I am always interested in why people I don't know might be visiting. Someone was searching for Ent Poems, so I thought I'd add mine to the blog. The poem was originally published in The Minas Tirith Evening Star which is the publication for the American Tolkien Society (.org).
Lament for an Entish Wife
after Tolkien
By Amy Unsworth
Evergreen, my love, among the pins and cones I wait for you
watching through driving rain, sleet, and branches choked with ice.
Winter piles her drifts between us, the meadow a perfect
glittering sign: no footprints, no homecoming for Solstice night.
My tender shoot, autumn pains me. Every creature stirs
against the rising cold and the sap grows thick at the heart of the trees.
The gold-shot woods wear the colors of your hair and eyes,
every burning tree, a glimpse of you, swirling in brocades.
In summer, I walk through orchards tended by graceless men,
I graft branches from yellow pippins to those of crimson.
Each year the fruit grows ere sweeter, the skins stippled, a gift.
In harsh tongues, men speak of Elves, even while resting in my shade.
Come then, to the edge of the wood at Spring, see the young deer
leap up at my rustling. Here, in the thin sunlight, on the wetdark
branches of the redbud, on the tremulous arms of the dogwoods:
a signpost—the blossoms bearing the tally of all our days apart.
**************
(I'll add the rest of the publication information here-I have to go look it up.)
and remember to enter the drawing. Right now there is One entry & your odds are good!
More Lather! (and a Drawing!)
And this week's primitive soap flavor is Sweet Orange and Almond: It is made with all-natural ingredients with essential oils for a light & clean scent!
If you leave a comment (with an email address) between now & next Saturday (noon central time) on my blog, I'll enter you into a drawing for some sample size soaps & what not!
'round here (more or less)
I don't even know how (or what I was looking for!) but I came across a photography blog with very interesting/intriguing photographs, many of them from 'round Kansas. I think I learned more about Kansas while visiting this site than I had in the several years I've lived here.
The section on Chapman, Kansas was very interesting and the photographs of last month's ice-storm show a full view of what happened with the trees & wires through that very long week here in the middle of it all.
The architectural features & the period signs are especially interesting. I've been to Junction City (one town to my west) more than I can count. But I'd never the signs until The Lope pointed them out.
The section on Chapman, Kansas was very interesting and the photographs of last month's ice-storm show a full view of what happened with the trees & wires through that very long week here in the middle of it all.
The architectural features & the period signs are especially interesting. I've been to Junction City (one town to my west) more than I can count. But I'd never
Post-Colonial Life
I've been reading some critical essays on life in the post-colonial world. There have been some difficult questions raised about both political and personal identity; and if these are necessarily connected to the patch of ground/nation/region to which a person belongs. The other question is if these "roots" are severed what is the impact on the personal identity? Is it beneficial to retain the cultural roots of a home that you no longer occupy?
One of the critic-poets argues that yes, you can remain true to "your roots" and still make changes. But the solution offered is very difficult; it basically calls for people to not allow themselves to be pulled into the conflict. A "leave the past behind" attitude. While you don't have to forget the people who died, you shouldn't fight on in their name.
This sounds good in theory, doesn't it? But, can it really apply to places like Rwanda? (or Ireland, or practically anywhere that there has been conflict between cultures, which is exactly the entire globe.) Basically, the critic would be telling the people who suffered the most: ok, just move on. (of course, this is a gross simplification) I'm not sure practically how that would work on a grand scale. On a small scale, it's possible. It is possible on an individual level to forgive and move on. But on a large scale? I don't have faith that this would work.
Another argues that the trying to cling to these "pasts" is damaging, especially for the second generation who might end up lost in the limbo between two cultures and often two languages.
Another claims that living "without roots" is, in fact, a self-imposed silence. That's dangerous too, right?
The most popular option for navigating this seems to be "hybridity," which seems great if you're from the dominant culture: I'll appreciate some of your culture and you can appreciate some of mine. But how long will it before the other culture is so watered down that it disappears?
Even though I've lived in the same country my entire life, I still think about these ideas as applicable to my own life. I like the thought of being connected to a history, a heritage. But, I haven't inherited many traditions from my family's country of origin. Our family has been here too many generations and by my parent's time they are all gone. Occasionally, one of my folks will mention their grandparents doing this or that, baking a particular treat, eating a certain food. But all the tradition (how & why) of these has been lost to time. And we move, a lot. Probably more than the "average American," although it seems our culture is getting more adept with the moving boxes every year.
And of course, the post-colonial theory is very applicable to the US today. I've lived across the country where there are some traditions left; and we've known many people from a myriad of cultural backgrounds. (One of our family's favorite meals is a Japanese type of curry that a friend from Hawaii shared with us. Another is a particular (regional) way of making pinto beans that is so much better than any other Mexican-style I'd had, taught to me by a friend from Mexico.) I try to make some 1st generation traditions for my boys, too. (Chinese food on Halloween, anyone?) (Yes, most of these traditions *are* involving food here, because they're the quickest to describe & relate to. [I guess I get a little frustrated too with how many of our American traditions are dictated to us by the corporate world through super-saturation in advertising. Chex Mix, anyone? But that's probably a topic better left for another day.])
