, I decided to place two geraniums here --one on the 1828  granite stone from the Jenckes  Mill and the other on the base of the main granite  monument  in the large plot. My father Norman  and my grandfather Oscar are the two people I  knew personally who are buried here. But this site also contains the paternal Jenckes line and some spouses dating back to Job Jenckes who started that first Jenckes  mill.
Oak Hill casts a spell.  Here on the higher ground the light is always so different from Pawtucket and the air  is tangy with scents of mown grass and late Spring. In my imagination  I picture lilacs massed  at the gatehouse and a line of blooming fragrant cherries  lining the path from the entrance to the Civil War Cannon. 

After I say prayers  for the souls of all who are buried there, I recall the promise I made to my very co-operative husband. We head back to Diamond Hill Road and a first stop of the season at the DREAM MACHINE for the best ice cream money can buy. 
He usually  wants ginger but this day he picks PISTACHIO. 

ANDALUSIAN FOUNTAINS IN THE BUCKET

Maybe we could build one of these fountains in Pawtucket.

My friend Elizabeth was recently sharing some of the tidbits of history that she has  uncovered in her extensive research.  She was talking about the lives of some of the women buried at Oak Hill Cemetery where I am on the Board of Trustees.  She  shared with me their writings and their  involvement in Discussion Groups. 

It is amazing how in touch these women from Woonsocket were with the cultural developments of their times and aware of other cultures as well.  She told me of a fountain in Woonsocket that they named an  "Andalusian Fountain".  I  wanted to think more about what those fountains were and to also wonder why they were  in the minds of these women . 

One of Andalucía's most intriguing and mysterious attractions is the notion of duende, the elusive spirit that douses much of Spanish art, especially flamenco. Duende loosely translates as a moment of heightened emotion that takes you out of yourself, experienced during an artistic performance, and it can be soulfully evoked in Andalucía if you mingle in the right places. Seek it out in a Lorca play at a municipal theatre, an organ recital in a Gothic church, the hit-or-miss spontaneity of a flamenco peña (club) or Málaga's remarkable art renaissance.

Or find yourself  in a courtyard with the soothing sounds of a  fountain.

Spanish poet Antonio Machado  used fountains repeatedly as symbols  and voices of  feminine consciousness in his poems that  evoked Andalusian fountains.

It Was a Clear Afternoon, Sad and Somnolent (Fue una clara tarde, triste y soñolienta) (1907)
by Antonio Machado, translated from Spanish by Wikisource

It was a clear afternoon, sad and somnolent

afternoon of summer. The ivy reached

the wall of the park, black and dusty.

      You could hear the fountain

.

   My key squeaked in the old gate;

with a sharp sound the rusty iron door

opened and, upon closing, gravely

struck the silence of the dead afternoon

.

   In the deserted park, the sonorous

bubbling copla of the singing water

led me to the fountain. The fountain poured

its monotony over the white marble

.

   The fountain sang: Does this song remind you,

brother, of a distant dream?

It was a slow summer’s slow afternoon.

      I answered the fountain:

I don’t remember, sister,

but I do know this song of yours is distant.

   It was this same afternoon: as today

my crystal poured its monotony upon the marble.

Remember, brother? ... The dangling myrtle,

that you see, darkened the clear songs

that you hear. Blonde as a flame,

the ripe fruit hung from the branch,

the same as now. Remember, brother?...

It was this same slow summer afternoon.

   –My sister the fountain, I don’t know

what your bright copla of distant dreams is saying.

   I know that your clear crystal of joy

already learned from the tree’s vermilion fruit;

I know its distant this bitterness of mine

that dreams in the afternoon of an old summer

.

   I know that your pretty singing mirrors

copied old deliriums of love:

but recount, o fountain of entrancing words,

recount my joyful and forgotten legend

.

   –I don’t know any legends of ancient joy,

but old melancholic stories.

   It was a clear afternoon of the slow summer...

You would come alone with your sadness, brother;

your lips kissed my serene lymph,

and in the clear afternoon they spoke of your sadness.

   They spoke of your sadness, your burning lips;

the thirst that they have now, they had then

.

   –Goodbye forever, sonorous fountain,

always singing in the sleeping park.

Goodbye forever; your monotony,

fountain, is more bitter than my sadness.

   My key squeaked in the old gate;

with a sharp sound the rusty iron door

opened and, upon closing, gravely

struck the silence of the dead afternoon.

HERE IS ANOTHER POEM THAT SEEKS TO  EXPRESS THE ELUSIVE AND YET  HAUNTING SOUNDS OF A FOUNTAIN.

