Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 78 Bees

BEES

           This short poem was written with a readership including younger readers in mind. If you read it aloud you may be able to sense a certain onomatopoeic quality of buzzing and humming (of course the words hum and buzz are themselves onomatopoeic) .

            It seems that bees are in trouble (see Wikipedia- Colony collapse disorder). There are many theories however a type of systematic pesticide introduced in the 90"s- neonicotinoids (a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically similar to nicotine) are under suspicion. Neonicotinoids are used in the U.S. on about 95 percent of corn and canola crops, the majority of cotton, sorghum, and sugar beets and about half of all soybeans. They have been used on the vast majority of fruit and vegetables, including apples, cherries, peaches, oranges, berries, leafy greens, tomatoes, and potatoes, to cereal grains, rice, nuts, and wine grapes. Imidacloprid is possibly the most widely used insecticide, both within the neonicotinoids and in the worldwide market.

            Honey bees—wild and domestic—perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. Grains are primarily pollinated by the wind, but fruits, nuts and vegetables are pollinated by bees. (source Greenpeace).

              In March 2013, professional beekeepers and environmentalists jointly filed a lawsuit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for continuing to allow the use of neonicotinoids in the United States. The suit specifically asks for suspension of clothianidin and thiamethoxam. The lawsuit follows a dramatic die off of bees in the United States, with some beekeepers losing 50% of their hives. The EPA responded to the suit by issuing a report blaming the Varroa mite for the decline in bees and claiming the role of neonicotinoids in bee extinction has been overstated Source- Wikipedia.
            Draw your own conclusions but remember 2/3 of all the plant food you eat is pollinated by 
 insects.

photo by Jon Sullivan



                                      BEES

Through blazing sunshine's warming rays,

           On the summer breeze,

Through lazy day's hot, drowsy haze,

           Come the humming bees.

Their gazes trace the sun's sky place

            To guide them to sweet treasure;

As they go buzzing through day's space

            And run the hive-dance measure.

A lizard lies in lazy ease,

            Snoozing through the hours;

But round these blossoming lemon trees,

            These bees visit flowers.

Still busy, buzzing bees are coming,

           As a cloud around-

Surrounding blooms with golden humming:

            Honeycomb of sound.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 77 Second Study Scene from Faust

THE SECOND STUDY SCENE from FAUST rendered into English verse by M. Scrivener

Faust returns to his study with the poodle. He attempts to start translating St John's gospel but the poodle changes form. Faust tries to make it reveal its true form and it emerges as Mephistopheles. After some discussion in which Mephistopheles reveals his nature, he lulls Faust to sleep with the aid of his illusion-making spirits and escapes. The Word or Logos at the beginning of John's gospel is a complex metaphysical concept but it is something like a macrocosmic equivalent to what language and reason are in humans (conceived as creative divine world mind but also with creative vibration and forming power). From this Faust goes down to a more soul level with "sense" and then to life power with "force" and finally the physical world with "deed". The elementals Faust mentions are thought of as beings and powers living "behind" the sense world of nature in hidden formative life forces. Kobolts or gnomes relate to earth, undines to water, sylphs to air and light and salamanders (not the creature) to fire and warmth. Note- these are traditional ideas relating to the text, I'm not arguing for their reality or otherwise- at any rate they can be considered metaphorical in relation to the play. Faust is, after all, a medieval scholar.

Faust and Mephistopheles- illustration Harry Clarke 1925

STUDY

FAUST (ENTERING WITH POODLE)

I have forsaken field and meadow,
All sheltered in a deep night-shadow;
With sacred and foreboding awe,
Our better soul wakes in our core.
Wild impulses are sleeping, cooled
Like all impetuous action's power;
By love of humankind we're ruled,
The love of God reigns in us now.

Be quiet poodle! Don’t run everywhere.
Why sniff the threshold, as you do?
Lie down behind the oven there,
And my best cushion I'll give you.
When outside on the hillside way
Through running and leaping you pleased us best,
So now accept my care and stay
Here as a quiet and welcome guest.

Ah, when within my narrow cell
The friendly lamp glow burns once more,
It grows bright in my breast as well,
Within the heart that knows its core.
Then once more reason starts to speak,
Then once more hope begins to flower;
You yearn to reach life’s streams, to seek
The very wellspring of life’s power.

