Number 150: A.A. Milne "The King's Breakfast"

The King's Breakfast

The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
“Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?”
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid,
The Dairymaid
Said, “Certainly,
I’ll go and tell
The cow
Now
Before she goes to bed.”

The Dairymaid
She curtsied,
And went and told
The Alderney:
“Don’t forget the butter for
The Royal slice of bread.”

The Alderney
Said sleepily:
“You’d better tell
His Majesty
That many people nowadays
Like marmalade
Instead.”

The Dairymaid
Said, “Fancy!”
And went to
Her Majesty.
She curtsied to the Queen, and
She turned a little red:
“Excuse me,
Your Majesty,
For taking of
The liberty,
But marmalade is tasty, if
It’s very
Thickly
Spread.”

The Queen said
“Oh!”
And went to
His Majesty:
“Talking of the butter for
The Royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?”

The King said,
“Bother!”
And then he said,
“Oh, dear me!”
The King sobbed, “Oh, deary me!”
And went back to bed.
“Nobody,”
He whimpered,
“Could call me
A fussy man;
I only want
A little bit
Of butter for
My bread!”

The Queen said,
“There, there!”
And went to
The Dairymaid.
The Dairymaid
Said, “There, there!”
And went to the shed.
The cow said,
“There, there!
I didn’t really
Mean it;
Here’s milk for his porringer
And butter for his bread.”

The Queen took
The butter
And brought it to
His Majesty;
The King said,
“Butter, eh?”
And bounced out of bed.
“Nobody,” he said,
As he kissed her
Tenderly,
“Nobody,” he said,
As he slid down
The banisters,
“Nobody,
My darling,
Could call me
A fussy man—
BUT
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!”

-- A.A. Milne

Hap Notes: Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) would be just a tad dismayed that his children's books are his biggest claim to fame. Indeed, he was pretty ticked off about it during his lifetime. Milne wrote plays, short stories, "children's" poetry, mysteries and the series that catapulted him to children's literature fame, the Winnie the Pooh books. Milne wanted to write in a variety of genres and felt he was trapped by the success of his "Pooh" books.

Christopher Robin, as all Pooh-files (?) know was Milne's son. It's said Milne never actually read the stories aloud to him, although I don't know how true that is. He was a kindly and gentle father, though, as his son has often said.

I'm not particularly a Pooh fan and it's not just because of the word, Pooh, although it can get a bit freaky. They make Pooh underwear for kids, you know. Just sayin'. However, I have to admit to the extraordinary charm of the dialog between the characters in the Winnie the Pooh books and Milne has a gift for that somewhat surreal whimsy that Lewis Carrol had.

It's interchanges like the following that are so disarming and clever:

“"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.

Today's poem is a charmer with it's rhymes and rhythms but I can't help feeling like the King is very much like Milne, himself. He wanted the freedom to write what he pleased. Of course what pleased others paid the bills. Did you know that Disney bought the exclusive rights to all this Pooh stuff? That's why Disney-fied Pooh is all you will see (oh, I'm not touchin' that one.) An Alderney, by the by, is a breed of cow.

The masthead photo is of the original stuffed animals owned by Christopher Robin Milne. They are currently housed at the New York Public Library. They are the toys Ernest H. Shepard used, then, when illustrating the famous books. Milne originally didn't think much of Shepard as an artist but grew to enjoy the spare line drawings as time went on. Milne inscribed Shepard's copy of Winnie the Pooh with this:

"When I am gone
Let Shepard decorate my tomb
and put (if there is room)
Two pictures on the stone:
Piglet from page a hundred and eleven,
And Pooh and Piglet walking (157) . . .
And Peter, thinking they they are my own,
Will welcome me to heaven."

One of Milne's teachers in school was H.G. Wells and he was friends with P.G. Wodehouse (even though they fought a bit.) Milne wrote the popular play "Toad of Toad Hall" based on Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows and he often wrote prefaces for Grahame's book.

Milne's poetry collections for children, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six are quite charming.

