Somerville Public Library Blog

Burning the Christmas Greens

by William Carlos Williams

Their time past, pulled down
cracked and flung to the fire
–go up in a roar

All recognition lost, burnt clean
clean in the flame, the green
dispersed, a living red,
flame red, red as blood wakes
on the ash–

and ebbs to a steady burning
the rekindled bed become
a landscape of flame

At the winter’s midnight
we went to the trees, the coarse
holly, the balsam and
the hemlock for their green

At the thick of the dark
the moment of the cold’s
deepest plunge we brought branches
cut from the green trees

to fill our need, and over
doorways, about paper Christmas
bells covered with tinfoil
and fastened by red ribbons

we stuck the green prongs
in the windows hung
woven wreaths and above pictures
the living green. On the

mantle we built a green forest
and among those hemlock
sprays put a herd of small
white deer as if they

were walking there. All this!
and it seemed gentle and good
to us. Their time past,
relief! The room bare. We

stuffed the dead grate
with them upon the half burnt out
log’s smouldering eye, opening
red and closing under them

and we stood there looking down.
Green is a solace
a promise of peace, a fort
against the cold (though we

did not say so) a challenge
above the snow’s
hard shell. Green (we might
have said) that, where

small birds hide and dodge
and lift their plaintive
rallying cries, blocks for them
and knocks down

the unseeing bullets of
the storm. Green spruce boughs
pulled down by a weight of
snow–Transformed!

Violence leaped and appeared.
Recreant! roared to life
as the flame rose through and
our eyes recoiled from it.

In the jagged flames green
to red, instant and alive. Green!
those sure abutments . . . Gone!
lost to mind

and quick in the contracting
tunnel of the grate
appeared a world! Black
mountains, black and red–as

yet uncolored–and ash white,
an infant landscape of shimmering
ash and flame and we, in
that instant, lost,

breathless to be witnesses,
as if we stood
ourselves refreshed among
the shining fauna of that fire.

The Camel’s Hump

The Camel’s hump is an ugly lump
Which well you may see at the Zoo;
But uglier yet is the hump we get
From having too little to do.

Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo,
If we haven’t enough to do-oo-oo,
We get the hump-
Cameelious hump-
The hump that is black and blue!

We climb out of bed with a frouzly head,
And a snarly-yarly voice.
We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl
At our bath and our boots and our toys;

And there ought to be a corner for me
(And I know there is one for you)
When we get the hump-
Cameelious hump-
The hump that is black and blue!

The cure for this ill is not to sit still,
Or frowst with a book by the fire;
But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,
And dig till you gently perspire;

And then you will find that the sun and the wind,
And the Djinn of the Garden too,
Have lifted the hump-
The horrible hump-
The hump that is black and blue!

I get it as well as you-oo-oo-
If I haven’t enough to do-oo-oo!
We all get hump-
Cameelious hump-
Kiddies and grown-ups too!

– Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Thanksgiving

Our mother has given away our meal
to an elderly woman three houses down,
her husband passing some time in the night.
With the woman’s children already

en route, my mother swaddled our turkey
in aluminum foil, stacked the tins
of buttered rolls, and sealed casseroles
beneath glass-top lids. As the assailable son,

I was enlisted at once, carrying over dish
upon dish, my brother and his bride allowed
to sleep in. I expected to see the postures
of loss: the widow weeping alone at her sink,

perhaps wiping a singular wineglass dry,
a slant of light through the kitchen’s box pane.
But she took each dish without inviting me in,
and as I stood in the yard, she latched

the door. I imagined his body recumbent
in bed, arms folded across the chest, each heavy
palm a lifeless bird. Beside him, she sweeps
closed his eyes, lifts the slightly lagging jaw,

seals his parted lips. In our dining room, the table
is cleared, the abalone china returned to the shelves,
each silver tine slid into its case. My mother nooses
a velvet bag (the candlestick her father brought

from the war) then unhinges the table’s leaves,
drawing out each piece like a galleon’s plank.
My father’s been sent for burgers and fries
while my brother continues his vigil of sleep,

young wife dozing off and on at his side.
Who’s to say when they will rise from their den
as she runs a finger along the ridge of his nose,
lifts an eyelash, come to rest on his cheek?