“Always Fugitive, Always Near”

always fugitive, always near

always concealed, always disdainful
always leaving, always untouched
always in black, always dreaming
always the bitter flower
always the night, always concealed
always fugitive, always caged
always your face
always the bitter flower
of your lips, always your bed
always near, always fleeing
always waiting, always waiting
always calling to you
always the night deepens
always the night
always fugitive, always near

Antonio Machado (1875–1939) was an influential Spanish poet, best known for depicting the landscapes and common people of Spain and for his exploration of existential and moral topics. A vocal supporter of the Spanish Republic, Machado was forced to flee Spain during the siege of Madrid. He died in exile and is buried in Collioure, France.

SEE HOW ONE POET INSPIRES ANOTHER--HERE IS  WALCOTT REFLECTING ON THE THOUGHTS THAT COME WHEN HE READS MACHADO.

POETRY

Derek Walcott: Reading Antonio Machado

MAY 21, 2016

"... The blue hills seem sadder as the afternoon falls ..."
DW

"Reading Antonio Machado"

The barren frangipani branches uncurl their sweet threat
out of the blue More echoes than blossoms, they stun the senses
like the nocturnal magnolia, white as the pages I read,
with the prose printed on the left bank of the page
and, on the right, the shale-like speckle of stanzas
and the seam, like a stream stitching its own language.
The Spanish genius bristling like thistles. What provoked this?
The pods of a dry season, heat rippling in cadenzas,
black ruffles and the arc of a white throat?
All echoes, all associations and inferences,
the tone of Antonio Machado, even in translation,
The verb in the earth, the nouns in the stones, the walls,
all inference, all echo, all association,
the blue distance of Spain from bougainvillea verandahs
when white flowers sprout from the branches of a bull's horns,
the white frangipani flowers like the white souls of nuns.
Ponies that move under pine trees in the autumn mountains,
onions, and rope, the silvery bulbs of garlic, the creak
of saddles and fast water quarreling over clear stones,
from our scorched roads in August rise these heat-cracked stanzas,
all inferences, all echoes, associations.

Derek Walcott

From. "The Bounty" - "Spain" - 1995

I LOVE THE SUBTLE CONNECTIONS AND THE SPELL THAT ONE POET CASTS OVER ANOTHER AND THE  RESPONSE OF THE NEW WORLD SPAIN TO THE OLD SPAIN.   

THE CIRCLE DANCE OF LIFE

HOW CAN WE TELL THE DANCER FROM THE DANCE?

When I  visited Turkey and stayed for a couple of weeks in Istanbul  I was blessed with several heightened spiritual experiences. 
 It was there  in the Blue Mosque  that I witnessed  hundreds of Muslims at prayer in that extraordinary beautiful structure of gleaming tiles  and shining glass and marble. 
 It was there that I  suddenly  received a clear message  that there is a GOD and that He is  One and the same God for Christians and Muslims. 

It was there that I felt the power of  the  Faith in that place and that  was one of the gifts of  Grace  on my long  journey back to belief.

Turkey has a long history of mysticism.

The very mystical Cappadocian Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, and Basil of Caesarea) of fourth-century eastern Turkey eventually developed some highly sophisticated thinking on what the Christian church soon called the Trinity.
 It took three centuries of reflection on the Gospels to have the courage to say it and offer the best metaphor they could find. The Greek word they daringly used was perichoresis or circle dance.

Whatever is going on in God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three—a circle dance of love. 

ISLAM celebrates this  fact of the dance as a form of worship with the  whirling dervishes.  I was privileged to watch their hypnotic motion on two unforgettable occasions in Istanbul.

God is Absolute Friendship. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself. This pattern mirrors the perpetual orbit of electron, proton, and neutron that creates every atom, which is the substratum of the entire physical universe. Everything is indeed like “the image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1:26-27).

Yeats in his poem "AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN" 
Asks his profound question---

O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

NO JOY IN MUDVILLE

I CAN MAKE IT SHORT EVEN IF I CAN NOT MAKE IT SWEET.

Watching the last  quarter of the Celtics Bucks playoffs.
I have read all the  early obits for the team and Kyrie,  but I did not want to add my words.
 Now all I will admit is that it felt sad to see the Celtics so disheartened and  so lacking in team spirit. Only when Smart and Morris came off the bench there was a weird injection of the old energy and a glimpse of what could have been.

I had to admire the Bucks and their star Giannis and I was glad to see  my old favorite George Hill from the CAVS playing so well and seeming to be  really part of a team.

Now the time for change  in the CELTICS starters it is undeniably here. But I insist that whatever Kyrie decides to do the Celtics will survive and thrive again.

And oh yeah--that  question that Kyrie posed so flippantly when he was asked about his low shot percentage 
WHO CARES?
WE CARE KYRIE--THE CELTICS FANS --REMEMBER US?
AND ---

WE LOOK FORWARD TO WHAT THEY DO NEXT YEAR.

THE SPORT OF KINGS STUMBLED IN LOUISVILLE

My  brain is still reeling from what happened at the end of the Kentucky Derby.

I thought that I would watch the news on Sunday after the event and see what  the experts are saying.
  THEY ARE NOT SAYING MUCH.

