PAGE F THE MONTH

July 2008

The terror of error
The error of terror
The terror of seeing
The error of being

 

A SON AME un sonet de

POEM TO MY SOUL a sonnet by

Pierre de Ronsard

Amelette Ronsardelette Mignonnelette doucelette Treschere hostesse de mon corps, Tu descends là bas foiblelette, Pasle, maigrelette, seulette, Dans le froid Royaume des mors : Toutesfois simple, sans remors De meurtre, poison, ou rancun, Méprisant faveurs et tresors Tant enviez par la commune. Passant, j'ai dit, suy ta fortune Ne trouble mon repos, je dors. translated by Anthony Weir

Poor dear wee soul, sweet sleekit soul of poor wee Pierre, sweetest inhabitant of my wee heap of flesh and bone, already you've begun to creep, all frail and pale and wull from out my bed down to the cold Kingdom of the Dead. You are guileless, guiltless, rancourless, distrusting favour and reward thus envied by your petty peers. I feel you seep away from me, your carnal nest. Goodbye, wee love, just keep right on and don't disturb my rest. I've gone to Sleep.

_________________________

 

Note: if anyone 'out there' speaks Ulster/Scots/Lallans
can he or she please SEND me synonyms for 'wee sleekit',
implying vulnerable, precious, defenceless etc.,
to correspond with the humorous/ironic -ette endings of Ronsard.
Scots has both prefixes and suffixes of this type.
Boring old English has no such adaptability,
and I can get no online help
from the thraun and dreich people who have taken over Ulster/Scots
as the pseudo-Republican Catholics took over Irish as fodder for
their petty puritanism.

(Talking of which, Néo-Pétainisme stalks the Fair Land of France...even in ever-Résistant Rouergue...)

 

 

AS I GET OLDER

regrets appear like
woodworm or incontinence -

regrets that I was callow
for so long, and so ignorant
of my mother's close regrets,
her brave disconsolation.

Maturity may be
no more than vain regret
that I am incorrigibly shallow
and that I trampled on
the heartache of the
previous generation.

 

 

A MONK'S YEAR

re-translated by Anthony Weir from the Old Irish

SPRING

By Belfast Lough
a bright-billed
blackbird trilled
from coruscating gorse.

SUMMER

He is my joy
my sweet nut-grove.
He is my boy
and this
a kiss
for my love.

AUTUMN

The winds are wild tonight. They tear
and toss the sea's white hair.
And yet they bring my mind much ease
for Vikings sail on calmer seas.

WINTER

The wind is icy
the sun blear.
The bent tree's shelter
on the bleak moor.

The bracken's brown.
Barnacle-geese
flying at dawn
cry to the ice.

Cold has caught
the wings of birds.
Frost has brought
my winter words.

MAXIM OF THE MONTH:

Humility is not obedience -
nor is obedience humility.

JUNE'S MAXIM

The first step to Heaven
is to cut off your feet.
(after Rumi)

 

MAY'S MAXIM

Even the poor have more money than sense.

 

APRIL'S MAXIM

Love is
estrangement's
distorting mirror.

 

MARCH'S MAXIM

It's not what's going on that matters
but what's going off.

 

FEBRUARY'S MAXIM

Nothing that is guarded is worth having.

 

JANUARY'S MAXIMS

'Silence is always accurate.'
- Mark Rothko

'C'est en nous qu'il nous faut nous taire'.
- Louis Aragon.

more recent Maxims can be read on the
weBlog

 

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