– Jonathan Fink

by W.H. Auden

When there are so many we shall have to mourn,
when grief has been made so public, and exposed
to the critique of a whole epoch
the frailty of our conscience and anguish,

of whom shall we speak? For every day they die
among us, those who were doing us some good,
who knew it was never enough but
hoped to improve a little by living.

Such was this doctor: still at eighty he wished
to think of our life from whose unruliness
so many plausible young futures
with threats or flattery ask obedience,

but his wish was denied him: he closed his eyes
upon that last picture, common to us all,
of problems like relatives gathered
puzzled and jealous about our dying.

For about him till the very end were still
those he had studied, the fauna of the night,
and shades that still waited to enter
the bright circle of his recognition

turned elsewhere with their disappointment as he
was taken away from his life interest
to go back to the earth in London,
an important Jew who died in exile.

Only Hate was happy, hoping to augment
his practice now, and his dingy clientele
who think they can be cured by killing
and covering the garden with ashes.

They are still alive, but in a world he changed
simply by looking back with no false regrets;
all he did was to remember
like the old and be honest like children.

He wasn’t clever at all: he merely told
the unhappy Present to recite the Past
like a poetry lesson till sooner
or later it faltered at the line where

long ago the accusations had begun,
and suddenly knew by whom it had been judged,
how rich life had been and how silly,
and was life-forgiven and more humble,

able to approach the Future as a friend
without a wardrobe of excuses, without
a set mask of rectitude or an
embarrassing over-familiar gesture.

No wonder the ancient cultures of conceit
in his technique of unsettlement foresaw
the fall of princes, the collapse of
their lucrative patterns of frustration:

if he succeeded, why, the Generalised Life
would become impossible, the monolith
of State be broken and prevented
the co-operation of avengers.

Of course they called on God, but he went his way
down among the lost people like Dante, down
to the stinking fosse where the injured
lead the ugly life of the rejected,

and showed us what evil is, not, as we thought,
deeds that must be punished, but our lack of faith,
our dishonest mood of denial,
the concupiscence of the oppressor.

If some traces of the autocratic pose,
the paternal strictness he distrusted, still
clung to his utterance and features,
it was a protective coloration

for one who’d lived among enemies so long:
if often he was wrong and, at times, absurd,
to us he is no more a person
now but a whole climate of opinion

under whom we conduct our different lives:
Like weather he can only hinder or help,
the proud can still be proud but find it
a little harder, the tyrant tries to

make do with him but doesn’t care for him much:
he quietly surrounds all our habits of growth
and extends, till the tired in even
the remotest miserable duchy

have felt the change in their bones and are cheered
till the child, unlucky in his little State,
some hearth where freedom is excluded,
a hive whose honey is fear and worry,

feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape,
while, as they lie in the grass of our neglect,
so many long-forgotten objects
revealed by his undiscouraged shining

are returned to us and made precious again;
games we had thought we must drop as we grew up,
little noises we dared not laugh at,
faces we made when no one was looking.

But he wishes us more than this. To be free
is often to be lonely. He would unite
the unequal moieties fractured
by our own well-meaning sense of justice,

would restore to the larger the wit and will
the smaller possesses but can only use
for arid disputes, would give back to
the son the mother’s richness of feeling:

but he would have us remember most of all
to be enthusiastic over the night,
not only for the sense of wonder
it alone has to offer, but also

because it needs our love. With large sad eyes
its delectable creatures look up and beg
us dumbly to ask them to follow:
they are exiles who long for the future

that lives in our power, they too would rejoice
if allowed to serve enlightenment like him,
even to bear our cry of ‘Judas’,
as he did and all must bear who serve it.

One rational voice is dumb. Over his grave
the household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved:
sad is Eros, builder of cities,
and weeping anarchic Aphrodite.

In a dark wood Prince Kano lost his way
And searching in vain through the long summer’s day.
At last, when night was near, he came in sight
Of a small clearing filled with yellow light,
And there, bending beside his brazier, stood
A charcoal burner wearing a black hood.
The Prince cried out for joy: ‘Good friend, I’ll give
What you will ask: guide me to where I live.’
The man pulled back his hood: he had no face -
Where it should be there was an empty space.