After hours of coverage that started at noon  and seemed to be roaming the world looking for topics from the horse farms, to the stud fees, to the jockeys and to the deaths at Santa Anita.  It was  a nervous number of topics.
I was glad to see Jerry Bailey who usually seems  innocuous  to actually speak up for the  24 horses that have died at the Santa Anita race track.  When  his co-hosts stressed the unusual rains, he insisted on talking about the  abuses of medical treatment on the day of the races. In other  countries they must be given  30 days before the horse races.

I learned that some of them are severe diuretics that  lighten the horse of many pounds of  water,  but also leave them exposed to possibilities of damage when they are straining to run  fast.  He also brought up the use of  whips--and some one else said that it was not good optics.
How trite a response!
Jerry explained that they now have alternatives that are not as cruel using  more of a hardened foam with some  give  to it.
  
Has every one become  sensitive only to the optics?  Jerry said that when he  has ridden a horse and used the whip, he could feel the horse flinch in pain.
I have never heard these topics discussed so openly, and Jerry was shut down pretty quickly by his two co-hosts who changed the subject.

HOW CAN THE SPORT OF KINGS BE  FALTERING?

The immense profits that racing generates  don't seem to go where they should to generate more attendance.
In a news article today it was just revealed that several thousand seats at the race track at Pimlico--the next stop in two weeks for the BIG THREE of Racing  are in such bad repair that they will not be safe enough to be used.

So I wonder where does all the money go--besides the multi-million dollar purses?
So many race tracks have closed all over the country that many people  never visit a race track. Anyone of a certain age in Pawtucket can recall the track that  was just off Newport Avenue NARRAGANSETT RACEWAY. My father  spent many days there, and I went there as a child. Also there was Lincoln Downs which is now the site of TWIN RIVERS CASINO.  So the Racing Book may still be open there,  but there are no horses around.
There is horse racing at Suffolk   but it will close after a brief meet in June,
 There is  still a Race track for Harness Racing at Plainridge--also now a casino. But it is quite limited.
It seems that increased gambling opportunities have actually pushed  horse racing to the  background and in New England to the edge of extinction. 
I guess the Royals and the Sheikhs will  have to keep it going.

 ROYAL ASTOR  COMES UP SOON. STAY POSTED.  LET US SEE  WHICH HORSES WIN THE PIMLICO AND THE BELMONT.  SEE IF EITHER "COUNTRY HOUSE" OR "MAXIMUM SECURITY"  COME INTO THE MONEY.
.

A MOUSE IN THE BUCKET

Bobby Burns wrote about  a mouse with empathy and real tenderness.

I recently had several encounters with a  little smart mouse and it was very enlightening.
Of course, it was also very annoying and sleep-disturbing.  My friend  Elizabeth came over to celebrate Orthodox Easter.  She brought lots of goodies and I had  also called a  neighbor in Cincinnati who is Russian Orthodox to share Easter  Greetings.

  When she entered, Elizabeth remarked on the  mice traps and poison filled traps lined up  on my kitchen floor. I told her that the mouse often appeared in the daylight. A few minutes later as if on cue I saw the tiny dark form walking slowly along what I called "death row".  

He  stayed there  and even Elizabeth was able to see his strange behavior.   He scampered away when I yelled, but a few minutes later he was  back again.  He would walk right up to the entrance to the white trap and  never enter.  It was quite tantalizing for me to watch him  come so close to  his demise and then back away  from it.  My friend commented--"Well you two have  quite a relationship." 

There was some truth in that. I had googled mouse  many times and learned that they have an IQ and can  learn to do tricks and they are as smart as a smart dog. They can figure things out.
Well this one had figured out that that white plastic thing with the alluring dark entrance and the whiff of peanut butter was not a healthy choice.  But yet he could not stay away from it. I would yell and he would scamper back under the nearby radiator cover. But let a  few minutes pass and there he was standing up on his hind legs sometimes and slowly moving and sniffing around that plastic covered trap  pushed against  the baseboard.  My friend  told me to put fresh  peanut butter in the trap "Mice hate stale peanut butter," she pronounced  knowingly.

The next day I went into the kitchen and picked up the trap.  That is when I noticed that the trap had been set off.  I  moved the trigger device and looked into the hole. There against the white interior I could see a long skinny tail.  We threw the trap with its burden into the trash and  wiped and vacuumed where it had been. 

 Later I saw the mouse come out and  walk along the baseboard  looking for the trap his nose pressed to the floor. After a few minutes, he left and I have not seen him  since. 

Now I think I understand his strange behavior to come and sit  by  this  trap.  Would I be going too far to suggest  that he  had seen his brother --perhaps--enter that dark door and never emerge?  He could smell him inside but never reach him.  But he also could not leave--so he risked these day light vigils and now he can  end that.  Do animals mourn?

 I THINK THEY DO. 

Here are some of Burns' thoughts in Scots dialect on a mouse whose winter dwelling he destroyed.