17. Poems

Wednesday 29 April.  Recent poems.

Flying in over the pole

Seeing the grandchildren
Roomy moonlight lights an empty
White world below.  Tomorrow,
or is it today, I will
Settle in to do the day's work.
Nothing pleases me so much
As knowing I can
Conquer space and time
as easily as this!

The lilacs seem to linger awhile,

as if testing the genuine intentions
of spring, before setting their blooms
and giving it their best shot in May.
Never be the first nor the last to bloom,
I always say, but my brave
Friendly crocus know no fear
of fashion or frozen petals
and go right ahead and show off.

Wednesday 6 May.  8:30 a.m.  Off to London this morning to see "Heartbreak House" with Barbara and Cathy, after a morning at the National Gallery Rembrandt show.

Thursday 7 May. 

I watched a dark skinned Indian girl

On the Tube, sharing a story with a friend
The other one laughed out loud, incredulous,
"No! Really?"  "Could it be?"  The storyteller
rarely paused, her teeth needing a thousand pounds
of work.  I wondered that she smiled at all,
And it was graceful, it was unselfconscious,
A born entertainer was she.
And me, I stood alone, hanging on to the strap,
Thinking to myself how I'd love to be able to
Tell a story like that.  Meanwhile, just
observing till Oxford Circus.

Same day.  11:15 a.m.  Yesterday eventful day.  Took the 9:15 train into London, watched the parade of the Queen opening Parliament (Queen and Duke of Edinburgh rode together), then to Rembrandt exhibition, lunch at National Gallery.  "Heartbreak House" and walked to Guinea for dinner, took 9:40 train back.

Pictures from Saffron Walden

I was beginning to doze at the end of the long first act, three and a half hours with a 10 minute and a 20 minute intervals, but the second and third acts kept me quite awake as I listened and watched the GBS ideas flying across the stage.  Example: men are slaves to women, marry rich; he has to work all day, he's asleep most of the other time, you can use his money all the time.  I half expected some woman to jump up and yell "bullshit!"  Others: two classes of people, people who ride and people who are neurotic; the old generation (early Victorian) had adventures, current generation (late Victorians) went for romance and snobbery, and the present generation sees too clearly all the old faults, has no ideals, just practical; businessmen have no real money (the capitalists have no capital of their own); poets and dreamers see the truth, and go along with it.

Monday 11 May.  11:30 a.m.  Went to Folio Society debate on Friday in London at Merchant Taylors Guild.  6:30 reception, 7:30 dinner.  Short walk from Liverpool Street Station.  Bobbies outside, "no parking" cones everywhere, no one anxious to repeat the episode of early April and the IRA car bomb in the City.  (Perhaps we should tour it and get the flavor?)

Served white wine, red wine, Pellegrino (gas) and still (another brand), water, orange juice, tomato juice.  Beautiful wood panelled room, 15-18 feet high ceilings, portraits on three sides, including one of the Queen Mother as Queen, Lord North and William Pitt.  Lovely courtyard on fourth side, water fountain in the middle, wisteria climbing up the north wall, beginning green, but oh so lovely light purple flowers, like Rome, though in Rome I remember only the flowers and the branches, not any green.

Called into dinner at 7:30 prompt.  Big silver bell, earlier belonging to Queen Victoria, returned in 1954 by Queen Elizabeth II.  Four tuxedoed servers at the entrance to the dining room, holding trays to receive used drink glasses.

We sat at a table at the back of the room in the middle, with Joan to my left (Irish, sounded like Fr. Edmond, Trelawney, I think), and clockwise: Leslie-like (looks), smart ass, 27, smoker and her silent Polish father (like Herb 30 years ago) and matronly but attractive mother, Scottish, but English accent, she reminded me of Lou Sennes, imperturbable, enjoying herself.  To my right, Cathy, then gentleman balding, purple ruffled shirt, slightly senile, and his lisping daughter, high wide forehead.  Then short bristly man who constantly whipped off and laughed at his own one liners which were not very funny. 

Leslie-like: people in Poland like/unlike English, they either ignore you or you are taken into house, home, bedroom.  Fifty year old women conceal their smoking from mothers.  I said my sister was born in King's College Hospital.  She replied, "Don't try and impress me!" (??)

Joan: it's obvious your real interest is literature, not law.  (Thank you, Joan!)

Matronly mother: people used to snigger at news clips of the Queen in the cinema.  You couldn't understand her high, aristocratic, upper (that's the word) class accent when she launched ships.  She was then schooled to speak as she does, in an accent all her own, which does not resemble any accent spoken in England!

Old man: telling us all about Saffron Walden, and how and his wife bought a cottage there eleven or twelve years ago.  How nice it is, etc.  Where do you say you live? (After we had told him Saffron Walden; he must not have heard us).  We said, Saffron Walden; and he proceeded to tell us all over again about Saffron Walden and the cottage.  Said he didn't read current novels or go to current cinema, couldn't understand it.  Likes Trollope or Dickens and he demurred to who was better, saying they are different.  Trollope, middle classes.  Dickens, well, I supplied, scoundrels, he said, the seamy side.

As we left, the old man started on about the cottage in Saffron Walden again, and how they had a cat and liked to feed it.  This time, his wife, trying to get him to go, hands on the chair, said, "Why, the cat died last year," to which he replied, "Why, we like to think about it."  And that was the end.

Debate: Frank Delaney moderated.  P.D. James: charming, sharp.  We study, write, read mysteries to learn of human nature.  Anecdotal evidence that crimes in fiction nowadays are more interesting than real crime.  John Mortimer on the other side deadpanned, related several interesting real crimes: the husband who took off wife's wooden leg and clubbed would be robber to death; dwarf killing same; judge, ponderous, impressed with his position: why we've been handed a note and it reads (very quickly now), "There's a bomb in here, get out of the building!"

Question, comments from the floor.  I was persuaded by the woman who said real life crime can never really be interesting because it is real.  We do not wish to dwell or study it.

After a vote, J. Mortimer won, but on recount, a draw was declared.

Robert

Baseball!