Half dead with fear the Prince staggered away,
Rushed blindly through the wood till break of day;
And then he saw a larger clearing, filled
With houses, people; but his soul was chilled.
He looked around for comfort, and his search
Led him inside a small, half-empty church
Where monks prayed. ‘Father,’ to one he said,
‘I’ve seen a dreadful thing; I am afraid.’
‘What did you see, my son?’ ‘I saw a man
Whose face was like…’ and, as the Prince began,
The monk drew back his hood and seemed to hiss,
Pointing to where his face should be, ‘Like this?’

- Edward Lowbury

This Thursday is going to be unusually busy at the Libraries. Here’s what we have planned in addition to our regular Thursday programs (Storytime for 3 to 5 year olds at Central at 11:00 a.m. and ESL classes at the West Branch at 6:00 and 7:15 p.m.)

Kidstock presents Jack & Jill & the Beanstalk
2:00 p.m. at the Central Library
For many years, Kidstock has been coming to the Library in the summer, offering a unique chance for kids and families to see children acting, singing, and overseeing a theatrical performance. Each Kidstock show is comically based on familiar plots with new twists, runs approximately 30-40 minutes long, and is ideally suited for ages 5 years and up. The actors will be hoping for volunteer assistance of young audience members as both onstage actors and offstage participants in this fun filled and dramatic presentation for all!

Groundwork Somerville
3:00 p.m. at the West Branch
Learn about harvesting around the world with Groundwork Somerville! Participants will learn how growing and harvesting food is important around the world through games, books, and activities. We will get to harvest Somerville-grown veggies planted in June and sample fruits and vegetables from around the world. This program is funded by the Friends of the Library and all are welcome.

The Small World Magic Show
3:00 p.m. at the East Branch
Magician Debbie O’Carroll‘s magic hat is on the fritz! Where in the world can she find a new one? Will she choose a wizard’s hat from England, a sorcerer’s turban from India, a conjurer’s cap from China, a genie’s fez from Turkey, a fairy godmother’s hood from France, a seanachie’s tam from Ireland, or a sprite’s headdress from Ghana? Ages 4 to 11 will delight in this magical quest around the globe. This program is funded by the Friends of the Library and all are welcome to attend!

Poetry Writing Workshop
7:00 p.m. at the Central Library
The first session of a 4-part workshop led by Somerville resident Tamlin Neville. We will write poems in class. Bring paper and pen. All welcome.

Oranges and Lemons

Gay go up and gay go down
To ring the bells of London Town.

Oranges and Lemons
Say the bells of St. Clement’s
You owe me five farthings
Say the bells of St. Martin’s
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney
I do not know
Says the great bell of Bow
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
And here is a feather to pillow your head.*

Pancakes and fritters
Say the bells of St. Peter’s
Two sticks and an apple
Say the bells of Whitechapel
Old Father Baldpate
Say the slow bells of Aldgate
Poker and tongs
Say the bells of St. John’s
Kettles and pans
Say the bells of St. Ann’s
Brickbats and tiles
Say the bells of St. Giles
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
And here is a feather to pillow your head.*

*Traditionally this line goes “Here comes a chopper to chop off your head” but I’ve also heard the pillow version and prefer it.)

The Immigrant

He’ll work for no one.
“Such a man,” the uncles
grumble. “Such a man.”
“Six years!” he says,
unbuttoning a cuff
and rolling up his sleeve.
Six years bending over a machine,
pressing knee pants and jackets,
until his eyes go bad
and he can’t raise his head
without lifting up this arm.
“Six years!” he’ll say
and show the arm
as if it told the story.
Son of horse dealers
in the Ukraine,
horse breaker himself,
he is a luftmensch, according
to his in-laws, a man of air,
one who has no substance,
no steady occupation
to argue for his yikhus,
his status or worth.
“He’ll ride the wind,
if the wind is of his liking,
and pick up jobs
that keep him out-of-doors
and other men’s employ,”
or so the uncles grumble.

