In a response to my blog, next door neighbour, Jenn points out she has been to Prague Castle and saw and photographed the window from which the two Imperial envoys were hurled, the event that precipitated the Thirty Year’s War. The two men were lucky, landing in a pile of horse manure they escaped unhurt if undignified.
Someone said ‘what’s the point of reading about a long vanished war’. There are several reasons. Curiosity! The great vanity fair of human existence. It’s an interesting narrative, history usually is. It’s about people in a different era – the same emotions and desires but channelled by different beliefs and customs. It explains subsequent events and what is happening in the area today. The shape of modern Europe was being hammered out on the battlefield and treaty table. But these circumstances are universal. What is happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan today is a sort of repeat. Religion, status, territory, power, great powers meddling and jockeying. It is different and it is not different.
For even in the early 17th century much of the planet was involved. While Tasman had not yet sailed to New Zealand, the Dutch were trading in the East Indies – a perilous operation with prospects of spectacular rewards if successful. Silver from the mines in Mexico and Peru was swelled the coffers of Spain and helping pay the wages of the troops engaged in fighting the Dutch rebels. I’ve learnt that because the sea route to Low Countries was insecure the Spanish marched troops from Italy over the Alpine passes and down the Rhine to their destination. The possibility of Protestant states blockading this route was a factor in the war.
Geography affects war. Always has. Always will. Geography includes climate. Winter was shut-down time. This period was extremely cold, a mini-Ice Age. Armies, composed mainly of mercenaries, were largely self-funding, loot and tribute extracted from the local area. Woe betide the settlements where the troops were stationed during winter months. Then when the campaign began pillage and lawlessness meant devastation for the countryside and towns through which the troops passed. It was a cruel time if you were there.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Mum's Legacy
On the weekend Canterbury defeated Wellington to win the rugby super 14 championship. In a province renowned for its one-eyed provincialism - I am also a son of the Canterbury soil - there were probably few more parochial than my mother who died earlier this year. And if the All Blacks lost that was a national catastrophe. She never forgave the selectors for dropping Mehrtens. Loyalty, not logic, was always one of her characteristics. Her support was tribal.
"You with your university 'on this hand and then on the other hand'" she growled at me after she'd asked my opinion about why New Zealand would want to become a republic. I'd merely replied that I thought it was inevitable but maybe it was a little too soon yet. That didn't suit Mum. Black and white, right and wrong, you took sides. She had wanted a statement with which she could challenge or agree.
She'd led a much more austere and tougher life than I have. In most people’s narrative their mother is a major player. Not always, but certainly so in my case. Not negatively. There has been a spate of recent autobiographical memoirs critical of parents. That’s not my experience. But Mum was always a no nonsense person. Two adjectives that would been least appropriate to describe her would have been volatile and capricious. A few years back she said “you were a trial as a boy. Always day dreaming. You took after your maternal great grandfather, away with the fairies. You were too clever for us.” That’s a reasonable summary. Mum’s practicality is part of my being. But I have other yearnings and interests. The rift between the two is the context of my history. With what complexities are we all composed.
"You with your university 'on this hand and then on the other hand'" she growled at me after she'd asked my opinion about why New Zealand would want to become a republic. I'd merely replied that I thought it was inevitable but maybe it was a little too soon yet. That didn't suit Mum. Black and white, right and wrong, you took sides. She had wanted a statement with which she could challenge or agree.
She'd led a much more austere and tougher life than I have. In most people’s narrative their mother is a major player. Not always, but certainly so in my case. Not negatively. There has been a spate of recent autobiographical memoirs critical of parents. That’s not my experience. But Mum was always a no nonsense person. Two adjectives that would been least appropriate to describe her would have been volatile and capricious. A few years back she said “you were a trial as a boy. Always day dreaming. You took after your maternal great grandfather, away with the fairies. You were too clever for us.” That’s a reasonable summary. Mum’s practicality is part of my being. But I have other yearnings and interests. The rift between the two is the context of my history. With what complexities are we all composed.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
The World's Greedy Anarchy
Diesel trucks past the Scrovegni chapel
Catherine Deneuve farting onion fritters
The world's greedy anarchy, I love it!
Hearts that break, garlic fervent in hot oil
Jittery exultation of the soul
Minds that are tough & have good appetites
Everything in love with its opposite
I love it! O how I love it! It’s all
I’ve got
plus Carlos: a wide dreaming eye
above her breast
a hand tangling her hair,
breath filling the room as blood does the heart.
We must amend our lives murmured Rilke
Gagging on his legacy of air.
Hang on to yours Carlos it’s all you’ve got.
Ian Wedde
What a lovely line – ‘the world’s greedy anarchy.’ Modernity and old art, a beautiful actress farting, the human capacity for love with all its joy and heartbreak, food appealing to taste and scent, and a young child.