Here's a good Milne quote: "One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. "

You can find more Milne here: famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/a__a__milne/poems

I have to admit that I've always loved A.A. Milne's poem about the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace ever since I was a kid. It was made into a song and I was looking for the Danny Kaye version but after a long search I settled for Ann Stevens who made it into a minor hit in the U.K. www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Z5LpHuXVE

Number 149: Two for Mother's Day- Langston Hughes and Margaret Atwood

Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

-- Langston Hughes


You Begin

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

-- Margaret Atwood

Hap Notes: Well, this post is a bit late (if three hours could be categorized as a "bit") so I'll let you enjoy the poems today– two different moms speaking. We'll use more Hughes and Atwood this year so we'll talk more about them later.

Go call your mom or, if she has passed on, go do something she would like. Pick up your room or put on a clean shirt before dinner or make her favorite food or something. Your mom will always love you.

Number 148: John Betjeman "Diary of a Church Mouse"

Diary of a Church Mouse

Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my days
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten room
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn's Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle's brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit stair
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to taste
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes ... it's rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher's seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn't think it wrong
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every day
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God's own house,
But all the same it's strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don't see at all
Except at Harvest Festival.

-- John Betjeman

Hap Notes: John Betjeman (1906-1984) is one of the most beloved poets of the last century in Great Britain. His fans included the "common" reader and critics alike. His admirers ranged from W.H. Auden to Philip Larkin. He was also a broadcaster, an architecture writer and critic and a highly lauded travel writer. He won many awards and was Poet Laureate of England from 1972 until his death.

Betjeman went to Magdalen College, Oxford and had C.S. Lewis as a tutor. They apparently were like oil and water. Betjeman being the more casual and fun fellow at school and Lewis, an Irishman with a hint of disdain for what he thought was Betjeman's cavalier attitude towards school. (I am all aflutter right now because Lewis' "lost" translations of the Aeneid have just (May 3) become available and I'm wanting it so fiercely but have to wait for a few weeks for a variety of reasons.) Lewis and Betjeman had a sort of life-long spitting contest from their encounters at school. Lewis thought he lied his way out of tutoring sessions (he did) and Betjeman thought Lewis was cold and demanding (ditto.) Think of Lewis as the guy who you would most like as a tutor and Betjeman as the guy you'd most like to hang with for fun. Tough mix, huh?

Betjeman's easy style and accessibility along with his sharp wit make his poetry fun to read and the words "poetry" and "fun" generally only meet in the vocabularies of nerdy geeks like me, so it's a huge thing for the general reader.

In today's poem, the church mouse makes a very sharp point about Christians without the poet beating us over the head with it. He makes us smile and then gives us a bit of rue at the end. It's a charmer.

Here's a good Betjeman quote: "Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury, not a necessity like petrol. But to me it's the oil of life."

and another: "I don't think I'm any good. If I thought I was any good, I wouldn't be."

You can find more Betjeman here: famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_betjeman/poems

And now, because it's Saturday- some cartoons, typical of the morning and afternoon cartoons of my youth- they were old then, too.

Here's Bugs Bunny with a host of Hollywood types, including Bogart, Bacall and Carmen Miranda, just to name a few: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxBZVulaxs8

And here's one where Bugs tells his life story. My brother and I used to sing that "we're the boys of the chorus" song all the time and drive our mom nuts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sepDQrD2E8&feature=related

Number 147: Rabindranath Tagore "Playthings"

Playthings

Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with broken twigs all morning!
I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig
I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.
Perhaps you glance at me and think, “what a stupid game to spoil your morning with!”

Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud pies.
I seek out costly play things, and gather lumps of gold and silver.
With whatever you find you create your glad games
I spend both my time and my strength over things I can never obtain.

In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the ocean of desire,
and forget that I too am playing a game.

--Rabindranath Tagore

Hap Notes: If you do not see that almost everything we do in life is akin to playing with sticks and making mud pies, i.e., a sort of game, I'll be very surprised. Everyone at one time in their life has realized that most of life is an intricate illusion that we create for ourselves. There is no "matrix" outside of the one of your own making. You do not have to live in this exposed truth all day, but it's pretty important that you know it exists. When you rise above the machinations of the illusions within which we all live, just for a moment, you'll discover that all beings on the earth have meaning, war is a brutal and sad game and possessions are a joke. You are free to sink back down into the "real" world" if you choose. But know that there is a choice and you have made it.

