At Home with Odin

At Home with Odin

It's morning,

A bright sun rising, clear sky.

Hugin and Munin are ready

The world beckons

Off to school I like to think,

Eager, tireless, off on their lonely flights,

My children, the best of me scanning the Earth.

My one eye lacks perspective,

I have no depth perception

I'm not what I was, hunting for meaning,

One just gets by.

Right side, left side of the brain:

What can I make of this flat map,

Can never make a true projection?

Cannot reconcile the images that circle

Looking for a way to make sense

To shape a picture from the cues

The facts to shape to truth.

So off they go, my brave ones,

My gleaming black sky riders

Pure purpose, unerring

To the end of the world

And back for supper

Unscathed, to give the news. 

--

Richard Posner

https://richardprism.blogspot.com/

We The Poets: https://citizenpoets.blogspot.com/

The Common Good

Commentary: The Common Good

Rather than make this a philosophical analysis and exploration of the concept, this piece is concerned with the United States and how the common good is understood and accepted in varying degrees among different populations and cultures in the country.

A recommended background book is the excellent "American Nations" by Colin Woodard , "a history of the eleven regional cultures of North America." In it, Woodard argues that the original European settlers in many parts of North America often arrived as groups with cultures steeped in histories of oppression, marginalization and exploitation by elites and governments in the lands from which they came, which made them natural frontier-dwellers and individualists. This applied especially to the White settlers in "Greater Appalachia" who became very important in creating a broader "national" culture from Appalachia into their territories of expansion, especially in the southern Midwest and in Texas. Their natural opponents, who had other adversaries for different reasons, were the Yankees, whose influence spread from the narrow-minded Massachusetts Bay theocracy far into the Mid-West, and eventually the Far (Coastal) West as well. Of the eleven Nations, only the Yankees and the Native Americans could be said to have a strongly-developed sense of their overarching societies and the paramount "Common Good" that dominated their ideas as to how they should order and govern their communities . The others were either individualistic to the point of anarchy, or had authoritarian and predatory elites at the tops of pyramids of exploitation of discriminated class- and/or racist- lower orders.

Tribalism has always dominated American society. The tribes may appear to be different from their originals, geographically dispersed and often hidden or unacknowledged, but they persist nonetheless. In his book Woodard makes two major, connected points, that to an extraordinary degree the original settlers in most areas left an indelible mark on the culture of that part of the US right up to the present day, and that this mark can still serve as a predictor of the political leanings of that area's population, even now. So much for the melting pot and supposed national identity. Some find that Woodard overstates his case, but it is powerfully persuasive.

From the viewpoint outlined above, then, it is not surprising that seventy million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated in October 2021, or that the Republicans have a firm "Base" of mostly poorly educated lower-income supporters who are eager to support a party run by rich white men who seek to serve their own selfish interests at the expense of everyone else. Trump is a member of that group, with an extra dimension of extraordinary populist genius. This large tribal group is so easily exploited, especially when manipulated by modern media so savvy in the ways of stirring up fear, hated and existing insecurity. The world according to Fox, many other channels and a huge section of the internet, once entered tends to be the entire source of information, the true, skewed, and the rank lies. Goebbels would weep with envy at the sweeping power and effectiveness of it.

For the tribes caught in this web, the "Common Good" smells of Big Government, the high-spending Democrats, taxation and attacks on "Freedom." They are constantly reminded that the same lot are out to "take our guns away" and allow "Our" women, and even those Gays and other deviants, to have license to kill our babies and generally act immorally. I wish I was exaggerating; alas, for about a fifth of the current electorate, I am not. I will need another time to explore possible ways out of this quagmire. I believe that there are ways, but worry about the timescale.

Richard

--

Richard Posner

https://richardprism.blogspot.com/

We The Poets: https://citizenpoets.blogspot.com/

Time - and Time again

Wild time pads softly,

Parallels my walk: glimpses

Among the shadows

Tamed time on a leash

Steadily pulls us onward,

Our fates intertwined

--

Richard Posner

https://richardprism.blogspot.com/

We The Poets: https://citizenpoets.blogspot.com/

A Poem for October and the long nights ahead

The Wild Hunt of the Skies

In the woods the quiet day settles

Dry leaves restless

Wind-whispered twigs and branches

Twilight creatures watching, waiting.