Perhaps an effective thing to do, instead of demanding that people mold themselves to one American ideal is just to live and let be. But can this work politically, as well? Doesn't it still lead people to an us vs. them mindset? What does America want? appears to be the question on all the politicians' tongues. What America are they talking about? There must be a million versions of America and each of them wants something different. Good luck answering that question.
So, I'm left to consider how to go about living the best I can in this complicated world and hoping that we each can individually discover a way to go about living peacefully and interacting one with another.
One of the critic-poets argues that yes, you can remain true to "your roots" and still make changes. But the solution offered is very difficult; it basically calls for people to not allow themselves to be pulled into the conflict. A "leave the past behind" attitude. While you don't have to forget the people who died, you shouldn't fight on in their name.
This sounds good in theory, doesn't it? But, can it really apply to places like Rwanda? (or Ireland, or practically anywhere that there has been conflict between cultures, which is exactly the entire globe.) Basically, the critic would be telling the people who suffered the most: ok, just move on. (of course, this is a gross simplification) I'm not sure practically how that would work on a grand scale. On a small scale, it's possible. It is possible on an individual level to forgive and move on. But on a large scale? I don't have faith that this would work.
Another argues that the trying to cling to these "pasts" is damaging, especially for the second generation who might end up lost in the limbo between two cultures and often two languages.
Another claims that living "without roots" is, in fact, a self-imposed silence. That's dangerous too, right?
The most popular option for navigating this seems to be "hybridity," which seems great if you're from the dominant culture: I'll appreciate some of your culture and you can appreciate some of mine. But how long will it before the other culture is so watered down that it disappears?
Even though I've lived in the same country my entire life, I still think about these ideas as applicable to my own life. I like the thought of being connected to a history, a heritage. But, I haven't inherited many traditions from my family's country of origin. Our family has been here too many generations and by my parent's time they are all gone. Occasionally, one of my folks will mention their grandparents doing this or that, baking a particular treat, eating a certain food. But all the tradition (how & why) of these has been lost to time. And we move, a lot. Probably more than the "average American," although it seems our culture is getting more adept with the moving boxes every year.
And of course, the post-colonial theory is very applicable to the US today. I've lived across the country where there are some traditions left; and we've known many people from a myriad of cultural backgrounds. (One of our family's favorite meals is a Japanese type of curry that a friend from Hawaii shared with us. Another is a particular (regional) way of making pinto beans that is so much better than any other Mexican-style I'd had, taught to me by a friend from Mexico.) I try to make some 1st generation traditions for my boys, too. (Chinese food on Halloween, anyone?) (Yes, most of these traditions *are* involving food here, because they're the quickest to describe & relate to. [I guess I get a little frustrated too with how many of our American traditions are dictated to us by the corporate world through super-saturation in advertising. Chex Mix, anyone? But that's probably a topic better left for another day.])
Perhaps an effective thing to do, instead of demanding that people mold themselves to one American ideal is just to live and let be. But can this work politically, as well? Doesn't it still lead people to an us vs. them mindset? What does America want? appears to be the question on all the politicians' tongues. What America are they talking about? There must be a million versions of America and each of them wants something different. Good luck answering that question.
So, I'm left to consider how to go about living the best I can in this complicated world and hoping that we each can individually discover a way to go about living peacefully and interacting one with another.
Happy ( Belated) Birthday Blog!
Three years have zipped right by & I still love the view from here.
I'm always grateful to have you, my friends, dropping by to visit.
Thanks for being a part of it all!
Lather Up!
Bear's Best Blend
Hand-Milled Goat's Milk Soap
Ok, not really poetry, but it's what's been informing my days.
(but I did sneak some alliteration in there. . .)
Cheers!
Literature & Lather
I've just finished unmolding a batch of handmade (my hands) honey-almond-oat soap. I'm trying to keep my hands busy recently as well as my head. I've recently made candles, too. I love the tactile experience of working with wax & soap. But I think it's the connectedness to the past of gardening, making bread, candles, and soap that makes me enjoy these tasks so much. I find more and more that I appreciate tradition and carrying on traditional skills. My boys help some days too-and I find pleasure in watching them learn, too.
Not that my brain hasn't been busy; I've been writing poems, and doing some editing work. I think I've been "under-pressured" for the last year with what I was requiring of myself. I do acknowledge that time out was necessary and the distance from the most difficult parts of my treatment means that I am now able to "recollect in [something closer to] tranquility." I think I'm going to end up with a collection of these poems as well, but I'll honestly say that I'll be happy when they're written and the covers closed. It's a chapter of my life that I hope remains in the past tense.
Not that my brain hasn't been busy; I've been writing poems, and doing some editing work. I think I've been "under-pressured" for the last year with what I was requiring of myself. I do acknowledge that time out was necessary and the distance from the most difficult parts of my treatment means that I am now able to "recollect in [something closer to] tranquility." I think I'm going to end up with a collection of these poems as well, but I'll honestly say that I'll be happy when they're written and the covers closed. It's a chapter of my life that I hope remains in the past tense.
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