Essay for Fun

The Miner’s Wife
By Jacqueline Lyons

sees dark crescent moons
in a sky of light
the dirt forever curving
under his fingernails.
When he goes below the earth
unnaturally, farther than
he could go alone, farther
than he would go for himself,
her own gravity threatens
to tear loose. At the store
she might rise and bump
the shelves of flour and sugar,
making them shudder
and sift themselves down.
Dreams her husband in a jar
she can see into through no light
passes through or reaches
his night inside it.
He works the black
with bare hands, becoming darker
and darker, disappearing,
and she shakes the jar
to make him reappear.


From Her Point of View

“The Miner’s Wife” by Jacqueline Lyons is a poem in free verse, using one long stanza. There are, however, little spurts of rhymes throughout the poem such as “sugar” and “shudder” at the ends of lines 12 and 13, and also “jar” and “reappear” on the the last two lines. Lyons begins the poem with the title, the first line acting as the second line of the poem so that it reads, “The Miner’s Wife / sees dark crescent moons.” This is an abrupt beginning (if one begins reading at the first line and fails to read the title), but a clever one—I have not seen many poets use this device. The speaker talks of this wife in an informal manner, by cutting the “she” out of sentences and starting with verbs like, “Dreams her husband in a jar” instead of saying “She dreams...” which would be the more obvious choice, and not as interesting for me, as a reader.
Lyons is concise with her word choices—she uses limited adjectives which give the poem strength—the topic of a miner’s wife being a strong woman and the emphasis on nouns instead of adjectives alludes to that. The outcome of this noun-heavy poem pleases me. The language is subtle—it took me a couple of reads before I realized the lack of adjectives. The words that the author uses are simple but definitive like, “fingernails,” “moons,” “earth,” and “dirt.” In fact, one of the only places where an adjective is used is where the speaker says “bare hands.” The unexpected adjective describing “hands” is also a device that places stress on those “hands” which is the only part of the miner’s body that the speaker describes.
Hands are subject of the first couple lines, and then the subject toward the end of the poem as well. It seems as though the speaker wants the readers to understand the hardship of the job. Hands symbolize work and difficult labor, and the hands are parts of the body which are visible—and dirty hands have been the scarlet letter on physical laborers for centuries.
The poem’s subject is the wife of a miner, and the readers learn about how she worries for his safety—mining is a dangerous and difficult job. The speaker communicates how the wife deals with his worry, by imagining her husband, and seeing what he sees, “she can see into through no light / passes through or reaches / his night inside it.” The speaker discusses the husband going underground in this poem. The references to death and to the demands of the job:

When he goes below the earth
unnaturally, farther than
he could go alone, farther
than he would go for himself.

The speaker is likening mining to being buried after death (“farther than / he could go alone”), and also making the point that his job was not chosen out of love for the work, (“farther / than he would go for himself”). However, the speaker describes mining with the adverb “unnaturally,” which the speaker has highlighted with the line break and the comma. This brings environmental concerns to mind—and also the impending danger of mining—if Mother Nature did not intend for men to dig, what will happen to those that try?
This question is never answered in this poem, which seems intentional. The miner’s wife will continue to worry, to try to imagine what her husband sees down underground in the dark. Jacqueline Lyons brings the miner’s hands to life in this poem, and thankfully, they can exist there every time I read this piece.

2nd Draft of Something New

Swimming in Lake Champlain, September 19th 2007

Running down the shore and straight into the shallow
(cold and sharp and smelling of rain),
water, splashing each other in the dark, the drops glint

bright as the stars burning white from up above, the Seven
(light so fierce, the stars drown out the moon—or keep it hidden),
Sisters approve of our loud acknowledgements of beauty

which simply could not be captured with cameras, the words
(early autumn air mixed with summer sand, everything white and black),
we say fill us again with life sucked out by daily monotonies

breaking us over and over, but these moments of cold sharp
(fleeting, skin prickling, feet freezing against rough sand, rocks, pavement),
contentments remind us again of what lives in the lake, and the forest

as the autumn equinox pulls us toward winter, we splash water
(hitting us with frosted sparkles, knives against the skin leaving no marks),
and submerge, remembering how much we are in love with this earth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I keep writing about the water. Does that mean something? Maybe I am having an urgent water crisis...needing the ocean...rivers, brooks, anything but the cement sidewalks of Burlington. I think I need to go home and sleep outside in the grass.

On a different note, Lolita is becoming an obsession as I travel further into the novel. When I finally finish reading the monster, I will write a whole post about it and bore my nonexistant readers to death with my unoriginal thoughts. But Nobokov intrigues me and his writing style is fatally delicious. Delicious like beautiful prose (roses) and fatal like pediphiles with eyes like knives.

Love,
Willow~

Country Girl Wants her Country Back...