I don't know that Tagore wants all that baggage packed into this poem but, who knows? He was a deep thinker and a believer in compassion for all creatures. He was not a flaky goof, either, he knew physics and biology and was a great respecter of the sciences. He was not a grim prophet of doom but a hopeful, joyous and respectful believer in the good of life. You can see the "game" and have compassion.

Tagore met and discussed issues and science with no less than Albert Einstein (whose theories have been once again validated recently by Gravity Probe B). A journalist present at one of the recorded events said, “It was interesting to see them together—Tagore, the poet with the head of a thinker, and Einstein, the thinker with the head of a poet. It seemed to an observer as though two planets were engaged in a chat. “

Maybe, rather than rising above our illusions today, we should all just go out, sit in the mud and play with a few sticks and twigs. Perhaps just the act of playing around will give your spirit the room it needs to move.

And by the way, if all of this is a game, why aren't many of us having any fun? It's time to put some silly fun in your life and what better day to do that than Friday, eh? Go out and play with some bubbles, chew some bubble gum, talk to the birds, eat your dessert first and put your socks on over your shoes. Life is short- enjoy it and don't get fenced in by "adding up figures by the hour."

Tagore, in addition to a Nobel prize, has the distinction of writing the lyrics of two national anthems; India's and the one for Bangladesh.

Here are some famous Tagore quotes: "Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man."

and
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it."

and
"Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name."

and one more (they're irresistable):

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky."

And a bonus one because I love you: "Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."

Here's where we've talked about Tagore before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/03/number-85-rabindranath-tagore-closed.html

Number 146: Gwendolyn Brooks "The Crazy Woman"

The Crazy Woman

I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I'll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.

I'll wait until November
That is the time for me.
I'll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.

And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
"That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May."

-- Gwendolyn Brooks

Hap Notes: Everybody knows Gwendolyn Brooks' (1917-200) poem "We Real Cool." I think. It's been printed on ad cards in city buses for at least 30 years, is used as an example of colloquial language use in poetry in grades 2-12 and has been set to a variety of music and been highly lauded. It has had hard use all these years and still stands fresh and crisp. But Brooks wrote a lot of poetry, some, in her early career is more formal; some, in her later career more loosely structured; but all with Brooks' sharp eye towards human behavior. She had an eagle's eye and a kind heart.

She was born in Topeka, Kansas but her family moved to Chicago when she was only six weeks old and her work is Chicago flavored stuff. You know what Chicago tastes like, right? It's that heady mixture of hotdogs, dirty snow, violets, grime, spaghetti sauce, cabbage, burnt toast, cotton candy, coffee with cream, french fries, baseball glove leather, street salt, MD 20/20, popcorn, cigar smoke, Frango Mints, luke-warm beer, gravel, grilled hamburgers, sauerkraut, roses, bacon and eggs, wet tire rubber, cheddar cheese, old wood and prune kolaches, all eaten with a fork that has the metallic tang of well-used silverware. Kinda. (I might be leaving some flavors out but that's the first taste that comes to me when I think of the place. I'm an Illinois girl, too.) Brooks' work is inextricable from Chicago and she lived a great deal of her life there.

I think many people who attended college (especially in the Midwest) during the 70s and 80s saw Brooks read. She was a tireless reader of her work. I saw her twice. The first time I was in the back of a large auditorium, the second time was in a smaller college venue and I met her but, as with all people I meet whom I admire, I was tongue-tied. (At least I had the presence of mind not to tell her that her corsage was on sideways and proceed to fix it. When I met Eugene McCarthy I blurted out that he needed to stand up straighter. I don't seem to be very gracious when faced with cultural icons. I'm a yokel that way.) I got to shake her hand, after juggling my load of books (I was always carrying a load of books which were not classroom textbooks in any way, shape or form) and she turned to the Dean of Liberal Arts standing next to her and said, as I passed, "Now, that girl is a READER." Not a particularly interesting brush with fame but there you have it.

Brooks was the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize, she received numerous awards and grants and was given more than 75 honorary degrees from various colleges and universities. She was the Library of Congress Poetry Consultant (you know, Laureate) in 1985 and Poet Laureate of Illinois, too. She had to move medals and awards to get to the bathroom (as we used to say.)

