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Sunday, September 14, 2008

A Rathe December

Long time a child, and still a child, when years
By Hartley Coleridge

Long time a child, and still a child, when years
Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I;
For yet I lived like one not born to die;
A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,
No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.
But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep; and waking,
I waked to sleep no more, at once o’ertaking
The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
For I have lost the race I never ran:
A rathe December blights my lagging May;
And still I am a child, though I be old:
Time is my debtor for my years untold.

posted by michael at 10:22 am  

23 Comments »

  1. Yuck. To whom/of whom does he speak? No one I know.

    Comment by jenn b — September 14, 2008 @ 8:24 pm

  2. Thank you Jennifer. I appreciate you always saying what I’m thinking.

    Comment by Jen — September 14, 2008 @ 10:16 pm

  3. F**K you both. I can take one Jen hammering my poem, which doesn’t just speak to me, but describes me, but two Jens hammering is too much. Looks like the single “n” Jen is walking home from Logan tomorrow night.

    Comment by michael — September 14, 2008 @ 10:21 pm

  4. Love the poem. LOVE IT!! Can I have a ride????

    Comment by Jen — September 14, 2008 @ 10:26 pm

  5. That’s much better. To paraphrase my good friend, Hartley, it’s my duty and I will not back down.

    Comment by michael — September 14, 2008 @ 10:35 pm

  6. The poem describes me too, Michael. And maybe some other of us old farts.

    Comment by rakkity — September 15, 2008 @ 10:19 am

  7. Does f**k rhyme with yuck? Good thing I don’t need a ride any time soon. No further comment.

    Comment by jenn b — September 15, 2008 @ 9:55 pm

  8. Sorry ladies, but I really liked this one. “…I lost the race I never ran…” What a wonderful line. For me, this captured perfectly the dark side of our age. There are other poems surely that capture the joys of our age. But this resonated for me.

    Comment by BirdBrain — September 16, 2008 @ 4:05 pm

  9. I’m glad it spoke to others. I certainly didn’t mean to shut down conversation, which I for one would like to go on having, not necessarily about or not about this poem. (I didn’t mean that about “no further comment”!)

    Comment by jenn b — September 18, 2008 @ 9:27 pm

  10. OK. More conversation.

    I’m not questioning the poems validity or poignancy. I did enjoy it.

    But I’m afraid that the people whose only window into Michael’s grieving is the two blogs will think that he lives in that “woe” space all the time. Those of us who see him more often witness him laugh and goof. We get a bigger picture. It’s slow and it’s a long road, but he is healing.

    Michael, for Christ’s sake, put something up here that will show them.

    Comment by Jen — September 18, 2008 @ 10:10 pm

  11. I’m sorry, Jennifer, that it’s taken so long to reply. You’re right, I do laugh and goof, or maybe I’m just a goofy guy, but I posted this poem, not because of some harmonic vibratory quality it stirred in me, I’m not sure I even fully understand it, but because of this passage

    The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
    
Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
    
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,

    For I have lost the race I never ran:

    A rathe December blights my lagging May;

    which I think is what pissed you off the first time you read it. How dare I broom away all I’ve accomplished? Is that more or less accurate? If so, it’s not like I don’t think those thoughts, especially now, but poems I post aren’t intended to be fully me, but to elicit comments. The best posts are those most active.

    I mean, do I really think others want to see yet another flower photo or Bruce concert clip or another tale of naked campers swimming in frosty northern waters and their retracted testicles ? (That one is upcoming as this year’s trip, to Blood Pond in Maine, is scheduled for Columbus Day weekend) As I was fumbling about what to say (I nearly posted a Zippy cartoon, but then I thought that might be proof I’d lost my mind) , I found more of Hartley’s poems and they all seem to have a common theme.