Stop growling, poodle! For the sacred tones,
That now encompass my whole soul,
Do not accord with such a brutish howl.
I know how many people mock and moan,
Reject whatever they've not understood;
And mutter much about the fair and good,
So often finding them a burden… but must you,
A dog, start growling at them too?

Oh! But already now, with my best will,
Contentment flows no longer from heart’s fill.
Why must the stream run dry so quickly, then
Leave us to lie in thirst again?
I’ve been through this so many times,
And yet this want is answered- for we learn
To prize the super-earthly, and we yearn,
We long for revelation’s signs,
Which nowhere fairer flame, with worth expressed,
Than in the gospel’s words. I sense a call
To open up this ancient text;
With honest feeling now to reach
And take the sacred, great original
And set it down in my loved native speech. .

(HE OPENS A GREAT VOLUME AND PREPARES TO WRITE)

It is written: “ In the beginning was the Word!”
I stop already. Who can help me forward?
I cannot make the word so high a prize,
I must translate this otherwise,
If right-illumined by the spirit- hence
It is written: “ In the beginning was the Sense.”
Consider well this first line’s taste;
Your pen must not run on with too much haste.
Does sense create all things and weave their course?
It ought to stand: “ In the beginning was the Force.”
Yet even as I write these words down too,
Already something warns me they won’t do.
Now spirit helps. It shows me what I need;
With confidence I write: “In the beginning was the Deed.”

If we’re to share this room at all,
Poodle, you must not howl
You must not bark!
Such troubling friends, let me remark,
Are not allowed to stay so near.
One of us, you hear,
Has to go, it’s clear.
I fear you are not welcome any more.
You’re free to go. There’s the open door.
But what is this I see?
Can this be so? How can this be?
Is this reality
Or are these shadow dreams?
How long and broad my poodle seems.
How powerfully he rises up.
That is not a canine shape!
What ghost have I brought to the house!
He now looks like a river horse!
With fiery eyes, with terrifying teeth
Oh! Now I see through your false sheath!
With such half-hellish spawn the key
Of Solomon gives mastery.

SPIRITS (IN THE CORRIDOR OUTSIDE)

One is imprisoned within!
Stay outside, don’t follow him.
Like a fox in a snare,
One old hell lynx trembles there.
But now, give heed!
Hover, floating to and fro,\
High and low;
And he'll get out and be freed.
Help where it’s fitting,
Don’t leave him sitting!
For favours did fall
From him for us all.

FAUST

First, to counter this beast’s core,
I need the Spell of Four:

Salamander shall shine.
Undine weave here,
Sylph disappear,
Kobolt toil and mine.

Those who don’t know
The elements’ flow,
All their forces
And their resources,
Won’t master fleeing,
Spiritual being.

Vanish in flaming glow,
Salamander!
Rush together, smoothly flow,
Undine!
Shine with meteor-fair gleam,
Sylph!
Bring homely helpfulness,
Incubus! Incubus!
Step forward and end this address.

None of the four
Hides in its core,
It lies quite calmly and grins at me,
I haven’t hurt it yet I see,
Hear stronger teachers’
Conjuring speeches.

Are you, come tell,
A fugitive from hell?
Then see this sign
That makes malign
Black legions bow.

The hair is bristling: it’s swelling now.

Accursed, base being
Are you not seeing
The never-begotten,
Unutterable
One permeating all heaven,
Pierced by mankind’s evil?

There behind the stove, still pent,
Swelling like an elephant,
It fills the whole space. Now it's willing
To melt in mist and so retreat.
Don't rise up to the ceiling!
Lay down at your master’s feet.
You'll see that I don’t threaten in vain.
I’ll singe you now with sacred flame.
Don’t wait to fight
The threefold, dazzling light!
Don’t wait to fight
The strongest art that I’ve at hand!

THE MIST CLEARS AND MEPHISTOPHELES
STEPS FORTH FROM BEHIND THE OVEN,
DRESSED AS A TRAVELLING SCHOLAR

MEPHISTOPHELES

Why all the noise? What does my lord command?

FAUST

So this was the kernel of the cur!
A travelling scholar , the casus makes me laugh.

MEPHISTOPHELES

I must salute you, greatly learned sir
You didn’t make me sweat by half.