I love today's poem- it's not as stirring as her story poems or as street savvy as her later ones but I've always identified with the crazy woman. This poem is Brooks in a sweet and salty playful mood. There are things that need to be said in a metaphoric November about people and life.

Her work took on a grittier tone and a looser structure as she aged. She's a joy to read and all her poetry, while accessible, will yield hidden depths. Have I mentioned yet how her work sometimes fizzes with anger, crackles with smarts and pops you a good one, right in the mouth? It often does.

Brooks' work, while a shining example of "Black" poetry, has the unenviable position of having to "stand" for everything that African-Americans are as poets or writers. I don't exactly know why we all do this to her but, Brooks is a poet, not a color and while it's understandable that she is either praised for her strong black identity or disdained for it not being strong enough, she is not a piece of cardboard or marble. She's a flesh and blood human who wrote fine poetry. I tire of those who want to shred her up for socio-political fodder. As John Berryman said it's "the stuff itself" that matters.

Here's a good Brooks quote- and, I think, one of the best descriptions of poetry: "Poetry is life distilled."

and another: "Look at what's happening in this world. Every day there's something exciting or disturbing to write about. With all that's going on, how could I stop?"

and another: "I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it and experiencing the challenge."

You can find more Brooks here: www.poetryfoundation.org/article/178704

Number 145: Alice Friman "Getting Serious"

Getting Serious

Today I started looking for my soul.
Yesterday it was my keys. Last week,
my brain which I couldn't find, it being out
looking for me, now that I'm getting so old.

First I thought my soul would have gone
back to Greece where she grew so tall and straight,
she thought she was a column. Or back to camp,
being forever twelve and underdeveloped.
Perhaps, being careless, I left her during the 70s
in bed with God knows whom. Or could be
I buried her with my mother—my head not being right—
but that was my heart.

So I went to where I know
I saw her last. Radio City Music Hall.
I'm six, my feet barely brushing the floor,
and the Rockettes start shuffling out, long-
legged and perfect as paper-dolls kicking up
down in a wave. One body with seventy-two knees
chugging like pistons going back in a forever mirror,
same as in Coney Island’s Fun House or on Mama's can
of Dutch Cleanser. And my heart flexed in me, a sail,
and I swear I saw it flying out of my chest
spiriting away my giddy soul, ears plugged and tied
to the mast: I can't hear you I can't hear you.

--Alice Friman

Hap Notes: Award winning poet Alice Friman (born 1933) is another in the trend of poets who started writing poetry later in life. There is nothing odd about this. While poetry has been often been relegated to old guys with beards or young romantic fellas or suicidal collegiate women – these are all wrong images akin to thinking of Napoleon as being incredibly short (he was 5'6" 1/2" - not as short as, say Prince, but probably around the height of Julius Caesar. He was an average height for his day.) I suppose there's a sliver of truth to it but it's certainly not accurate.

In fact, It would be more accurate to say that most of the really good poetry being written in America is being written by women (and some men) over 40. No kidding. I'm relieved by this. Poetry isn't just a vessel for feelings, it's a conduit to the universe. It takes a skilled electrician to hook up the circuits.

When Friman says she's searching for her soul, she's looking at all the parts of her life, seeing who she was – what made up her life, her existence. We are often so busy going through our lives working, cooking, driving, trying to get "somewhere" that we don't always remember what made our souls fly, rise up, so that we could feel them in our bodies. As we look back on our lives we remember the people we were – ambitious, clumsy, undeveloped, sexy- or looking for a connection with sex – on vacations, in relationships, in the middle of a career. There is always a place or two that we remember as wonderful, inspiring, when our souls sort of "came to life," stirred by some enchanted wind.

Friman remembers the thrill of watching the dancers at Radio City Music Hall (she grew up in New York, although she spent a lot of her time in Indiana- teaching at Purdue, Indiana State and Ball State) and that's the first time she remembers her soul taking "flight."

