14 apr 2013

Donald Hall (so NOT my favorite poet) mentions a bobolink in his poem "Summer Kitchen." Bobolinks migrate between the US & Argentina. I've never seen one:

Bobolink, Dolichonyx oryzivorus, male in breeding plumage
[courtesy of Greg Schneider]

I'm sure Quaker women fashioned their day/prayer caps after this bird's plumage.

Natalie Barney wasn't Quaker.

Natalie Barney [courtesy of The Qouch]

The Return

by Ezra Pound

See, they return; ah, see the tentative

Movements, and the slow feet,

The trouble in the pace and the uncertain

Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one,

fear, as half-awakened;

As if the snow should hesitate

And murmur in the wind,

             and half turn back;

These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"

             inviolable.

Gods of that wingèd shoe!

With them the silver hounds,

             sniffing the trace of air!

Haie! Haie!

     These were the swift to harry;

These the keen-scented;

These were the souls of blood.

Slow on the leash,

             pallid the leash-men!

blague, "A 'blague' when it is a fine blague is a satire upon stupidity, an attack. It is the weapon of intelligence at bay; of intelligence fighting against an alignment of odds." [Pound, 1915]

Carol Peters, southern California, 1976 [pic by Jay Hosler]