Over the mountains the storm threatens

Each layer a rise of elemental being

Till high, high in the darkening sky

In the clear cold thinning air

The faintest sound of trumpets

Shrill, shrill, a galloping of sound

Begins to finger-circle the porcelain dome

To raise the note that carries the tune.

The far-off beating of the drums

Begins, a giant heart's quickening pulse

But drums or hooves? You cannot tell -

A tempest of shadows gathering

A lance of darkness over the forest

Drawing a curtain over the canopy

Shuttering the brightening moon.

And then we see them,

The horsemen howling and shouting to the night

Their mounts wild-eyed, foaming

The hounds baying

The trumpets, the drums,

The beating of paws and hooves on empty air,

The ecstasy, the dark purpose

The speed reckless, the abandon, the savagery -

It is the wild hunt of the skies

The ancient ride of feral souls

It batters the horizon, and is gone.

And the silence of catharsis fills the woods.

--

Richard Posner

https://richardprism.blogspot.com/

We The Poets: https://citizenpoets.blogspot.com/

Bearcamp Pond, September 16th.

Red patches appear,

Glow in dark'ning summer greens:

The pond is cooling

Reactivating the Blog

September - reactivating the Blog

Recent poems

I have been working on other projects for the past month or so, but now, with the publication on Amazon of my poetry book "Musings" I am returning to what I hope will be a regular schedule. So here is a short string from the past weeks -

Beg to Report

In the 3.20's of the night – yet again

Beg to report

Signs of life on the surface of this human brain.

Crackling the same old way

Following ancestral paths

Out of the wells of consciousness

Coming up with the same questions

Battered by the same storms

Beg to report

Primal thoughts are bubbling to the surface

Pouring into ancient molds -

These halting moments of wonder

Struck our forebears, who thought like us

Who peered with the same familiar apparatus

From their lonely archipelago of time.

Bearcamp Pond, late August

Misty morning, grey.

Dark sky sombres the water

Tones down summer's green.

King of a Fragile Realm

Small palace, set in half-tamed woods

Old pastures, rocky streams

Dirt and tarmac roads winding through.

Outside the human world dwindles quickly -

At night the quieter sounds emerge

The to and fro of wild survivors

And under them the silence.

My morning swim in lakes the hour makes private,

My royal bath in waters pure, preserved for me.

Here inside the palace I am king

Surrounded by ancestral furniture

Hoarding millions of words

Shelves of ink and paper

Muttering museums of talk,

The paraphernalia of eating and drinking

The images of art and tribal record on the walls

The fabrics of comfort and display

Machines, no not to think but receivers and transmitters

To access gather organize and store

A library so vast it beggars all the treasuries

The vaults and armories of ancient kings.

Here I sit and summon the riches of the Earth

The local goods not good enough for me -

My coffee arrives from Ethiopia

At the click of a mouse, no coins across the counter

My tea by magic carpet from Darjeeling

My wine from anywhere, the oikoumene of the grape

From all the seas and corners of the globe

The flesh of animals that walk and creep and swim

The vegetation I decree is fit for me

All comes in plastic packaging

Supply chains at my casual command

Driven by fossils heaved up from the ground

Delivered by the young man carrying the package to my door.

The ultimate fuel is money

A mass delusion,

Conspiracy of estimated worth

Comes in waves, in and out

Numbers washing through machines -

I am on my throne believing I control them

They are my unruly subjects

Washed in and out all day, all night

At the whim of my royal, royal dream.

Summer nights

Here on Earth I wade through shadows

Skirting the edge of darkness

Threading a path through pools of silence.

In impenetrable night I tend to exist.

I am standing in the rain

The stabbing wind's blind fingers

The atmosphere thinning

Gravity slowly losing its grip

Bear me out.

Out beyond, to the breathless stars.

Morning observance:

Suspended 'twixt Heav'n and Earth

Diving in the pond.