Now Friman knows a good bit about mythology. She once said " I write for the muse. Does that sound old fashioned? As I tell my classes, there are no muses for basketball, but, by heaven, there are four, count them, four muses for poetry—Euterpe, Polyhymnia, Calliope, and Erato. Five if you count Thalia, who doubled in comedy and pastoral poetry. And whichever one is called up when I first touch pen to paper, I tell you, she is one tough cookie." So when she says she is tied to the mast she's saying a lot. Not only did Ulysses/Odysseus tie himself to the mast so that he could hear the sirens, he put wax in the ears of the crew so they would not be harmed by the siren's call. So what is she saying here? I'll let you dig it out. Just remember that the sirens could be a bit more formidable than just seductive women and are often depicted as birds with women's heads with sharp vulture claws. They are a warning of mythic, dangerous powers. She mentions Greece earlier in the poem, too.

As far as the Dutch Cleanser goes, well, I have three theories. One is the reflective foil package which can act as a mirror. Two is the ads seen for Dutch cleanser as "jumping" to work and having many little maids. Three is the way that one sprinkles out the cleanser sort of looks like a cascade of powder in a wave. The Coney Island funhouse mirror, you get, yes?

Tell me you know what paper dolls are, please. Do they still even make them?

Here's a good Friman quote: " I have never been in a class. When I started, there was no such thing. If there was such a thing, I didn’t know it. I had three kids and the kitchen floor, and I started writing. I’ve taught myself every mistake I know, and so I think perhaps I came at it a bit differently, because I don’t seem to bother with what’s the style now, since I never knew what the style was. I guess I wanted to write like the poets I had always loved, or to have that effect. I wanted to write things that mattered."

Here's Friman's website, where you can find more of her poems: www.alicefriman.com/

Number 144: Robert Frost "Maple"

Maple

Her teacher's certainty it must be Mabel
Made Maple first take notice of her name.
She asked her father and he told her, "Maple—
Maple is right."
"But teacher told the school
There's no such name."
"Teachers don't know as much
As fathers about children, you tell teacher.
You tell her that it's M-A-P-L-E.
You ask her if she knows a maple tree.
Well, you were named after a maple tree.
Your mother named you. You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life—you know?
So you can't have much recollection of her.
She had been having a long look at you.
She put her finger in your cheek so hard
It must have made your dimple there, and said,
'Maple.' I said it too: 'Yes, for her name.'
She nodded. So we're sure there's no mistake.
I don't know what she wanted it to mean,
But it seems like some word she left to bid you
Be a good girl—be like a maple tree.
How like a maple tree's for us to guess.
Or for a little girl to guess sometime.
Not now—at least I shouldn't try too hard now.
By and by I will tell you all I know
About the different trees, and something, too,
About your mother that perhaps may help."
Dangerous self-arousing words to sow.
Luckily all she wanted of her name then
Was to rebuke her teacher with it next day,
And give the teacher a scare as from her father.
Anything further had been wasted on her,
Or so he tried to think to avoid blame.
She would forget it. She all but forgot it.
What he sowed with her slept so long a sleep,
And came so near death in the dark of years,
That when it woke and came to life again
The flower was different from the parent seed.
It came back vaguely at the glass one day,
As she stood saying her name over aloud,
Striking it gently across her lowered eyes
To make it go well with the way she looked.
What was it about her name? Its strangeness lay
In having too much meaning. Other names,
As Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie,
Signified nothing. Rose could have a meaning,
But hadn't as it went. (She knew a Rose.)
This difference from other names it was
Made people notice it—and notice her.
(They either noticed it, or got it wrong.)
Her problem was to find out what it asked
In dress or manner of the girl who bore it.
If she could form some notion of her mother—
What she had thought was lovely, and what good.
This was her mother's childhood home;
The house one story high in front, three stories
On the end it presented to the road.
(The arrangement made a pleasant sunny cellar.)
Her mother's bedroom was her father's still,
Where she could watch her mother's picture fading.
Once she found for a bookmark in the Bible
A maple leaf she thought must have been laid
In wait for her there. She read every word
Of the two pages it was pressed between,
As if it was her mother speaking to her.
But forgot to put the leaf back in closing
And lost the place never to read again.
She was sure, though, there had been nothing in it.