FAUST

What are you called?

MEPHISTOPHELES

That question seems so small
For one who scorns the word so much; who’s fleeing
So far from mere appearance, all
His striving works towards depths of being.

FAUST

With sirs like you the being’s aim
Is mostly read out from the name.
And it is all too plainly shown
When you’re called lord of flies, destroyer, lying one.
All right- who are you then?

MEPHISTOPHELES A part of the power that would
Will ever for the bad and ever makes the good.

FAUST

What meaning do these riddling words disguise?

MEPHISTOPHELES

I am the spirit that ever denies!
And rightly so, for all that is created
Deserves to be annihilated.
It would be best if it could not begin.
So everything, what you call sin,
Destruction too- in short, where evil’s meant,
I’m in my own true element.

FAUST

You say you’re part, yet stand before me whole?

MEPHISTOPHELES

The modest truth is all I've told.
Though man, that microcosmic fool, well might,
As usual, just deem himself a whole,
I’m part of that great part that to begin was all:
Part of the dark that from itself gave birth to light;
Imperious light that now competes for space,
Disputing mother night’s old place;
Yet can’t succeed. No matter how it strives, it will
Remain enchained to bodies still.
It streams from bodies, makes them beautiful,
And other bodies block its way,
And so I hope soon comes the day
When it and bodies to destruction fall.

FAUST

So now I know your worthy duty!
You can’t destroy a lot of booty,
So you will start on something small.

MEPHISTOPHELES

And frankly little is done that way at all.
Yes, that which sets itself against the Nothing,
This clumsy universe, this Something,
As much as I’ve already tried,
Just how to harm it leaves me mystified.
Though flame, storm, wave, and rain I send,
The sea and land stay peaceful in the end.
That brood of beasts and men, that damned stuff of creation,
You cannot do it any harm:
How much already I’ve put down!
And always fresh, new blood returns to circulation.
Enough to drive one crazy with despair!
From earth, from water, and from the air,
A thousand fertile seeds are sown;
In dry and damp, in warm and cold.
And if I’d not reserved the flame of old,
I’d now have nothing for my own.

FAUST

So you oppose the ever-moving,
The curative, creative might,
The icy devil’s fist thus choosing
To clench in vain, malicious spite.
You should start trying something new,
Oh, ancient, chaos’ strange son.

MEPHISTOPHELES

We’ll really have to think that through-
So more next time we meet! May one
Take one’s good leave this time and go?

FAUST
I don’t see why you’re asking me.
I’ve made your strange acquaintance, so
Come visit as you will- feel free.
Here is the window, there’s the door,
The chimney too is on display.

MEPHISTOPHELES

I must say I’d have strolled out long before
Had not a tiny hindrance blocked my way:
The witch’s foot, your threshold spell.

FAUST

The pentagram there gives you pain?
Now tell me this, you son of hell,
If it bars you then how did you get in?
Yes, how was such a spirit cheated?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Observe with care. It isn’t quite completed.
One angle-tip, out-facing from my view,
Is, as you see, just opened out a bit.

FAUST

That was an excellent, chance hit!
So you’re my prisoner now, are you?
A lucky accident, it would appear.

MEPHISTOPHELES

The poodle noticed nothing as he bounced in here.
But now the thing is turned about:
The devil finds he can’t get out.

FAUST

Yet why not use the window’s way?

MEPHISTOPHELES

It is a law that fiends and ghosts obey:
Where we’ve slipped in, that’s where we must go out.
We’re free to choose the first, by the second we are bound.

FAUST

In hell itself then rules are found?
That’s good, for it would let one make a sure
And binding pact with gentlemen like you.

MEPHISTOPHELES

What’s promised you’ll taste fully, for
You’ll not be cheated of one thing you’re due.
Yet that’s not fixed with so much speed;
We shall discuss it presently.
But now I beg you urgently,
For this one time let me be freed.

FAUST

Just stay a moment longer in this room
And give some good report or news.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Now let me go! I shall return quite soon,
Then you may ask whatever you may choose.

FAUST

I didn’t trip this trap for you;
You strolled into the snare yourself
With devil held, you hold like glue!
He won’t be caught a second time without much stealth.