    Address to Certain Golfishes

    RESTLESS forms of living light
    Quivering on your lucid wings,
    Cheating still the curious sight
    With a thousand shadowings;
    Various as the tints of even,
    Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,
    Reflected on you native streams
    In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams!
    Harmless warriors, clad in mail
    Of silver breastplate, golden scale; —
    Mail of Nature’s own bestowing,
    With peaceful radiance, mildly glowing —
    Fleet are ye as fleetest galley
    Or pirate rover sent from Sallee;
    Keener than the Tartar’s arrow,
    Sport ye in your sea so narrow.

    Was the sun himself your sire?
    Were ye born of vital fire?
    Or of the shade of golden flowers,
    Such as we fetch from Eastern bowers,
    To mock this murky clime of ours?
    Upwards, downwards, now ye glance,
    Weaving many a mazy dance;
    Seeming still to grow in size
    When ye would elude our eyes —
    Pretty creatures! we might deem
    Ye were happy as ye seem —
    As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe,
    As light, as loving, and as lithe,
    As gladly earnest in your play,
    As when ye gleamed in far Cathay.

    And yet, since on this hapless earth
    There’s small sincerity in mirth,
    And laughter oft is but an art
    To drown the outcry of the heart;
    It may be that your ceaseless gambols,
    Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles,
    Your restless roving round and round,
    The circuit of your crystal bound —
    Is but the task of weary pain,
    An endless labor, dull and vain;
    And while your forms are gaily shining,
    Your little lives are inly pining!
    Nay — but still I fain would dream
    That ye are happy as ye seem.

    Comment by michael — September 21, 2008 @ 9:58 am

  12. Michael, you can say you’re sorry all you want, but that doesn’t make it okay. Yeah, we all get what you’ve been through, but that doesn’t excuse all of your behavior. For instance, common courtesy? Has that been broomed from your brain too?

    You finally post this lame ass thing about this being your poem but not being your poem and what you really like are comments. You’re a big boy now and you can accept the consequences of what you do, which means don’t run and hide behind this passive aggressive shit. You complain all the time when you’re with me about your failed life, how miserable you are. I’m saying it’s not only about you. Get over it, move on and take responsibility for who you are.

    Is that asking too much? Apparently so.

    Comment by Jen — September 21, 2008 @ 11:40 am

  13. I think I missed something. How did y’all get from “Love the poem. LOVE IT!! Can I have a ride???? September 14” to “don’t run and hide behind this passive aggressive shit. … take responsibility for who you are. Is that asking too much? Apparently so. September 21”?

    I guess a week did pass, and maybe I blinked. (I believe in blinking, but that’s another story altogether.) But I do know from other conversations (and maybe this helps, Jen) that Michael loves being able to say things like “F**K you both” without giving offense. (Occasionally he even checks in to make sure he hasn’t. Maybe he neglected to do that?)

    OK, neither of those was the real topic, was it? The real topic might be — Does Michael actually feel that the poem describes him, as he said Sept 14? I’m surprised, but it seems to me he has the right … we all have the right to have the feelings we have.

    And I realize I said that in my 2nd paragraph because, Jen, YOU have the right to complain Michael’s being passive aggressive and not showing common courtesy … but that’s not what I see going on on the blog.

    I guess the taking responsibility thing is what’s confusing to me. A person who IS a failure (if there is such a thing) should take responsibility for BEING a failure, but it makes sense for a person who FEELS like a failure to explore why and to deal with the pieces of reality that exposes but also to acknowledge feelings can have little or no basis in reality. How do you take responsibility for feelings of failure that have no basis in reality?

    OK, so this time I’m pretty sure I’m not saying what you’re thinking, Jen. Actually, I just re-read it, and I have no idea what it’s saying. Maybe, “I love you all.”

