Enlightening
Jun. 11th, 2003 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfish"The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug." --Mark Twain
There was enough lightning and cloudiness out on the way home from Spiel that E suggested we sit out on the back porch for a bit and watch the sky. The storm had mostly passed over; a few raindrops, but basically dry, and what lightning there was danced well over the horizon.
The clouds hung low enough, and were thick enough, that the flashes of lightning diffused a bit. Instead of jagged forks, it was thick fuzzy bright lines. Usually three or four in quick succession. Meanwhile, the lightning bugs played in the field below.
A row of streetlights marked the division between earth and sky. The light fog gave the whole scene an unearthly feel, as though I were looking through into the Otherworld.
Dylan Thomas is a poet I need to look more into; in addition to his innate coolness (from being Welsh), he gives the words a lyric rhythm that I've not found anywhere else. Even Yeats feels ... constrained, both by form and by my inability to give an Irish accent to the voice in my mind. And the imagery... my God, the imagery.
The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
by Dylan Thomas
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
There was enough lightning and cloudiness out on the way home from Spiel that E suggested we sit out on the back porch for a bit and watch the sky. The storm had mostly passed over; a few raindrops, but basically dry, and what lightning there was danced well over the horizon.
The clouds hung low enough, and were thick enough, that the flashes of lightning diffused a bit. Instead of jagged forks, it was thick fuzzy bright lines. Usually three or four in quick succession. Meanwhile, the lightning bugs played in the field below.
A row of streetlights marked the division between earth and sky. The light fog gave the whole scene an unearthly feel, as though I were looking through into the Otherworld.
Dylan Thomas is a poet I need to look more into; in addition to his innate coolness (from being Welsh), he gives the words a lyric rhythm that I've not found anywhere else. Even Yeats feels ... constrained, both by form and by my inability to give an Irish accent to the voice in my mind. And the imagery... my God, the imagery.
The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
by Dylan Thomas
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
If memory serves...
Date: 2003-06-12 08:18 am (UTC)With the man in the wind and the west moon
When the bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone
They shall have star at elbow and foot....
(my favorite DT!)