MEPHISTOPHELES

If it’s your pleasure, I’m prepared to stay,
To stay here too as company;
But on condition my art’s way
May pass time’s passing worthily.

FAUST

I’ll view it gladly. So be free;
But see your art works pleasingly.

MEPHISTOPHELES

You’ll gain more for your senses, friend,
Before this hour comes to an end,
Than in a year’s monotony.
For what the tender spirits sing,
The beautiful pictures that they bring,
Are not an empty magic’s sway.
For they’ll entrance your sense of smell,
Your palate please by their rare play,
Your touch enrapture by their spell.
No preparation’s needed then-
We are together, now begin!

SPIRITS

Vanish, you dark
Arches above!
Let the blue sky
Look in from high
With friendly love!
Would that the darkling
Clouds would all go!
Small stars are sparkling,
Milder suns glow,
Shine from above.
Wavering ones,
Spirit of beauty’s
Heavenly sons,
Bending down, hover,
Go floating over.
Yearning affection
Trails their direction;
And their out-flowing
Robes, ribbons blowing,
Over lands going,
Cover the arbours,
Where, deep in thought,
Lovers incline,
Pledging life’s course.
Arbour on arbour!
Sprouting of vine!
Grapes in most massive
Bunches go tumbling
Into the vats of
Crowded wine presses;
Wines fall and foam,
Rush in small rivers,
Rippling though pure,
Precious, clear stones,
Leaving heights lying,
Back there recumbent,
Broaden to lakes
Round the abundant,
Green-covered hills.
Wild fowl there will
Sip in delight,
Take sunward flight,
Fly towards the bright
Islands which seem
Rocking on billows,
Stirring in dream.
There, where before us,
Joyously chorus
Those whose dance wheels
Over the fields;
All of them scatter,
Free, without fetter.
Some of them climb
Over the peaks,
Some of them swim
Over the lakes,
More float in air-
All toward life there,
All toward far sight
Of loving starlight,
Most blissful grace.

MEPHISTOPHELES

He sleeps! Well done- soft, airy youths, your number
Have truly sung him into slumber.
I am indebted for this concert’s grace.
You are not yet the man to hold the devil fast.
Play-weave about with sweet dream figures, pass
Him down into an ocean of illusion.
To break this threshold’s magic cast
I need a rat’s tooth. And for this collusion
I shall not need to conjure long;
One’s rustling near and straight away will hear my song.
The lord of rats and busy mice,
Of blowflies, bedbugs, frogs and lice,
Now orders you to venture near
And gnaw into the threshold here
Where I have dotted it with oil-
You hop already to despoil!
Now straight to work! The tip that bans my kind
Is furthest from me, past that line.
Just one more bite, the work is done-
Now, Faust, until we meet again, dream on.

FAUST (AWAKENING)

Have I been tricked once more ? So does it seem
That this now-vanished spirit company
Just spun a fancied devil from false dreams,
And here a poodle simply fled from me?

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 76 The Name of the Cat

 

THE NAME OF THE CAT

Narration is, I believe, a legitimate use of verse. Verse gives narration a certain extra form. While this may not be suitable for every sort of story it can be effective on occasion. The basis of this ballad (written originally for younger readers) is a folk tale that originated n the so-called far east. It not only extols the virtue of "calling a spade a spade" and not trying "dress up" things, but also points out the relativity of notions of "importance" - given that all things are related and interdependent. 

                 THE NAME OF THE CAT

There was a king who had a cat.

A beautiful, white cat it was.

He wished to name the cat because

All things have names and that is that.

He thought for all that he was worth,

What is the greatest thing I know?

This cat can so be named to show

I've found the greatest cat on earth.

One day he chanced to lift his eyes

And saw the blue, blue heavens there.

"How vast they are: what can compare?

I'll call this special creature- 'Skies'!"

His chief advisor, old and wise,

Heard why the cat was now named "Skies",

"Your Majesty, may I advise:

The cloud can cover all the skies."

And so the cat became the "Cloud;"

And all went on without a hitch,

Until the queen heard of the switch,

And laughed a little, right out loud.

"My dearest husband, it's quite plain:

The wind can chase the cloud away.

The wind is stronger, any day!"

The "Wind" was now the cat's right name.

