Textiles

I know I haven’t updated in much too long, but rather than try to explain what I’ve been doing with myself all these long months, I would rather jump into what I’m doing with myself (some of the) now.

This project is an experiment in what I call (in my head) TEXTiles. How could I make my words practical? Why, by incorporating poems into quilts, of course. Not meant for arty display, but for keeping one warm.

I have been inspired by J. Marsha Michler’s The Magic of Crazy Quilting. My grand scheme is to do some of my favorite bits from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King in a Book of Kells style.

Meanwhile, I must practice, so I’m starting with one of my poems in a simple block scheme.

The first five blocks. There will be 20.

The poem block, crookedly basted and ready for decoration. I'm a little nervous about this part, as it has been years since I did embroidery. And of course I want it to be BEAUTIFUL.

Thirty-nine: The last hurrah?

It has not escaped my overdeveloped sense of symbolism that my 39th birthday falls on Shrove Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras. As in, today is the last day for partying, and tomorrow begins that long season of quiet contemplation (sometimes accompanied by various forms of self-denial). Fortunately, I can appreciate the symbolism without buying wholeheartedly into it. Today, for the last of my 39 quotes, I offer some positive thoughts on aging.

34. Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.

—Sir Richard Steele, The Spectator, 1711

35. Give me a young man in whom there is something of the old, and an old man with something of the young: guided so, a man may grow old in body, but never in mind.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Senectute, XI

36. It were a vain endeavor,
Though I should gaze forever
On that green light that lingers in the west;
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Dejection: An Ode”

37. Grant me, sound of body and of mind, to pass an old age lacking neither honor nor the lyre.

—Horace, Odes, book I, ode xxxi

38. Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King—
Else, wherefore born?

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Gareth and Lynette”

39. By the time I’m 50, I might be a really cool person.

—Me

Thirty-nine: Almost there!

Sometimes it’s interesting to look at the paradoxes in life, even in our own personalities. What complicated critters we are, as is the world in which we live. Today I’m having fun juxtaposing quotations that reveal some of those complexities and seeming paradoxes.

28. “So do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

—Matthew 6:31–33 (NIV)

29. Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

—Thomas A. Edison

30. “[W]hoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.”

—Matthew 20:26–27 (NIV)

31. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.

—Samuel Johnson

32. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

—Matthew 16:25 (NIV)

33. In our great hall there stood a vacant chair,
Fashion’d by Merlin ere he past away,
…………………………………………………..
And Merlin call’d it “The Siege perilous,”
Perilous for good and ill; “for there,” he said,
“No man could sit but he should lose himself:”
And once by misadvertence Merlin sat
In his own chair, and so was lost; but he,
Galahad, when he heard of Merlin’s doom,
Cried, “If I lose myself, I save myself!”

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from “The Holy Grail”

Poetry Friday, feeling Arthurian

Hic Jacet Arthurus Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus

Arthur is gone…Tristram in Carcol
Sleeps, with a broken sword—And Yseult sleeps
Beside him, where the westering waters roll
Over drowned Lyonesse to the outer deeps.

Lancelot is fallen…The ardent helms that shone
So knightly and the splintered lances rust
In the anonymous mould of Avalon:
Gawain and Gareth and Galahad—all are dust!

Where do the vanes and towers of Camelot
And tall Tintagel crumble? Where do those tragic
Lovers and their bright-eyed ladies rot?
We cannot tell—for lost is Merlin’s magic.

And Guinevere—call her not back again
Lest she betray the loveliness Time lent
A name that blends the rapture and the pain
Linked in the lonely nightingale’s lament,

Nor pry too deeply, lest you should discover
The bower of Astolat a smoky hut
Of mud and wattle—find the knightliest lover
A braggart, and his Lily Maid a slut;

And all that coloured tale a tapestry
Woven by poets. As the spider’s skeins
Are spun of its own substance, so have they
Embroidered empty legend—What remains?

This: That when Rome fell, like a writhen oak
That age had sapped and cankered at the root,
Resistant, from her topmost bough there broke
The miracle of one unwithering shoot

Which was the spirit of Britain—that certain men
Uncouth, untutored, of our island brood
Loved freedom better than their lives; and when
The tempest crashed around them, rose and stood

And charged into the storm’s black heart, with sword
Lifted, or lance in rest, and rode there, helmed
With a strange majesty that the heathen horde
Remembered after all were overwhelmed;

And made of them a legend, to their chief,
Arthur, Ambrosius—no man knows his name—
Granting a gallantry beyond belief,
And to his knights imperishable fame.

They were so few…We know not in what manner
Or where or when they fell—whether they went
Riding into the dark under Christ’s banner
Or died beneath the blood-red dragon of Gwent.

But this we know: That, when the Saxon rout
Swept over them, the sun no longer shone
On Britain, and the last lights flickered out;
And men in darkness murmured: Arthur is gone…

Francis Brett Young, 1944

My other favorite Arthurian poems are Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, especially “Gareth and Lynnette.” That one was the original spark of inspiration for my novel Two Swords (Gareth has always been my favorite).

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Brimstone Soup. Head over and feed your need for poetry.

No poetry for the situation

I know today is Poetry Friday. I have no poem.

For today was also the funeral of a young woman from our church. I say “young”—she was 38 years old, my age. She leaves her husband, parents, other family, friends; and my heart aches for them all.

I looked for a poem. I found John Donne’s sonnet on the death of his young wife, which begins with the lines

Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt
To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
And her soul early into heaven ravished,
Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set.

I found Tennyson’s “In Memoriam A. H. H.,” which includes the lines

Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.

I found others, too, but none seemed right. Death was in them, grieving was in them, yet for me they were just words.

But being a writer and a reader, I can’t help reaching for words. In due time, I found the right ones. I found them at the funeral, the words of Christ Jesus to his disciples:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.”