This sonnet is one of sixty in Earthly: Sonnets for Carlos published in 1975, a moving series of reflections and descriptions of the birth and early days of the poet’s son Carlos. I recall first reading them – striking in their intensity and in their material. There was a zest about experience and life that upset my carefully nurtured poetic conventions. The poetry of surprise declared war on cliché and cant.
What I found liberating was that while the poems exhibited a wide worldly knowledge they still located themselves firmly in the local earth. The world’s greedy anarchy, despite all our attempts and efforts to corral and harness it, is not just banal and meaningless. It is something to celebrate, the joy of it is everywhere.
Despite my disability I am still experiencing and observing that greedy anarchy. Anne took me and Pat our next door neighbour to the garden centre at Miramar on Thursday. The drive was stimulating – throughout the city the deciduous trees had fresh leaves while the native cabbage trees were coming into flower and there were buds on pohutukawa, a harbinger of summer. November has always been to me the fecund month with Nature at its best. That afternoon Anne planted tomato, courgette, cucumber and summer greens.
I’ve been watching the musical Chicago on DVD. What Energy! What Zest! It took a successful Broadway play and transformed it into a lavish cinematic experience, great cross-cutting and transition, poking the borax at celebrity and at the same time glorying in it, and creating spectacular fantasies of dance.
The film was good counterpoint to The Thirty Years War. After an extensive scene setting I am now reading about the actual conflict – the Hapsburg army has just won the first major battle at White Mountain which opened up Prague for it. The DVD and Ian’s poems are a relief from the grim account.
It is a year since Barack Obama and John Key both came to power. Key is riding high in the polls, Obama is not – the fortunes of politics. The week’s news here has been dominated by news from the minor parties – ferocious perk-buster Hide has been using the perks himself while Harawira hived off from a conference in Brussels to go sight-seeing in Paris. Subsequent remarks from both men did not assist their causes.
20 years ago the Berlin Wall came down. My stint in the Beehive over, we were in London, on our way to Italy. We watched the TV news before going to the park to see squirrels picking up acorns. It really happened as the story books describe.
Catherine Deneuve farting onion fritters
The world's greedy anarchy, I love it!
Hearts that break, garlic fervent in hot oil
Jittery exultation of the soul
Minds that are tough & have good appetites
Everything in love with its opposite
I love it! O how I love it! It’s all
I’ve got
plus Carlos: a wide dreaming eye
above her breast
a hand tangling her hair,
breath filling the room as blood does the heart.
We must amend our lives murmured Rilke
Gagging on his legacy of air.
Hang on to yours Carlos it’s all you’ve got.
Ian Wedde
What a lovely line – ‘the world’s greedy anarchy.’ Modernity and old art, a beautiful actress farting, the human capacity for love with all its joy and heartbreak, food appealing to taste and scent, and a young child.
This sonnet is one of sixty in Earthly: Sonnets for Carlos published in 1975, a moving series of reflections and descriptions of the birth and early days of the poet’s son Carlos. I recall first reading them – striking in their intensity and in their material. There was a zest about experience and life that upset my carefully nurtured poetic conventions. The poetry of surprise declared war on cliché and cant.
What I found liberating was that while the poems exhibited a wide worldly knowledge they still located themselves firmly in the local earth. The world’s greedy anarchy, despite all our attempts and efforts to corral and harness it, is not just banal and meaningless. It is something to celebrate, the joy of it is everywhere.
Despite my disability I am still experiencing and observing that greedy anarchy. Anne took me and Pat our next door neighbour to the garden centre at Miramar on Thursday. The drive was stimulating – throughout the city the deciduous trees had fresh leaves while the native cabbage trees were coming into flower and there were buds on pohutukawa, a harbinger of summer. November has always been to me the fecund month with Nature at its best. That afternoon Anne planted tomato, courgette, cucumber and summer greens.
I’ve been watching the musical Chicago on DVD. What Energy! What Zest! It took a successful Broadway play and transformed it into a lavish cinematic experience, great cross-cutting and transition, poking the borax at celebrity and at the same time glorying in it, and creating spectacular fantasies of dance.
The film was good counterpoint to The Thirty Years War. After an extensive scene setting I am now reading about the actual conflict – the Hapsburg army has just won the first major battle at White Mountain which opened up Prague for it. The DVD and Ian’s poems are a relief from the grim account.
It is a year since Barack Obama and John Key both came to power. Key is riding high in the polls, Obama is not – the fortunes of politics. The week’s news here has been dominated by news from the minor parties – ferocious perk-buster Hide has been using the perks himself while Harawira hived off from a conference in Brussels to go sight-seeing in Paris. Subsequent remarks from both men did not assist their causes.