So she looked for herself, as everyone
Looks for himself, more or less outwardly.
And her self-seeking, fitful though it was,
May still have been what led her on to read,
And think a little, and get some city schooling.
She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand may
Have had to do with it--she sometimes wondered.
So, till she found herself in a strange place
For the name Maple to have brought her to,
Taking dictation on a paper pad
And, in the pauses when she raised her eyes,
Watching out of a nineteenth story window
An airship laboring with unshiplike motion
And a vague all-disturbing roar above the river
Beyond the highest city built with hands.
Someone was saying in such natural tones
She almost wrote the words down on her knee,
"Do you know you remind me of a tree--
A maple tree?"

"Because my name is Maple?"
"Isn't it Mabel? I thought it was Mabel."

"No doubt you've heard the office call me Mabel.
I have to let them call me what they like."

They were both stirred that he should have divined
Without the name her personal mystery.
It made it seem as if there must be something
She must have missed herself. So they were married,
And took the fancy home with them to live by.

They went on pilgrimage once to her father's
(The house one story high in front, three stories
On the side it presented to the road)
To see if there was not some special tree
She might have overlooked. They could find none,
Not so much as a single tree for shade,
Let alone grove of trees for sugar orchard.
She told him of the bookmark maple leaf
In the big Bible, and all she remembered
of the place marked with it—"Wave offering,
Something about wave offering, it said."

"You've never asked your father outright, have you?"

"I have, and been put off sometime, I think."
(This was her faded memory of the way
Once long ago her father had put himself off.)
"Because no telling but it may have been
Something between your father and your mother
Not meant for us at all."
"Not meant for me?
Where would the fairness be in giving me
A name to carry for life and never know
The secret of?"
"And then it may have been
Something a father couldn't tell a daughter
As well as could a mother. And again
It may have been their one lapse into fancy
'Twould be too bad to make him sorry for
By bringing it up to him when be was too old.
Your father feels us round him with our questing,
And holds us off unnecessarily,
As if he didn't know what little thing
Might lead us on to a discovery.
It was as personal as he could be
About the way he saw it was with you
To say your mother, had she lived, would be
As far again as from being born to bearing."

"Just one look more with what you say in mind,
And I give up"; which last look came to nothing.
But though they now gave up the search forever,
They clung to what one had seen in the other
By inspiration. It proved there was something.
They kept their thoughts away from when the maples
Stood uniform in buckets, and the steam
Of sap and snow rolled off the sugarhouse.
When they made her related to the maples,
It was the tree the autumn fire ran through
And swept of leathern leaves, but left the bark
Unscorched, unblackened, even, by any smoke.
They always took their holidays in autumn.
Once they came on a maple in a glade,
Standing alone with smooth arms lifted up,
And every leaf of foliage she'd worn
Laid scarlet and pale pink about her feet.
But its age kept them from considering this one.
Twenty-five years ago at Maple's naming
It hardly could have been a two-leaved seedling
The next cow might have licked up out at pasture.
Could it have been another maple like it?
They hovered for a moment near discovery,
Figurative enough to see the symbol,
But lacking faith in anything to mean
The same at different times to different people.
Perhaps a filial diffidence partly kept them
From thinking it could be a thing so bridal.
And anyway it came too late for Maple.
She used her hands to cover up her eyes.

"We would not see the secret if we could now:
We are not looking for it any more."

Thus had a name with meaning, given in death,
Made a girl's marriage, and ruled in her life.
No matter that the meaning was not clear.
A name with meaning could bring up a child,
Taking the child out of the parents' hands.
Better a meaningless name, I should say,
As leaving more to nature and happy chance.
Name children some names and see what you do.

-- Robert Frost

Hap Notes: Well, it's a long poem, sort of, but it's always been a favorite of mine. The magic and mystery of relationships is explored here. Frost, as usual, gives us his sidelong smile and offers us a wry observance and gives it back to us to discern.

Since it's so long, I won't add much commentary. I'm sure you get that the story is about a girl named Maple whose name forms the basis for much of her thinking about the world. Don't forget that she meets her husband in an office building (he's her boss, she's taking dictation) far from where maples would be planted in "the highest city built with hands."

It's Frost's way of telling the story that keeps the mystery for us. He's good at that. Here's the first place we talked about Frost: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-7-robert-frost-design_14.html

He's also the featured poet for numbers 51,69,90,95 and 128. I like Frost (obviously.)