Autumn in the City

Every day the sun sets over the lake

and I need to be in the lake, in the water

and I need to be surrounded by trees,

wild things, I need to be wild, touching

the grass, sticks, clover, thorns with the hard

callused bottoms of my feet. I need to be lying

still on a cool granite rock, just barely damp,

coated with dark green moss, rolling a feather

between two fingers, building a miniature log

cabin out of twigs, following the claw marks

of a black bear, sliding into the icy water

of a small brook on slippery stones. Every

day the green darkens to red, orange, brown,

purple, yellow and my arms and legs itch

for mountains, for height, for that wicked

wind that pulls and pushes you down against

the cliffs when you reach the top. To be

at the top with the lake below me, wild

and small, and I will be surrounded by trees,

tiny, changing before us, brightening the forests

like small suns setting before winter.

FILTH!!!

Yes! Cradle of Filth tonight at The Higher Ground. I am very excited. There are two opening bands, Blinded by Rage and CthoniC. Blinded by Rage is a local metal band and I haven't heard many positive things about them. Of course, never take the rumors for fact--I will make up my own mind...

Willow~

Knitting!

I have just finished my first hat of the season! More will certainly come, but right now I am working on a scarf.
The hat is for a female friend and it is made of soft Scottish baby sheep wool hand dyed and hand knit by me! The pattern is also crafted by me, although I am sure there are similar patterns available. It does look a little big on me because my head is rather small, and the girl I made it for has a normal size noggin.
Work today and I do not want to go! It is Tuesday which means it will be exceptionally busy and I was hoping to read at work, or knit. Oh well, I suppose I shouldn't complain about having to work at work! The day is gorgeous, went for a walk, and am now eating an organic Brae burn apple...delicious.

Willow~

Saturday

Good gracious, it is pouring outside! The rain is bouncing off of a tin bucket outside making a POING! noise. My good friend is here, she came up just for last night and is leaving again later today. We might go to sneakers for breakfast, and indeed, I do hope we do! Last night there was a chocolate pecan pie:
And then we ate it. Very good, a little too rich for eating quickly, though. I would very much like to take the day off, stay in my bed, and read books read books read books! But, alas! I must go to work, and there is a party at my friends' house which should be fun, although to be completely honest, I am a little wary of going.
What sounds appealing for tonight is settling in with some good campy horror films circa 1980's and drinking. Apparently I am being contrary to all of my plans that sounded good earlier this week. Perhaps it is the nicotine withdrawal.

However, the Burlington poetry journal will be coming out next month! I am going to scan a copy into here, and then it will be preserved digitally for....a long while! We are still working on the name, and will certainly be relieved when that has been sorted out...
But yes, it will be good and I am excited to see what happens, how many issues we can print, what sort of response from the community we get, and if we can manage to get some kind of recognition from places like www.sevendaysvt.com which would be ideal.

In any case, I should get dressed and wash up before my friends call.

Willow~

5 Pointed Star

Today is my fifth day without a cigarette. What are some interesting things about the number 5? This is a good distraction.

-There is a 5 pointed star inside an apple if you cut it in half through the middle.
-It is the 5th Fibonacci number (whatever that means).
-On a starfish, there are five little extremities (limbs?).
-Category 5 is the most destructive category of hurricanes.
-The FIFTH DIMENSION!!!
-There are five oceans: Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Indian and Southern.
-In Tarot, the Hierophant is the fifth card.
-The Fivefold blessing in Celtic Paganism is a widely used prayer.

That is all.

Willow~

And There is Nothing Else to Say...

"We can penetrate your raw wet canal aparatus" and "this fierce smear of hard tit"

Liar

I find it a problem when someone comes up to me and says: "I don't have a problem with gay people or whatever but they need to not hit on me! They should keep it to themselves!" There is something very wrong with this statement--it is the most hypocritical thing I hear on an almost daily basis--and yet most of these people believe that they are being perfectly reasonable. Now obviously it is okay not to be okay about homosexuality and bisexuality. But please, can we be honest with ourselves? If one has a problem with being approached by a person of the same gender, but NOT by someone of the opposite gender, then one is homophobic. This seems pretty clear to me. Strangely, the above statement seems to come mainly from the mouths of women referring to other women. Not by men. Why is that?

Anyone who offers a reasonable explanaition gets a cookie.

Willow~

Language vs. Pride

hubris (hybris): Greek for "insolence," an excessive pride that constitutes the protagonists's tragic flaw and leads to downfall. Disastrous consequences result when hubris causes the protagonist to ignore a wise warning from a god or other important figure, to violate some moral rule, or try to transcend ordinary limits.
-From the Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms

Yesterday at work a housekeeper came to clean the room a patient had been discharged from. But he had been given the wrong information and unmade a bed that a patient was still sleeping in! The nurse went out to deal with the situation and the poor boy, from Africa, could neither understand what the nurse was saying, nor accept that he was wrong. I wonder how much of the situation (they argued for about an hour) was language or pride. It seemed completely pointless to me--I mean so what, he unmade a bed a patient was still using, so remake and clean the right room. No big deal. What is the point in insisting over and over again that you are right when clearly it was a computer mistake and no one is to blame? Is this a cultural problem? I'm going to say that it was a pride issue more than anything else...

On another note, see Burlington Park:

Words

Okay--I shall begin to submit my writing. It is the time, there will be disappointments galore as I will receive rejections and more rejections...