20 years ago the Berlin Wall came down. My stint in the Beehive over, we were in London, on our way to Italy. We watched the TV news before going to the park to see squirrels picking up acorns. It really happened as the story books describe.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Berlin Diary
Poet, Cilla McQueen, (no relation) had a stint in Berlin prior to the wall coming down. In her long poem ‘Berlin Diary’ she describes her experiences including an illegal visit to East Germany using the underground.
When Anne and I visited in 2002 the wall was long down. East and West mixed but there were still differences – mainly architectual. I kept a diary. Here are two days, 13 and 14 October that year.
13
I pulled back the curtain and there was falling and settling snow. Indeed it was the coldest October day in Berlin on record. 3 degrees was the maximum. I walked out to buy croissants for breakfast. Church bells added to the sense of a special day. It seemed a normal Saturday thing to do and half the men of suburb seemed to have the same task. They helped me queue and order what I wanted. How the world narrows down when one travels. We decided to brave the weather, Anne has never been in falling snow, so wrapping up warmly we set off to the station.
We did plan to go to the National Gallery but when we emerged from the underground at Potsdamplatz, it was snowing heavily, it was cold and as we had come up out of a new tube entrance we couldn’t get bearings as to north and south, east and west and it was too chill to try to work them out. So very sensibly we went back to the tube and went to Hackesche Hole carefully restored as it was originally built with glazed tile buildings around interconnecting courtyards with restaurants at ground level. Ulrike had taken Anne there the day they went shopping.
We found a restaurant called the Oxymoron that looked right. It seemed the right setting for a hundred Humphrey Bogart or Noel Coward movies, it felt old and glamorous. I just loved it. I had a kirsch and a hot chocolate to warm up. It was so warm and comfortable that we decided to have lunch there. I had two steaks with mushrooms and potato croquettes in a sherry sauce. Anne has salmon risotto. Superb presentation and a courteous Turkish waiter.
It had stopped snowing but there was still sleet and a drizzly cold rain so we decided to go to the only Museum near a tube entrance which was the Natural museum. Us, and every parent in Berlin. We were going to check our cloaks in but the long queues made us change our mind. As travellers we made three sensible decisions today.
a) pulled out of going to the National Gallery
b) to stay and have lunch at the Oxymoron
c) not to put coats in the cloakroom.
Anne was more impressed than she anticipated by the world’s largest brontosaurus skeleton. It was colossal. Indeed the Museum was built around it. It was dug up in Tanzania 1909-12. The other dinosaur remains were interesting but this massive one was awe-inspiring. I have seen dinosaur skeletons in London and New York and they have better displays but nothing to compare with this monster. The other interesting exhibit were large models of insects which a guy did for a hobby – right through the war he was making these models of flies and beetles. They were eye-catching.
It was getting so crowded that we gave it away and headed for home. We had a scratch meal. When we rang Ulrike she expressed amazement that we had ventured out. Please we did. Mad dogs and Kiwis go out in the Berlin Snow. The news is dominated by a brutal bombing in Bali of some night clubs packed with mainly Australians, young people. They talk of about 180 deaths and untold maimings. BBC commentators keep saying they are at a loss as to explain the motive for such a blast but nightclubs are anathema to the fanatical Muslim and this will have huge impact upon global tourism. It will have a devastating effect upon the people of Bali. Not only were some of their own killed, their whole livelihood was built around tourism. Too close to home for comfort. Humanity’s ability to wreck pain upon other human beings is beyond understanding.
14
Up relatively early to join Ulrike and Lisa on the train. [It started at ground level in the suburbs but went underground as it neared the city centre]. We got off at ‘Under den Linden sub-station and emerged alongside the massive Russian Embassy – obviously built to stand a siege. We walked along the famous street to the Opera Café where we met Ulrich and Ursala, both in their 70s for brunch.
He is an ex-history teacher and school inspector and has an OBE for services to fostering German and English interchanges. At 15 he was drafted into the army, put on anti-aircraft guns, captured by the Russians and kept a prisoner for a year. He and his father survived the war, his mother and brother killed in a bombing raid just before its end. When I expressed sympathy he replied “we began the war and had to accept the consequences.”
Anne loved the café. When we had finished he took us on a walking tour, past the Historical Museum (unfortunately being done-up and therefore closed), new Bertlesman headquarters, across the bridge and the Peoples Palace (now closed because of asbestos) - while utilitarianism is understandable downright ugliness is less so, the Communists did the same in Dresden – to the main Lutheran church. The body of it was closed, but we had a brief glimpse of the magnificent stained glass behind the altar, before attending a service in a small chapel. Lovely organ. I thought the priest was rather perfunctory, so did our guides for they both went up to him and told him off for not pronouncing the words correctly and for his casualness. That is something no Kiwi would ever do, rebuff a stranger – a striking difference between the Germans and us.