And "Wind" it stayed for a day or two,

Until a friend said, with a laugh,

"A wall can stop the wind's rough path,

So call it 'Wall', that's what I'd do."

But "Wall" was not its name for long,

An old schoolmaster croaked, "In all,

A mouse can gnaw right through a wall,

And so a wall's not all that strong."

There was a hush in the royal house.

"Oh dear," the king said, with a sigh,

"I thought the greatest thing was sky;

But now it seems it is the 'Mouse'."

"Why do you call our dear cat 'Mouse'?"

The king's small son piped up at once,

"Oh, father, you are such a dunce:

The cat hunts mice inside the house!"

The king blushed red when this was said.

But then he laughed and laughed out loud,

" I am a fool! I am too proud!

I should have stayed with 'Cat' instead!"

"I should have called my cat, a cat.

I've been a fool for fussing so!

For what is greatest, what is low?

All things have names, and that is that."

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 75 Night

NIGHT

This poem was originally written with younger readers in mind and published in the NSW School Magazine. It might be called a lullaby of metaphors. It is the classic ballad form of four feet per line and four lines per stanza. The feet are iambic ( unstressed, stressed) however the lines starting "Night is.." would tend to be read as a trochaic substitution (Stressed, unstressed Night is..) but this variation tends to add rhythmic interest rather than break the overall form. 

Photo M. Scrivener

                                    NIGHT

Night is the dark leaves whispering;

Night is the moon-boat sailing west;

Night is the song that crickets sing

When butterflies have gone to rest.

Night is the silent road that runs

Through darkness for growl-gleaming cars.

Night is the light of many suns

So far away they are just stars.

Night is the dark waves on the shore.

Night is the sleep that brings dawn's gleam.

Night is the moonlight on the door.

Night is the riddle of the dream.

Night is the healer of day's strife,

A light that day's eyes cannot see.

The slumber that renews all life;

The soundless, star-sung symphony.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 74 Before the Gate (part two) from Faust by Goethe

BEFORE THE GATE PART 2 From Faust

Faust and Wagner pass on. Faust discusses his father's "dark" art. He yearns to fly and follow the sun in one of the most poetic speeches of the play. Wagner praises books and study and Faust cautions him not to know the two "souls" - the higher and lower. Finally Faust sees a distant poodle that seems strange- but the dog comes up to them and Wagner says he is but a dog (but we know he isn't).

FAUST

Accepting your refreshing brew,
I wish all health and thank them too.

THE PEOPLE GATHER AROUND IN A CIRCLE

OLD PEASANT

In truth, it's very well it happens
That you appear this joyous day;
For earlier in evil times,
You worked for good in will and way.
How many who stand living here,
Your father snatched out just in time
From burning fever as he brought
The epidemic into line.
You too that time, a young man still,
Went in each house where plague was found;
How many corpses one carried out,
But you came out still strong and sound.
Withstanding much hard testing too;
The helper on high helped helpers through.

ALL

Health to the man who's truly tried,
Long may his help be by our side!

FAUST

Stand bowed to Him on high who sends
All help, and teaches help, my friends.

HE GOES ON WITH WAGNER

WAGNER

What lofty feelings you, great man, must gather
From this throng's reverence! Yes, he has much
True happiness who can draw such
Advantage from his gifts. The father
Points you out to his boy. Folk touch
And ask and press and rush around;
The dancers pause, no fiddles sound.
They stand in rows when you go near,
They throw their caps up toward the sky;
A little more and they would bow down here
As if the sacred host went by.

FAUST

Now it is but a few more steps up to that stone,
We'll rest here from our rambling. This is where,
Quite filled with thought, I'd often sit alone
And rack myself with fasting and with prayer.
Here rich in hope, in faith firm-set,
By wringing hands, by tears and sighing.
I thought I'd force the Lord, and get
An end to all that plague, that dying.
The crowd's applause just sounds like mockery.
Oh, would you read within my inmost part
How little father and son should be
So given glory for their art.
My father was- was a dark man of honour,
That over nature and her sacred circles mused,
In honesty, yet after his own views,
In an eccentric, labouring manner.
In other adept's company,
And after endless formulae,
Within the locked black kitchen, he
Would mix the opposites together.
Within a tepid bath, a daring wooer there,
A "Red Lion" wed the "Lily"; and with care
The two were pained upon an open flame
And passed from one "Bride Chamber" to another.
In bright hues there appeared inside
The glass, the "Young Queen". Truth to tell,
Here was the medicine, the patients died,
And no-one asked, "Now who got well?"
So with this hellish and concocted brew,
Throughout these hills and valleys too,
Far worse than plague itself we raged.
And I myself to thousands gave this poisoned cure;
They withered away, but I must endure
To hear the shameless killers praised.

