Mother's Day 2008

I loved these flowers from my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter in Oregon . . .

and my daughter sent this wonderful set of knit-picks dp needles!

Yeats' Long Legged Fly

After swatting at these flying critters for weeks now, I wish they'd all go back to the stream. Remembered this poem -- by one of my most favorite poets... and though it is hard for me right now to see this flying guy as a genius, or symbol of peace...

William Butler Yeats

That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps ate spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle
Picked up on a street.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
Her mind moves upon silence.

That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope’s chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on that scaffolding reclines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Last Poems | 1939

What does the poem mean? The article in JSTOR gives some considered thoughts on this. (second link)
Art, Beauty, Genius? Caesar, Cleopatra (?), Michaelangelo?

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~martinh/poems/yeats.html

http://www.sbhshome.org/Shared%20Documents/English%2012CP%20poetry%20research%20articles/Yeats,%20William%20Butler/Yeats9.pdf

Long-legged flies (mosquitoes?)

I was talking to Sharon on the phone and just mentioned that we have the biggest mosquitoes this year. Since MacTavish has gotten older (he's 14 now), he will ask to go out but when the door is opened, he just stands there, trying to decide why he ever asked. While I'm holding the door open, and MacT is deciding whether or not to go out, these HUGE mosquitoes fly in. They flip all around the room, batting off the walls. They are very quick. It is hard to swat them as they seem to know what I have in mind, and get out of my way.Telling Sharon about this, she said "Maybe they are Crane Flies." --- Crane flies? I'd never heard of them. They look like mosquitoes -- only -- as big as butterflies.She told me how to look them up on google, asking for "images" -- which I did, and there were about 1,000 photos of my mosquitoes. They are indeed Crane flies.The good news is that they do not bite. and are harmless -- just a nuisance.

There is some construction going on nearby - in an area that was woodsy and natural until they brought in the big machines. . . maybe that's what stirred these guys up. Their habitat has been destroyed. ??

More about Marvin Bell

There's a good article about Marvin Bell at
http://www.counterbalancearts.org/speakers/bell_marvin.php

The Cactus Cuties sing The National Anthem

They are between the ages of 6 and 8.

"Texas Tech University Basketball game, Feb 9th, our National Anthem sung by 5 young ladies. I've never heard it performed better than this! An entire arena remains completely silent throughout the entire song. I mean you could hear a pin drop."

Finding lost poems (Marvin Bell)

Some time ago -- maybe a year or two- -- I read a poem in a magazine. I'm sure it was in a magazine because I was reading a lot of poems in magazines. I was subscribing to the New Yorker and reading all the poems first. I also had a subscription to Poetry at the time.



After the subscriptions ran out, I remembered one of the poems and looked for it again. But couldn't find it. I couldn't remember the title or the author. But I knew it had to do with the All-girl Texas Drill Team. If that wasn't the title, at least it was a line in the poem. I looked through every single New Yorker and all the Poetry magazines I had stacked up. (It is almost impossible for me to throw away a New Yorker. That is the main reason I stopped my subscription. )



Every couple of months, I'd look through more magazines, and tried various poetry finders on the internet. Couldn't find it. Still couldn't remember the author. After a year or more of this, I resorted to Google --- and there it was. Or, at least the name of a book that contained it. It is by Marvin Bell -- and there's no Texas in the title, but it's called The All Girls Drill Team: Here's the poem:



Texas has nothing so abundant

as its chorus lilnes, it would appear

from attending intermissions

of all kinds.

Texas appears

in more stadiums, in more fieldhouses

than any other state, Alaska

appearing at this point to be too

wrapped up in itself.

Texas has more marching

girls than anything.

Texas has more drill

teams than anything.



I am not exactly against it.

Let the longhorny cow

boys watch the longhorny cow

girls, who, if they can

can-can, can

cater to us.

There is, as the stuck poet says, no description

for this vision, there is no believing

this distinct possibility:

a whole junior college at large

bending, waving and kicking their parts

according to such a score

as can be counted on.



Thus does Texas occasion

comparisons with one-sided states.

For Texas appears

to have steered itself into

a life-time of half-times,

and we love it.

what other state has within it

so much meat?

and turns to art?

Veritably, Texas

has everything

it brags about.



------ Marvin Bell





and not long after finding the poem again, a dear friend (who does not live in Texas either) sent a u-tube of :


Texas Tech: Star Spangled Banner by the Cactus Cuties. ---