Back over the bridge we went to the memorial to those who died in war and terror, a striking Kathe Kollwitz small statuette of a mother grieving over her dead son has been recast to sit brooding much larger. It’s there under a hole in the roof, open to the elements, a very eloquent memorial. Yesterday it would have been covered in snow.
We went in to the Humbolt University to see its foyer, (second hand books for sale outside) and the Frederick the Great statue. Ulrich then showed us the spot outside the opera house where the Nazis burnt books. Below a glass dome is row upon row of empty library shelves. Finally he took us to see a model of what that part of the city had looked like before the war. Glories lost. He then took us to a pub, bottles of wine stacked to the ceiling – obviously no earthquakes here. Two reislings later we were left on our own.
Ulrike laughingly refers to us as her two little Inuits, we look so hunched in our windbreaker jackets. Anne led me to Lafayette where we had a late chicken and chips lunch to soak up the wine. Then we walked to the Brandenberg Gate and explored the ring of plastic bears, one for every country. The New Zealand bear had a moko and native birds. The English bear bore a cup of tea on its paw. We walked back along the centre strip with its linden trees to have an afternoon beer in the sunshine at a coffeeshop called Lindenlife. We made our way back Fornhou [Ulrike’s place] for a potato, sausage and egg dinner, a very traditional German meal Ulrike assured us.
The contrast between two days was striking.
When Anne and I visited in 2002 the wall was long down. East and West mixed but there were still differences – mainly architectual. I kept a diary. Here are two days, 13 and 14 October that year.
13
I pulled back the curtain and there was falling and settling snow. Indeed it was the coldest October day in Berlin on record. 3 degrees was the maximum. I walked out to buy croissants for breakfast. Church bells added to the sense of a special day. It seemed a normal Saturday thing to do and half the men of suburb seemed to have the same task. They helped me queue and order what I wanted. How the world narrows down when one travels. We decided to brave the weather, Anne has never been in falling snow, so wrapping up warmly we set off to the station.
We did plan to go to the National Gallery but when we emerged from the underground at Potsdamplatz, it was snowing heavily, it was cold and as we had come up out of a new tube entrance we couldn’t get bearings as to north and south, east and west and it was too chill to try to work them out. So very sensibly we went back to the tube and went to Hackesche Hole carefully restored as it was originally built with glazed tile buildings around interconnecting courtyards with restaurants at ground level. Ulrike had taken Anne there the day they went shopping.
We found a restaurant called the Oxymoron that looked right. It seemed the right setting for a hundred Humphrey Bogart or Noel Coward movies, it felt old and glamorous. I just loved it. I had a kirsch and a hot chocolate to warm up. It was so warm and comfortable that we decided to have lunch there. I had two steaks with mushrooms and potato croquettes in a sherry sauce. Anne has salmon risotto. Superb presentation and a courteous Turkish waiter.
It had stopped snowing but there was still sleet and a drizzly cold rain so we decided to go to the only Museum near a tube entrance which was the Natural museum. Us, and every parent in Berlin. We were going to check our cloaks in but the long queues made us change our mind. As travellers we made three sensible decisions today.
a) pulled out of going to the National Gallery
b) to stay and have lunch at the Oxymoron
c) not to put coats in the cloakroom.
Anne was more impressed than she anticipated by the world’s largest brontosaurus skeleton. It was colossal. Indeed the Museum was built around it. It was dug up in Tanzania 1909-12. The other dinosaur remains were interesting but this massive one was awe-inspiring. I have seen dinosaur skeletons in London and New York and they have better displays but nothing to compare with this monster. The other interesting exhibit were large models of insects which a guy did for a hobby – right through the war he was making these models of flies and beetles. They were eye-catching.
It was getting so crowded that we gave it away and headed for home. We had a scratch meal. When we rang Ulrike she expressed amazement that we had ventured out. Please we did. Mad dogs and Kiwis go out in the Berlin Snow. The news is dominated by a brutal bombing in Bali of some night clubs packed with mainly Australians, young people. They talk of about 180 deaths and untold maimings. BBC commentators keep saying they are at a loss as to explain the motive for such a blast but nightclubs are anathema to the fanatical Muslim and this will have huge impact upon global tourism. It will have a devastating effect upon the people of Bali. Not only were some of their own killed, their whole livelihood was built around tourism. Too close to home for comfort. Humanity’s ability to wreck pain upon other human beings is beyond understanding.
14
Up relatively early to join Ulrike and Lisa on the train. [It started at ground level in the suburbs but went underground as it neared the city centre]. We got off at ‘Under den Linden sub-station and emerged alongside the massive Russian Embassy – obviously built to stand a siege. We walked along the famous street to the Opera Café where we met Ulrich and Ursala, both in their 70s for brunch.