2022

It's time our time our time of life

In 2022

For us to rise above the strife

in 2022

It's time to step to centre stage

In 2022

To break out from our mental cage

In 2022

For we are what the planet's got

In 2022

Our faults don't matter, not a jot

In 2022

For now the wolf is at the door

In 2022

And night has come, the flames will roar

In 2022

It's up to us, the random team

In 2022

To be much better than we seem

In 2022

So we are saviours of the world

In 2022

We share a fate we can't escape

In 2022

The Earth will burn, the waters rise

In 2022

And we shall fight towards the light

In 2022

We're not the ones the angels choose

In 2022

We look as though we're bound to lose

In 2022

The winds will howl, the clouds will glower

In 2022

Brave speeches will proclaim the hour

In 2022

There's no one else to hold the line

In 2022

It's no use looking for a sign

In 2022

We're headed for the cliff, my friends

In 2022

With no more dreams to patch and mend

In 2022

It's down to us,the worst, the best

In 2022

To change the world, survive the test

In 2022

We're just the same we've always been

In 2022

We have to find the golden mean

In 2022

There's nothing new that we can find

In 2022

We have to fight but still stay kind

In 2022

For we can't win unless we love

In 2022

And we'll invoke the powers above

In 2022

For inspiration needs to strike

In 2022

So we can learn to dam the dyke

In 2022

And we're the same old motley crew

In 2022

And sacrifice is what to do

In 2022

So now's the time that truth will out

In 2022

A time that we are cleansed of doubt

In 2022

The time of waiting now is past

In 2022

The criss now will bind us fast

In 2022

And we must carry all our strife

In 2022

And strive to save the planet's life

In 2022

So here we are, a sorry lot

Who wish upon a star

But we are what the planet's got

The door is still ajar

And in our minds we pull the blinds

Th sun still shines, the sky is blue

The road is ahead is one we dread

But every dawn is hope anew

In baffling, daunting challenging

2022

The Spirit of the Woods - a hymn to diversity

The Snapdragon film project has as its theme "The Spirit of the Woods." A core idea is the wonderful diversity of our local natural world. A Columbian might think our biodiversity a little sparse compared with the lands further south, but I find it pretty close to the principle of plenitude of St. Thomas Aquinas,  that everything that could possibly be created in this world is out there somewhere.This hymn/ode is spoken by the humans who are denizens, accustomed to the wonders around us.

We are the people of the woods

We know the paths, the trees, the streams

We know the rocks, the thickets, the flowers

We know very mushroom, every fruit, every acorn

We know every animal, every mammal,

Every bird, every reptile, every amphibian,

Every fish, every insect,

Every spider, every beetle,

Every ant and every bee

Even the ticks, the wasps, the flies that bite

Even the larvae and the babies

The caterpillars and cocoons

The creatures that hide underground

That burrow under the leaves, among the roots

Deeper and deeper into the world below

Under the forest floor.

We know our kin, our brothers and sisters

Moose and bear, deer and wolf

Coyote and fisher, skunk and porcupine,

Racoons and weasels, beavers and foxes

Chipmunks and rabbits, squirrels and voles,

Salamanders, turtles, lizards and snakes

Leeches and catfish, perch and trout

And all the great parliament of hundreds of fowls

Eagles and owls and hawks and ravens

Turkeys and herons and geese and ducks

Loons and kingfishers, robins and wood thrushes

Finches and warblers and brave little chickadees

Cowbirds and hummingbirds, crows and bluebirds

We know their habits and songs and migrations

We know their foods and places to nest.

We know the dragonflies, butterflies, moths

We know the billions of creatures too small to be reckoned

That fill in the fabric and make it all work.

We know the murmurings of the wood-wide web

Under and over and above and around us

We know the dawn time when sunlight is golden

Slanting and picking out light prints in darkness

We know  the wakenings of creatures by day

We know the chorus of life in the mornings

The rustlings the snuffling the scratchings the paddings

The silence of the little ones when the mountain lion goes by.

We know the slow descent into twilight

The sunlight caressing the line of the mountains

The still of the lake surface ruffled by breezes

The plopping of frogs and the jumping of fish

The pooling of darkness, the gathering of shadows

We know the quiet of the snow-bound deep winter

The quiet of the forest on hot summer days

We wake in the darkness of night hunters calling

The hooting and screeching of owls as they're flying

Silent and deadly for each vole and mouse.

And under the quiet and the business of living

The calm of the spirits, the souls of the woods

The breath of the centuries, the ages of Earth,

The times that we're part of, our brothers and sisters

That all of us share into death and rebirth.