WAGNER

How could that cause you such distress!
For is it not enough for honest men
That arts we pass on down to them
They practice with strict conscientiousness?
You honour your own father, as a youth,
So you absorb his teachings whole.
When grown you add to knowledge- then, in truth,
Your son may climb up to a higher goal.

FAUST

Oh, happy's he who still can hope
To leave this sea of error round us all.
For what's not known, that's what you need to cope,
And what is known, your need for that is small,
Still let's not let this hour of beauty grow
Quite stunted by such troubled talking, but
Just see now how the dusk-burnt sun's last glow
Is glimmering upon each green-edged hut.
The day's outlived, the yielding sunbeams shift,
They fly to further new life far away.
Oh, that from out my body wings could lift;
I'd flee, forever following the day!
I'd see, within eternal evening's beam,
All at my feet, the quiet world below,
Each valley hushed, each height a fire gleam,
Where silver streams to golden rivers flow.
Wild mountains with their gorges, none denies
My godlike race, already now the sea,
With its warmed bays, is opening under me,
Spread out before astonished eyes.
Yet off at last the goddess seems to sink;
But new, new impulse wakes, I'd find
I'd hurry forward, eternal light my drink,
The day before me and the night behind,
The heavens over me and under me the waves.
A glorious dream now, even as it flees us quite.
Ah! for the spirit's wings have grown so light,
That we've no bodied wing that so behaves.
For still in each one born there's traces
Of feelings lifting upward, up and on.
When he hears, vanishing in far, blue spaces,
The trilling tremble of a skylark's song,
When over steep, spruce-covered height,
Outspread, the eagles hover round.
When over flats and seas, in flight,
The crane strives onward, homeward bound.

WAGNER

I've often found such hours of fancy's touch,
Yet I have never felt an urge like you as such.
You see your fill of forest, field and brook;
I've never envied wings that birds employ.
Quite otherwise we're borne by spirit joy
From page to page, from book to book.
Then winter nights grow gracious, charmed and fair,
A blissful life warms every limb right through,
And oh! if you unroll a precious parchment there,
Then all of heaven will come down to you.

FAUST

You do yourself but know one urge's quest;
Oh, never learn to know the other!
Alas, two souls are dwelling in my breast,
Each wants to part itself from its own brother.
The one, with clinging organs, coarse love lust,
Holds to the world, the other's sovereignty
Uplifts it powerfully from dust
Towards regions of high ancestry.
If there be spirits of the air,
Between the earth and heaven ruling, weaving,
Descend from golden haze of atmosphere,
And lead me off to new and varied living!
If only I'd a magic cloak whose wing
Would carry me to new and varied lands.
For richest robes it would not leave my hands,
I wouldn't trade it for the mantle of a king.

WAGNER

Don't call the well-know swarms that stream and flee,
In misty circles spreading overhead,
From every quarter for humanity
Preparing peril, thousand-faceted.
From out the north they bare sharp spirit teeth,
Attacking us with arrow-pointed tongues.
Then from the east they parch the world beneath
And eat into your unprotected lungs.
If on the south wind, from the desert sent,
They heap on glow on glow upon your brain;
The west brings hosts, at first refreshing, bent
On drowning you and every field and plain.
They like eavesdropping, for they joy in harm,
They like obeying, for they like deceiving;
They act as if just sent from heaven’s calm,
And lisp their lies like angels’ breathing.
The world’s already wrapped in grey. Let’s go!
The air grows cool, the mist sinks low.
Now home’s most treasured when dusk’s about-
Why stand so, so astonished, gazing out?
What in this dusk makes you so troubled?

FAUST

You see the black dog brushing through the crops and stubble?

WAGNER

Long since. It didn’t seem important in the least.

FAUST

Observe it well. What would you call that beast?

WAGNER

A poodle; judging from its path I’d say
It’s searching for its master’s track.