He is an ex-history teacher and school inspector and has an OBE for services to fostering German and English interchanges. At 15 he was drafted into the army, put on anti-aircraft guns, captured by the Russians and kept a prisoner for a year. He and his father survived the war, his mother and brother killed in a bombing raid just before its end. When I expressed sympathy he replied “we began the war and had to accept the consequences.”
Anne loved the café. When we had finished he took us on a walking tour, past the Historical Museum (unfortunately being done-up and therefore closed), new Bertlesman headquarters, across the bridge and the Peoples Palace (now closed because of asbestos) - while utilitarianism is understandable downright ugliness is less so, the Communists did the same in Dresden – to the main Lutheran church. The body of it was closed, but we had a brief glimpse of the magnificent stained glass behind the altar, before attending a service in a small chapel. Lovely organ. I thought the priest was rather perfunctory, so did our guides for they both went up to him and told him off for not pronouncing the words correctly and for his casualness. That is something no Kiwi would ever do, rebuff a stranger – a striking difference between the Germans and us.
Back over the bridge we went to the memorial to those who died in war and terror, a striking Kathe Kollwitz small statuette of a mother grieving over her dead son has been recast to sit brooding much larger. It’s there under a hole in the roof, open to the elements, a very eloquent memorial. Yesterday it would have been covered in snow.
We went in to the Humbolt University to see its foyer, (second hand books for sale outside) and the Frederick the Great statue. Ulrich then showed us the spot outside the opera house where the Nazis burnt books. Below a glass dome is row upon row of empty library shelves. Finally he took us to see a model of what that part of the city had looked like before the war. Glories lost. He then took us to a pub, bottles of wine stacked to the ceiling – obviously no earthquakes here. Two reislings later we were left on our own.
Ulrike laughingly refers to us as her two little Inuits, we look so hunched in our windbreaker jackets. Anne led me to Lafayette where we had a late chicken and chips lunch to soak up the wine. Then we walked to the Brandenberg Gate and explored the ring of plastic bears, one for every country. The New Zealand bear had a moko and native birds. The English bear bore a cup of tea on its paw. We walked back along the centre strip with its linden trees to have an afternoon beer in the sunshine at a coffeeshop called Lindenlife. We made our way back Fornhou [Ulrike’s place] for a potato, sausage and egg dinner, a very traditional German meal Ulrike assured us.
The contrast between two days was striking.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Berlin Zoo
Here is a poem I drafted when I was on my study tour of Germany:
Berlin Zoo
Tigers awe children everywhere,
always, they never fail. Families on
display in front of such dominion,
sinew under fur begging to be stroked.
A thousand year Reich, he claimed.
Without regret it is not so, but these
are under threat. A three-year old
retreats in tears before the teeth.
History condemns, admires, laments Potsdam.
Across the way, haughty giraffes contemplate
the crowds, the clamour; and in their pool
polar bears titanic a plastic ice-cream container.
When I was a boy my grandfather gave me a big black and white photo book called Great Zoos of the World. Berlin Zoo came first. When I was in Berlin most of my time was spent in education visits. But on the Saturday I was taken to Potsdam. In the morning I was shown over Frederick the Great’s summer palace with its beautiful grounds. The afternoon was spent at the home of the Kaiser's son where at the end of the war the Allied leaders, Stalin, Truman, and Churchill who halfway through was replaced by Atlee, divvied up Europe, an event historians have debated ever since. On the boat trip back to Berlin we passed an idyllic villa where my guide said the final solution had been signed.
The following day was a rest day for me. My hotel was not far from the zoo. So I went. It was smaller and more dowdy than I expected. Seeing pandas was a bonus. One memory stood out - a magnificent male tiger just through the glass. The animal turned and yawned, it’s teeth only a few feet away. The young lad beside me burst into tears and fled. There was a display pointing out that tigers were an endangered species.
That night in the hotel I sat down and began to write this poem. My ignition point was the endangered species. But gradually the latent power of the animal and the historical circumstances of the city took over my writing and it became a part political poem. At the back of my mind there was the thought that the haughty aristocrats who did nothing to stop the rise of Hitler were partly responsible for the carnage he unleashed. The giraffes seemed a fitting image.
The tiger merely yawned before resuming his pose. But in their pool two polar bears toyed with an empty ice cream container someone had foolishly thrown into their pond. The power and the strength of these animals was striking. We are also animal. Lovely tiger can be a deadly killer.
Back home I polished the poem. The film Titanic had been released. I used the word in the final line as a verb, it seemed to sum up human folly. The poem was at rest.
Berlin Zoo
Tigers awe children everywhere,
always, they never fail. Families on
display in front of such dominion,
sinew under fur begging to be stroked.
