White Dove
The dove cooed happily in his slipper.
He fetched her and danced
His last dance, with a dove on his head.
His friends laughed, this is better than a circus.
The garage was full of the bird’s shit. They say a white dove brings ruin. An hour later the boy lay dying.
A boy dancing with a dove,
Fishing in a mountain lake,
Images, images of wings
Brilliant against the sun of a father’s heart Choking with the tears of his absence.
His last dance with a dove
Was the passing of an angel
Who flew in and out of the life
Of the father who waited to know him.
The dove bled against the cage “Take it away, take it”.
They took it to the graveyard And let it fly.
There was a strong smell of flowers as an angel flew Bursting with light and the fragility of blossoms.
The Plenitude!
Fifteen hundred species !
Costa Rican butterflies
Wondrous, amazing!
A lifetime’s study
You might think - and then you learn
Of twelve thousand moths !
Santiago 1991
A POLYNESIAN SAGA - A SNAPDRAGON CHILDREN'S THEATRE PRODUCTION
For over twenty years we wrote and produced children's plays in Carroll County, New Hampshire, USA. Casting children as animals as well as creatures of the imagination enabled us to help them explore the natural world more widely than their immediate environment. The following introductory scene explores the various levels of the ocean and the sky above.
This was one of our most ambitious and large-scale productions, set in a culture alien to our local population in New England. Fish, many other sea creatures and dragons, not to mention voices of the gods, complemented a large cast of Polynesian people. We felt that our play was important, in that it enabled us to introduce and honor a relatively neglected and under-appreciated very large part of the world.
The script has some unusual features. Because there are groups of fish, an albatross etc.,who speak recurring lines or poetry, there is considerable leeway as to how their appearances are dispersed through the scenes. This play would suit a cast with many very young members.
FISH POETRY
The fish have their own style of poetry/group chant. They can speak in sequence or in unison. Their movements can be coordinated according to their words, or be independent of them. The whale may be just one whale, but the poem is a group poem anyway. The school and the flying fish need to be choreographed to move together.)
THE SLOW CHANT OF THE DEEP SEA FISH:
Down here in the darkest deeps
On the floor we crawls and creeps
Here the mystery comes and sleeps
Falling down the endless steeps
Living here where no light peeps
Barren desert where we reaps
Softer creatures fails and weeps
On the floor we crawls and creeps
We can live where no light peeps
Endless space and falling food !
Diverse species to the good !
Pluripotent plenitude !
IN THE MIDDLE ZONES
We are whales at play in the seas of forever
We know no nothing and no never
The bonds between us never sever
We know wisdom's more than clever
Our delight will never waver
Harmony's our sole endeavor
THE SONGS OF THE CREATURES OF THE SURFACE
The ocean is our glorious home
Over it we're free to roam
Under Heaven's starry dome
(The school of fish)
We're schooling
We're pooling
We are DNA unspooling
We are pliant
We're defiant
We are one colossal giant !
Together we ride
From side to side
And as we glide
We cannot hide
It is our pride
Here to reside
Our lives flow onward with the tide
As we roam we twist and dash
As we swim our bodies flash
Shining scales and tail-fins clash
We are many we are one
We are here till Kingdom Come
We are here till life is done
(The Flying Fish)
By speed alone we cannot save
Our lives in water that we crave
So we fly above the wave
Do not pity us our plight
We're majestic in our flight
We are glorious in our might
Over waves so glistening bright
We are such a wondrous sight
Air and sunlight is our right
The ocean is our splendid home
And over it we're free to roam
Under heaven's starry dome.
THE ALBATROSS (Played by three actors working together. It appears from time to time flying across the stage above the ships. It has its own poem:)
I am the mighty albatross
I am never at a loss
The ocean wide I ever cross
A roving bird, I grow no moss
And I can tell true gold from dross
My beak is sharp, I do not floss
I never count a day as loss
As over latitudes I toss
My heaviness, my mournfulness
So do not think of me the less
I am the mightiest bird of all
I heed the ocean's restless call.
To Learn From Animal Being
Nearer to the earth's heart,
Deeper within its silence:
Animals know this world
In a way we never will.
We who are ever
Distanced and distracted
By the parade of bright
Windows thought opens:
Their seamless presence
Is not fractured thus.
Stranded between time
Gone and time emerging,
We manage seldom
To be where we are:
Whereas they are always
Looking out from
The here and now.
May we learn to return
And rest in the beauty
Of animal being,
Learn to lean low,
Leave our locked minds,
And with freed senses
Feel the earth
Breathing with us.
May we enter
Into lightness of spirit,
And slip frequently into
The feel of the wild.
Let the clear silence
Of our animal being
Cleanse our hearts
Of corrosive words.
May we learn to walk
Upon the earth
With all their confidence
And clear-eyed stillness
So that our minds
Might be baptized
In the name of the wind
And the light and the rain.
~ John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us
May Coronations - London and Tamworth NH 2023
How paltry a thing
To crown a human king !
Minions flash the red and gold
Joyful music, awe is sold
Stories past, an empire told
Weaving priests and soldiers bold
Centuries of rituals hold
Echoes die in vaulting cold
Keep the subjects in the fold
Let us rather crown our Queen!
One spring morning
Chilly, greening,
Here In Tamworth guests assembling:
A single persistent drumming grouse
A bear stirs somewhere in the woods
Four high geese, mournful, skeining
Ten goldfinches flocking
A hundred thousand violets on their usual bank
A million fiddleheads unwinding
Untold multitudes of leaves a-budding
And bearer of the cynosure
The jewel of jewels
There in the centre of the crown
The ruby-throated humming bird
Arrived on time from southern clime!
So let us celebrate our Queen!
Queen and mother, Nature, Self
Sphere of fire and water,
Ring of rock and sky
Throne her stone of destiny
Cast the circles rippling out
Break the winter’s icy hold
Hold Her in Her warm embrace
Makes us agents, makes us free
God save our gracious Queen!
God save our noble Queen!
God save The Queen!
The winding spirit of the sun
The guiding hand through darkest night
Our dawn, our noon, our murmuring day
Vivet regina ! Vivat!
Vivat in aeturno!
Seculorum secula!
Ever and forever
Chorus swelling, life upwelling!
Ever and forever
Fragile resurrecting Earth
Gaia living, without end.
Persistent Evening Frog
We The Primates
How many primates
From scurriers and scampers
Swingers and clingers
In mountains and jungles
Cloud forest denizens
Wide-eyed nocturnals
Hangers-on barely
The counts dwindling scarily
The numerable endangered
Even our order
A darkening mystery
We don’t know the half
Close or remote
Or too close for comfort
An uneven family
Whose seats at the table
We argue the membership
We swarm of bouncers:
So: mouse-lemurs, lemurs, aye-aye and Lorises
Tarsiers and marmosets. Tamarins, sakis,
Capuchins, ouakis, douroucouli, titis
Squirrel monkeys, howlers, spider monkeys, woolies,
Barbary apes and macaques, mangabeys, baboons,
Mandrills and geladas, vervets and dianas
Red-bellies, talapoins
De brazzas, allen’s and parades,
Colobus, proboscis, langur, gibbon, hoolock
Siamang, orangutan, chimpanzee, gorilla
Bonobos, humans, no, wait, do we belong here,
Looking round the relatives,
Gods of decision, environmental rulers
Unable to distinguish, let alone control
In charge of the ticketing
Who clambers on the bus
The one-way express with people on the roof
Hanging on the windows, running by the side
Heading for metropolis, concrete canyons, cells in zoos
Labs of fancy DNA staffed by people with the blues ?