FAUST

Note how it hunts, how its wide, spiral way
Is ever closing in on us. Its back,
If I see truly, leaves a swirl of flames
Behind it as it goes along.

WAGNER

I see a black-haired poodle, nothing strange.
Perhaps a trick of sight makes it seem wrong.

FAUST

It draws soft magic coils, it seems to me,
Around our feet to form a future fetter.

WAGNER

I see it prance around us, with uncertainty,
Because it sees two strangers rather than its master.

FAUST

The circles narrow, it’s already near.

WAGNER

You see, a dog and not a ghost comes here.
It pauses, growls, lies on its belly too,
And wags its tail: all things dogs do.

FAUST

Now be our friend! Come here to us.

WAGNER

It’s just a poodle-foolish beast.
If you stand still, it waits by too.
You speak to it, it tries to climb on you.
It brings back things you drop. It’s quick
To leap into stream to fetch your stick.

FAUST

You are quite right. I cannot find a trace
Of any spirit, training takes its place.

WAGNER

And when a dog is truly trained,
Even a wise man’s heart is gained.
Indeed, this one deserves your favour, he
Is the students’ excellent scholar, you see.

THEY EXIT BY THE GATE

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 73 Spring Stars

SPRING STARS

One of the unusual aspects of living on the land in the far north coast of NSW is the appearance of fireflies in early spring. They come around dusk and dart in and out of the vegetation with an almost fairy-like magic. I also wrote another poem on this subject for younger readers called Firefly that was published in the NSW School Magazine. The photo is not from here though it gives a general impression of what they are like although usually they are not quite as numerous as in this picture. The last stanzas refer to the fact that this display is for breeding and hence increase of life. 

                    

SPRING STARS

Georgica NSW

September dusk drifts over fields,

green valleys, forests and long hills

and lays, like mist, upon the scene

a dreaming tenebrosity.

The sheen that was slips back to last

west-fading blue of skyward sight

and coolness and the call of dark

speak with the syllables of night.

Though land is losing all of light,

upon the south-west, paling sky

new crescent rides as lunar smile

with Venus high: white-gleaming eye.

While from fast darkening, near this,

as stars both Mars and Saturn shine-

all jewels lit with radiance

reflected from a vanished sun.

From world beneath, still shadowing,

wild drumming of cicadas crowds

the air to drown my ears with sound-

last chorus veiled from hunting wings.

In vagueness, from my seeing’s verge,

a sudden flash sparks, low then high,

around dark trees and weeds and bushes,

long grass and dim-white crofton flowers…

and there another, and there- and there-

all through the gloom of cooling air,

I see the drifting stars go by-

the green-gold gleam of fireflies.

Like shifting constellations through

the ever-growing dark they pass-

light signs to breed in spring’s increase

that rising life may never cease.

So weary from my winter time

I view enchanting shimmering

and feel again this magic rhyme

that sings to me from stars of spring.

Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 72 At End of Day

AT END OF DAY

This poem is based on the form of Japanese "Linked Verse". It is normally composed of renga- a short poem of two stanzas - the first or hokku later led to the more well-known haiku form. The first stanza has three lines of 5-7-5 sound units (or in English acoustic syllables) and the second of two lines has 7 and 7. Here the form is used as a lyrical device - it is not a proper linked poem as that would have to have been written by two poets taking turns. Nevertheless, the form helps to focus imagery and can still incorporate a sort of statement-and-response feeling- both in the relationship between individual renka and within each renka between the first and second stanza. 

Photography M. Scrivener

                  AT END OF DAY

Nearly five. Sinking

towards the north-west skyline, still

white sun is blinding.

Grass seed-heads gleam in low beams:

cone of rays through bluing haze.

With fierce splendour sun's

descent now silhouettes far

trees on edge of earth.

Far cliffs fade in blue-green air.

Closer hilltop trees catch gold.

Half-sunken sun brings

summer dawn somewhere. But here:

a white, winter gold.

A magpie glides on dusk sky.

Brief breeze stirs the nearby trees.

Sun sinks. Last sliver

shivers into dusk shade- world

turns to winter night.

Above, half moon grows brighter.

Shadows claim the last ridge tops.

Last of light is worn

to finest lilac shine. Time

travels toward the dawn.