    Comment by Jenn — September 21, 2008 @ 2:07 pm

  14. So, hmmmm. Interesting posts from both Jens. However, if you look a little closer you might notice something interesting about Jen 1s comments. What is it that you might notice? That maybe it sounds a little more like my dad then Jen? Maybe its that Jen would never post something like that. Maybe that it is much more like my dad to write something like that, maybe taking what he thinks other people could perceive him as and going with those fears. Maybe the only way he can ask if people think that about him is by critiquing himself and throwing everyone else under the bus.
    As for Jenn 2, thanks for sticking up for my dad…. I think.
    However, I dont think there is any need to defend him…. because you wold be defending him from himself. If he needs that then we are in more trouble then previously thought.

    Matt

    Comment by Matthew Miller (son) — September 21, 2008 @ 5:32 pm

  15. Well now, knowing the *real* story behind comment # 12 (thanks for the clue Matt which Michael just corroborated on the phone), the comment I woulda posted won’t have the same impact…but I was going to say to Jen with 1 n: “What loathesome behavior has Michael been displaying to you that the rest of us don’t see that got you to bash him like that in public?”

    And to *you* Michael: “We can now never trust another comment on your F$%#!NG Blog!”

    Comment by smiling dan — September 21, 2008 @ 6:43 pm

  16. Shit. I should’a stuck with #7. I’m a sloooow learner.

    Comment by Jenn — September 21, 2008 @ 10:41 pm

  17. First of all, thank Matt (I’m saying “thank Matt” instead of “thank God” now as he is my savior) for pulling me out from under that bus. I would not be here without his intervention.

    Second, I denounce Michael (my new alias for Satan) and cast out he and his evil ways. I had no idea he had posted that… and then let it sit there all day!!! You are in some serious shit, man.

    OK. I guess I brought this on myself. I asked him to show you that he was fine. You see? He’s normal – well, normal for Michael.

    Comment by Jen — September 21, 2008 @ 11:32 pm

  18. While everyone else seems to be getting their panties tied in knots about various things, I’m wondering what
    A rathe December blights my lagging May;
    means exactly. My guess is, that December (old age) is coming too early, and May (youth) is too far in the distant past?

    Comment by rakkity — September 22, 2008 @ 8:10 pm

  19. You finally got me to look up “rathe”. (I kept visualizing Rothko paintings, for some reason. Well, because of the r and th.) But I disagree about “lagging May”. The irresponsibility of youth is still hanging around (lagging–“Long time a child and still a child”); didn’t end when it should have, in Michael’s case, ya know, like any time in the last 40+ years.

    Comment by s'nif — September 22, 2008 @ 8:52 pm

  20. How about the view from the present makes past accomplishments pale? No, I agree with you rakkity. I did find that that poem was written in the late 1800’s, and while researching it I found this sonnet by Richard Trench in the same book.

    We live not in our moments, or our years;
    The present we fling from us like the rind
    Of some sweet future, which we often find
    Bitter to taste, or bind that in with fears,
    And water it beforehand with our tears,
    Vain tears, for that which never may arrive;
    Neglected or unheeded disappears.
    Wise it were to welcome and make ours
    Whate’er of good, though small, the present
    brings Flowers
    Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds and
    With a child’s pure delight in little things,
    And of the griefs unborn to rest secure,
    Knowing that Mercy ever will endure.

    Now, why you all are absorbing this latest bit of cheer, I can apologize to those I duped, Jennifer for instance, and to the single “n” Jen, who might be thought of as long suffering because she’s the target of this resurgence of the old me. She doesn’t deserve it and I know I violated many boundaries. Nonetheless, I can’t tell you good it felt to yell at myself.

    Comment by michael — September 22, 2008 @ 8:54 pm

  21. Anyone can be anything

    On the Internet

    Comment by Anonymous — September 23, 2008 @ 1:01 pm

  22. …..sunshine, song of birds and
    With a child’s pure delight in little things,

    Speaking of delightful birds, any herons in those Acton ponds, or have they all flown south, anticipating a rathe December?

    Comment by rakkity — September 24, 2008 @ 12:48 pm

  23. Anonymous, I do no know who you are, but am requesting that you choose a different pseudonym.

    Comment by FierceBaby — September 24, 2008 @ 4:25 pm

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