A thousand year Reich, he claimed.
Without regret it is not so, but these
are under threat. A three-year old
retreats in tears before the teeth.
History condemns, admires, laments Potsdam.
Across the way, haughty giraffes contemplate
the crowds, the clamour; and in their pool
polar bears titanic a plastic ice-cream container.
When I was a boy my grandfather gave me a big black and white photo book called Great Zoos of the World. Berlin Zoo came first. When I was in Berlin most of my time was spent in education visits. But on the Saturday I was taken to Potsdam. In the morning I was shown over Frederick the Great’s summer palace with its beautiful grounds. The afternoon was spent at the home of the Kaiser's son where at the end of the war the Allied leaders, Stalin, Truman, and Churchill who halfway through was replaced by Atlee, divvied up Europe, an event historians have debated ever since. On the boat trip back to Berlin we passed an idyllic villa where my guide said the final solution had been signed.
The following day was a rest day for me. My hotel was not far from the zoo. So I went. It was smaller and more dowdy than I expected. Seeing pandas was a bonus. One memory stood out - a magnificent male tiger just through the glass. The animal turned and yawned, it’s teeth only a few feet away. The young lad beside me burst into tears and fled. There was a display pointing out that tigers were an endangered species.
That night in the hotel I sat down and began to write this poem. My ignition point was the endangered species. But gradually the latent power of the animal and the historical circumstances of the city took over my writing and it became a part political poem. At the back of my mind there was the thought that the haughty aristocrats who did nothing to stop the rise of Hitler were partly responsible for the carnage he unleashed. The giraffes seemed a fitting image.
The tiger merely yawned before resuming his pose. But in their pool two polar bears toyed with an empty ice cream container someone had foolishly thrown into their pond. The power and the strength of these animals was striking. We are also animal. Lovely tiger can be a deadly killer.
Back home I polished the poem. The film Titanic had been released. I used the word in the final line as a verb, it seemed to sum up human folly. The poem was at rest.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Guy Fawkes Day (2)
Yesterday, my mind on autopilot, I put on my blog the piece I’d written to go up today which celebrates the thwarting of Guy Fawkes’s plot. I wondered about deleting it and starting again but decided not to – quite a lot of effort had gone into writing it. I have a Word document called ‘For the Blog.’ On it I place tentative pieces and ideas as well as poems and anything else that’s relevant. I usually copy and then paste. Yesterday, I cut. A lesson learnt – the folly of absentmindedness.
Guy Fawkes Day to me will always be associated with our good German friends, Ulrike, Matthias and their daughter Lisa. Ulrike was the national German language adviser, a member of my staff. They rented a home high in the Brooklyn hills with a superb view of the city and its skyscape, a great place to watch the official fireworks over the harbour. For five years we went there. Matthias became enamoured with the occasion. He and neighbour Brian delighted in setting off their own after the city display finished.
Here is a poem I wrote after the last evening together. It is not one of my better poems but I feel it captures the spirit of the occasion very well.
GUY FAWKES NIGHT 2000
Events take on their own
meaning.
Conversation relaxed
on the balcony as we watch
the display over the harbour
& then Matthias & Brian
advance to set & light
our own, four watchful
girls & assembled adults
- the fuse lit the two men
retreat crab-like, as ballet
dancers choreographed
to move together- then
whoosh - the garden lights
up & overhead coloured stars
appear, droop & fade. An annual
ritual has become this evening.
Will you celebrate Guy Fawkes
in Berlin? A reminder that this
event is the last time we will
watch together, but let's not
dwell upon the future, rather
the radiant present, the grace
of two men, our delight in their
action & by mutual agreement
"Godzilla's the best".
When the family left at the end of 2000 we were sad, not at the end of a friendship but the lack of their proximity. In the words of a local teacher, ‘Ulrike was a magnificent ambassador for her country.’ We visited and stayed with them in Berlin in 2002 and Anne spent some time there in 2006.
Lisa was six years old when they arrived. She had five years New Zealand schooling. When she returned home her English teacher shuddered at her Kiwi accent. We invited them on their first Easter here to have a meal with us. Anne hid chocolate eggs around the section and Lisa had great fun locating them. This became an annual event, Lisa inviting her school friends to help her in the search. Lisa came back for a three month stint last spring – a gap between her schooling and university. Staying with our neighbours she got a temporary job as a waitress in a local restaurant.
Hansjorg, Ulrike’s predecessor had arranged a study tour of Germany for me in 2004. Bonn, (Beethoven’s birthplace), Trier, (Constantine’s western capital), Cologne (cathedral), Berlin, (the wall not long down), Dresden (fabulous art gallery) and Munich (the ballet Midsummer Night’s Dream and beer halls) – it was some trip. Anne claimed it was a junket. If it was it was informative, educational and well-worthwhile. I was very pleased to have the opportunity.