But for six years
he bit his mustache,
living in one closet room
while working in another,
saving for a house in Brooklyn
and passage for his wife and kids.

After that, he’ll work for no one.
He keeps a cow and chickens
in the yard, and a female goat.
“My farm,” he tells his sons
when they say “house;”
and sells eggs and pails of milk
around the neighborhood.
It is 1916-17.
While Europe boils with war
and revolution, men with pushcarts
ply the neighborhoods of Brooklyn
with fruit and vegetables,
cloth, ribbons, pots and pans,
singing their wares
in answering voices
that cross and recross
for several blocks.

One day he shows up
with a horse and cart,
and paints a sign
that offers any child
a chance to prance
through Canarsie
for just a penny.
It doesn’t make much money,
but now he has a horse
to haul the milk and eggs.
Now he has a horse.

From that day on, at sunset,
he unhitches the horse,
and mounts, and canters
high and lordly
through Canarsie’s
still uncluttered streets,
so much the long-limbed cossack
that as he passes,
bearded men cower and mumble.
Dismounting at Jamaica Bay,
he looks at that darkening,
violet expanse, remembers
the pale sunlight
on the cobbled streets
of Minsk, the six years
pressing pants and coats,
or the number of eggs
he’s sold that day,
before he slips
onto the horse once more
and, turning a straight back
to the sea, trots home.

- Morton Marcus

by Robert Penn Warren

So hangs the hour like fruit fullblown and sweet,
Our strict and desperate avatar,
Despite that antique westward gulls lament
Over enormous waters which retreat
Weary unto the white and sensual star.
Accept these images for what they are–
Out of the past a fragile element
Of substance into accident.
I would speak honestly and of a full heart;
I would speak surely for the tale is short,
And the soul’s remorseless catalogue
Assumes its quick and piteous sum.
Think you, hungry is the city in the fog
Where now the darkened piles resume
Their framed and frozen prayer
Articulate and shafted in the stone
Against the void and absolute air.
If so the frantic breath could be forgiven,
And the deep blood subdued before it is gone
In a savage paternoster to the stone,
Then might we all be shriven.

Prologue for the Silverdale Village Players: Easter 1924

NEIGHBOURS, to-night we come once more
In this our home beside the shore
To turn ourselves to other men
And other women once again,
And for a passing hour or so
Make ourselves not the folk you know
But strangers come from other places
Or other times or other races
To please you with old tales and new
Of things that men and women do
In every place and every time.
And, as we make believe and mime,
Beneath the fun and passion and glow
Of human doings we seek to shew
Something of life’s significance
And vivid import, and enhance
The surface of life’s happenings
With hints of more abiding things.

If you should meet me any day
Outside, you’d nod and smile and say
“That’s Margaret Procter from Knowe Hill.”
But now I am not she; my will
And thoughts and this Spring nightfall dark
Have changed me to a woman stark,
Proud, fierce and born of fighting kin,
Who suddenly finds herself hemmed in
By death, revenge and treachery,
Greed and affection, for you to see:
My name is Vigdis, and you must know
In Iceland a thousand years ago
My dwelling is. And, if you ask
Why we have laboured at the task
Of shewing you such a far-fetched thing,
I have to say that when a King
First mastered Norway the beaten lords
Of Norway took their ships and swords
And, leaving their lands for evermore,
Sailed to many a distant shore –
Iceland and Scotland and, at the last,
On to the Isle of Man and past
Walney and Fouldrey until, men say,
Their last ships sailed up Morecambe Bay;
And the first men who tilled our soil
And built them homes with love and toil
Out of our oaks and dear grey stone
Were Norway men, exiled and lone.
So, as you watch us, you may dream
That people such as now we seem
Once lived in Silverdale; and know
That once, a thousand years ago,
Women like Vigdis in clothes like mine
Walked on Knowe Hill to watch the shine
Of the far tide (as I do now),
Or warded a ship with dragon prow
Laid up for Winter at The Cove;
When such events of hate and love
As those now waiting to begin
Behind this curtain might have been
Told of our Silverdale as well
As of that Iceland where they befell.

- Gordon Bottomley (1874-1948)