It is raining outside but it still looks pretty. The air is quite cool--I am bundled up in my Lake Monsters hoodie at the kitchen table with my housemate. We ate some very good Cheddar cheese (yes!).
Rasputina's new album "Oh Perilous World" is an excellent little gem that everyone should purchase...right now. The best tracks are "Choose Me for a Champion" and "Retinue of Moons/The Infidel is Me."

Turns out I have not much else to say...

Islands and Oceans,
Willow~

90 Degrees with Cats

The cats have been keeping me company:

Last of Summer

On the blue couch, the cats

spread their limbs around me stretching

out and I—larger and cooler with the hot

late summer air pulsing in my skin—

curl in between, the last of the days

like this beg me to rampage in the heat,

fly kites, submerge in water, expose

my body to light. But on the blue couch,

the cats seduce me to sleep, loving their

soft fur: gold and green eyes, sleepy faces

stealing half glances in my direction, each

of us dreaming of winter.

PS-

I saw a HOVERCRAFT yesterday!!! For real!!!

Water

On Tuesday a friend took me to a brook about 45 minutes away from Burlington. The air was warm enough for wading, but not quite warm enough for full submersion. Racing back in time for work, I realized how much my job contributes to my misery instead of to my contentedness or even simply my monetary gain. If it is not making one happy, why continue to do it? Isn't life too short--that is what the proverb says.


We are all water and blood--nothing about us is static so why try to fit ourselves into jobs which become boxes which become traps. That urge to move or change or become is natural and it is hard to remember that...

WIngs and Bones,
Willow~

And I Will Have Your SOUL!

Things I am excited about:
1. The new Lula magazine comes out this month!
2. My new room will be completely set up and decorated by the end of this week. Or else.
3. Loreena McKennitt is coming to Burlington in October and I am buying tickets tomorrow...
4. My roommates and I are having a party later this month (with a keg).
5. There is a solar eclipse this month on the 11th. There will be many blessings of doors.
6. Hopefully my cello lessons start this month again. Hopefully.
7. Fall is coming (as I keep pointing out).

That is all, that is everything.

Merry meet and blessed be,
Willow~

Lets Eat Poetry

I wrote this essay last year and though I'd share. For some reason I feel like a poem, and that I could live off the stuff...something about the autumn crispness and the promise of apples.


Astragaloi
by Mark Jarman

We know there must be consciousness in things,
In bits of gravel pecked up by a hen
To grind inside her coop, and spider silk
Just as it hardens stickily in air,
And even those things paralyzed in place,
The wall brick, the hat peg, the steel beam
Inside the skyscraper, and lost, forgotten,
And buried in ancient tombs, the toys and games.
Those starry jacks, those knucklebones of glass
Meant for the dead to play with, toss and catch
Back of the hand and read the pattern of,
Diversions to beguile the endless time,
Never to be picked up again...They're thinking,
Surely, all of them. They are lost in thought.


Mark Jarman’s Knucklebones

“Astragaloi” by Mark Jarman is a poem which strongly suggests that “there must be consciousness in things.” Jarman has written the poem in one single stanza of 14 lines, which calls to mind a sonnet, although there is no rhyme scheme which would place the poem in that category. The speaker explores the idea that inanimate objects might be thinking, that “They are lost in thought” and he uses references to ancient Roman and Greek history in order to articulate that idea.
For example, the word astragaloi (singular astragalos), is an ancient Greek word holding several meanings. One of the meanings is “knucklebones”—a divinatory game or practice which included a person throwing the bones of sheep of goats and divining the future from the position of the thrown bones. In the ancient Greek language, the word looks like this:
. The other meaning for this word is simply “knucklebones” without the implication of predicting the future. It seems as though the speaker is referring to the first meaning, since the speaker says, “those knucklebones of glass / Meant for the dead to play with.” The speaker also brings to mind the Roman sense of numina (singular numen) which was the Roman peoples’ idea of inanimate objects having an essence or presence in the world. For the Roman people, everything that existed had a spirit, even if the object is a rock, or glass knucklebones. The speaker articulates this as the objects are named off: “And even those things paralyzed in place, / The wall brick, the hat peg, the steel beam.” In fact, all the objects he names hang off the first line where the speaker declares that “We know there must be consciousness in things” and then describes those things.
In that first line, the “must” stands out to the readers who are almost forced to take this poem as fact. The poem does not ask the question “is there consciousness in things?” but instead assumes that there is, and then reflects on that assumption. The speaker does not attempt to teach the readers anything new about this concept, but the simple reflection does not leave the readers the same after they read the poem as before the poem was read. After the last line, “Surely, all of them. They are lost in thought” leaves us with the nagging feeling that we should be gentle with our belongings, and handle them with care or we might anger the numina and our favorite shoes might walk away from us or our childhood games might suddenly decide to find new owners.

Burlington Blossoms

Summer is quickly winding down and away, but the flowers are still filling the gardens and the air with scents and color. I have moved from one street to another and the gardens are different. The pictures in this post are of my former neighborhood, and the next installment will be of my current neighborhood.
Today will be filled with organizing and sorting and and emptying boxes. Setting up my new room is awesome! I just wish I didn't own so many clothes!