I had a strange dream last night. I’d won a study tour to Greece. (Why Greece? I had not thought of Greece for quite some time). I had to race from a meeting to the car-park to pick up my vehicle. The drive seemed to be from Little River to Christchurch. Half-way there along the Motukara stretch I realised I’d left my passport behind. The word ‘passport’ was like the word ‘forlorn’ in Keats’ famous nightingale poem – it woke me to reality. I came awake thinking my passport’s lapsed. I had trouble going back to sleep as my brain tossed concepts of loss and regret around – times that were and will not be again.
It was at Motukara that I’d impressed Anne light-years ago. Early on in our relationship I drove her and her two sons to visit Akaroa. There was a ewe cast in a roadside paddock. I stopped the car, vaulted the gate and turning the animal over, helped it get to its feet. A natural action to a farmer’s son – an impromptu, unpremeditated move that won me great kudos.
Guy Fawkes Day to me will always be associated with our good German friends, Ulrike, Matthias and their daughter Lisa. Ulrike was the national German language adviser, a member of my staff. They rented a home high in the Brooklyn hills with a superb view of the city and its skyscape, a great place to watch the official fireworks over the harbour. For five years we went there. Matthias became enamoured with the occasion. He and neighbour Brian delighted in setting off their own after the city display finished.
Here is a poem I wrote after the last evening together. It is not one of my better poems but I feel it captures the spirit of the occasion very well.
GUY FAWKES NIGHT 2000
Events take on their own
meaning.
Conversation relaxed
on the balcony as we watch
the display over the harbour
& then Matthias & Brian
advance to set & light
our own, four watchful
girls & assembled adults
- the fuse lit the two men
retreat crab-like, as ballet
dancers choreographed
to move together- then
whoosh - the garden lights
up & overhead coloured stars
appear, droop & fade. An annual
ritual has become this evening.
Will you celebrate Guy Fawkes
in Berlin? A reminder that this
event is the last time we will
watch together, but let's not
dwell upon the future, rather
the radiant present, the grace
of two men, our delight in their
action & by mutual agreement
"Godzilla's the best".
When the family left at the end of 2000 we were sad, not at the end of a friendship but the lack of their proximity. In the words of a local teacher, ‘Ulrike was a magnificent ambassador for her country.’ We visited and stayed with them in Berlin in 2002 and Anne spent some time there in 2006.
Lisa was six years old when they arrived. She had five years New Zealand schooling. When she returned home her English teacher shuddered at her Kiwi accent. We invited them on their first Easter here to have a meal with us. Anne hid chocolate eggs around the section and Lisa had great fun locating them. This became an annual event, Lisa inviting her school friends to help her in the search. Lisa came back for a three month stint last spring – a gap between her schooling and university. Staying with our neighbours she got a temporary job as a waitress in a local restaurant.
Hansjorg, Ulrike’s predecessor had arranged a study tour of Germany for me in 2004. Bonn, (Beethoven’s birthplace), Trier, (Constantine’s western capital), Cologne (cathedral), Berlin, (the wall not long down), Dresden (fabulous art gallery) and Munich (the ballet Midsummer Night’s Dream and beer halls) – it was some trip. Anne claimed it was a junket. If it was it was informative, educational and well-worthwhile. I was very pleased to have the opportunity.
I had a strange dream last night. I’d won a study tour to Greece. (Why Greece? I had not thought of Greece for quite some time). I had to race from a meeting to the car-park to pick up my vehicle. The drive seemed to be from Little River to Christchurch. Half-way there along the Motukara stretch I realised I’d left my passport behind. The word ‘passport’ was like the word ‘forlorn’ in Keats’ famous nightingale poem – it woke me to reality. I came awake thinking my passport’s lapsed. I had trouble going back to sleep as my brain tossed concepts of loss and regret around – times that were and will not be again.
It was at Motukara that I’d impressed Anne light-years ago. Early on in our relationship I drove her and her two sons to visit Akaroa. There was a ewe cast in a roadside paddock. I stopped the car, vaulted the gate and turning the animal over, helped it get to its feet. A natural action to a farmer’s son – an impromptu, unpremeditated move that won me great kudos.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Guy Fawkes Day
There’s nothing new under the sun. From The Thirty Year’s War I learn that in 1623 the Persians captured Bagdad from the Ottoman Turks and slaughtered all the Sunni residents who had not fled. Centuries of hate. I’ve also learnt from the book more than I ever need to know about 17th century military and its weapons.
Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the day in London 1605 when Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellars of Parliament cellars with enough gun-powder to blow King, peers and commoners into oblivion. One conspirator advised a Catholic peer to stay away. The peer told Robert Cecil, Elizabeth’s wily adviser, inherited by James 1. Cecil ordered the yeoman to search the cellars and so the conspiracy was revealed. Had it been successful the history of the British Isles could have been very different, probably something like the bloody conflict of the Thirty Year’s War. But the plot did not succeed. Instead its failure fastened the Protestant hold on the land.
When I was growing up Halloween was unknown but Guy Fawkes Day was celebrated. I have a vague memory of Pop letting off crackers when I was very young but the war meant the end of fireworks for some time. Each year, however, there were bonfires and a guy was burnt. Gradually after the war fireworks came back. Private and public bonfires have vanished to be replaced by public fireworks displays.
The American presidential elections sometimes fall on Guy Fawkes Day. In my lifetime thrice, 1940 Roosevelt for the third time, 1968 Richard Nixon and in 1996 Bill Clinton for a second term. In Roosevelt’s time I was a school-boy. Pop, a Roosevelt fan, was distressed when the President died. When Pearl Harbour happened Pop firmly placed me before the radio. “This is a historic moment,” he said as Roosevelt delivered his day of infamy speech. In Nixon’s time I was head of English at Melville High School in Hamilton. When Clinton went back I was Executive Director of the New Zealand Teachers Council. I measure my life in terms of the American Presidents. Such and such an event happened when Kennedy was in the White House. I, like most other humans have no say in the election of the most powerful person on the planet. That decision affects us all.
That sentence would not have been written in my early life. Britain was still the centre of the most powerful Empire the world had ever seen. New Zealanders sang Kipling’s Recessional without really believing it. On Guy Fawkes Day 1914 the Empire was extended when the United Kingdom declared war on Turkey and annexed Cyprus. Two later events illustrate the waning of that power, both happening on November 5th. In 1956 I lay on university hostel bed listening to the radio, British and French paratroopers landing in Port Said. Eisenhower was not impressed at this invasion of Egypt. The control of oil in the Middle East was shifting from Europe to the USA.
In 2003 Cyprus was granted the opportunity to apply for membership of the European Union. How the Empire’s changed. The first time I went to London I walked straight through as a Commonwealth citizen, my passport stamped by a man with a Cockney accent. The last time I waited while Europeans strolled past, my passport stamped by a Pakistani woman.
Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the day in London 1605 when Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellars of Parliament cellars with enough gun-powder to blow King, peers and commoners into oblivion. One conspirator advised a Catholic peer to stay away. The peer told Robert Cecil, Elizabeth’s wily adviser, inherited by James 1. Cecil ordered the yeoman to search the cellars and so the conspiracy was revealed. Had it been successful the history of the British Isles could have been very different, probably something like the bloody conflict of the Thirty Year’s War. But the plot did not succeed. Instead its failure fastened the Protestant hold on the land.
When I was growing up Halloween was unknown but Guy Fawkes Day was celebrated. I have a vague memory of Pop letting off crackers when I was very young but the war meant the end of fireworks for some time. Each year, however, there were bonfires and a guy was burnt. Gradually after the war fireworks came back. Private and public bonfires have vanished to be replaced by public fireworks displays.
The American presidential elections sometimes fall on Guy Fawkes Day. In my lifetime thrice, 1940 Roosevelt for the third time, 1968 Richard Nixon and in 1996 Bill Clinton for a second term. In Roosevelt’s time I was a school-boy. Pop, a Roosevelt fan, was distressed when the President died. When Pearl Harbour happened Pop firmly placed me before the radio. “This is a historic moment,” he said as Roosevelt delivered his day of infamy speech. In Nixon’s time I was head of English at Melville High School in Hamilton. When Clinton went back I was Executive Director of the New Zealand Teachers Council. I measure my life in terms of the American Presidents. Such and such an event happened when Kennedy was in the White House. I, like most other humans have no say in the election of the most powerful person on the planet. That decision affects us all.
That sentence would not have been written in my early life. Britain was still the centre of the most powerful Empire the world had ever seen. New Zealanders sang Kipling’s Recessional without really believing it. On Guy Fawkes Day 1914 the Empire was extended when the United Kingdom declared war on Turkey and annexed Cyprus. Two later events illustrate the waning of that power, both happening on November 5th. In 1956 I lay on university hostel bed listening to the radio, British and French paratroopers landing in Port Said. Eisenhower was not impressed at this invasion of Egypt. The control of oil in the Middle East was shifting from Europe to the USA.
In 2003 Cyprus was granted the opportunity to apply for membership of the European Union. How the Empire’s changed. The first time I went to London I walked straight through as a Commonwealth citizen, my passport stamped by a man with a Cockney accent. The last time I waited while Europeans strolled past, my passport stamped by a Pakistani woman.
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