This is our city, our city of nature

Its palaces, temples, its treasures and byways

Nature's great city where we have our place.

An Early Swim at Bearcamp

Pure blue dome the sky

Solitary loon diving

The world holds its breath

Ripples

Into the dawn pond

Ripples of water, air, light

Go out for ever.

Blown Away

Blown away

Born from dust

My bits and pieces

Accumulated

Caught majestic fire

Fused, concentrated,

Exploded in a cataclysm of change

Blown away

Clouds gathered

Reaccumulated

I was assembled again

When I was born

The world blew me away

I was bewildered

Swept along a corridor of wind
A headlong flux of time.

Then love came

I was blown away

The cocktail of chemicals overwhelmed

I fell and fell and went on spiraling

Time took its course

Snaked through the days, the years

Blowing them away

Then in the end

The winds of Death will rise

I will be ashes, dust

Blown away

At this point

I cannot be created

Cannot be destroyed

Just blown away

Mystic

MYSTIC

-- a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.

I am in the "or" category by this definition - I regretfully cannot surrender myself.

This morning I felt myself to be the only mystic in the woods -  the other myriad life-forms being unencumbered by "intellectect", having many other dimensions of being, blessed things. .(The word "silly" originally meant "Blessed", so silly things !)

So here we are, the unblessed who just might save the farm.

Poetry : August 2021 - Nine Stitches

Nine Stitches

Commentary - I - Witness

August 8^th.2021

Today another birthplace of civilization, Greece, one to which we white westerners are particularly attached, is in flames. Turkey is burning, along with many places all over the southern Mediterranean. In Northern Europe it is raining, the floods are near-Bibical. China, India, the great North American West - all predicted, all predictable. The heat and the water cycle intensify, by universal standards our window of survival conditions is very small. We are very vulnerable, we damp little monkeys with fire in our brains. So, for that matter, is the infinitely more complex web of life of which we are such a deadly part.

Poetry : There ain't no money in poetry

Poetry : On a path in Scotland

Poetry : Jesus sings the Blues

Poetry: The Story So Far

I am climbing the spiral staircase

Winding  dancing into the sky

Treading the steeply rising steps  

Inside an Archimedes timescrew

Drawing up my thinking blood and tears

Lifting up the river quietly flowing by.

Each step mirroring past and future

The twisting turning of the DNA

Shining, Immaculate, perfect,

Inside and outside me

The spiral staircases

Winding, dancing through my body

Winding dancing into the sky.

--

Richard Posner

https://richardprism.blogspot.com/

We The Poets: https://citizenpoets.blogspot.com/

Commentary: The Death Throes of Old White America

Dear Old Whites,

It is happening in plain sight. This being America, the words blatant, in-your-face,crude, self-justified, self-absorbed, narcissistic and defiant come to mind. Not much subtlety or room for doubt. And when struggle turns to death throes, the obviousness of it all becomes even more clear. There are advantages to this.

Poetry: The Riven Tree

Poetry: Monkey (3)

An Ode to Enjoy

Commentary: What Can Save Us

I have argued before that nations cannot save us, even when they cooperate or form international agencies.My belief is that only grass-roots or ad hoc transnational organizations  can form and become effective in the very short timescales that we have to operate in. Even when a nation, whether authoritarian or democratic, is capable of rapid adaptation or change within its own boundaries, although even this can be very difficult,  as soon as the international dimension comes into play, the rigidities and delays become dangerous in our present circumstances. 

Poetry : 2023 - We used to name the storms

Poetry : Good Intentions

Poetry : Two Mars Poems

Poetry : Spring Marriage

 

For some reason my thoughts have turned to marriage recently. This little poem is not about your marriage or our marriage, but about that strange festival of optimism in general, with the next generation being as daft about it as we were/are....

Poetry : Monkey (2)

Poetry: Boiling Down the Sap (Draft 2)

Monkey

 

Andromeda

Andromeda

Poetry : Eros/Logos

 

Poetry : Circling the Past

Commentary - Nations have had their day

A nation is defined as  "a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory."  "Culture" here can include religion, myth or ideology which can trump all the other features. There are times, centuries, areas of the world, where the definition  and reality of Nations still makes or has made sense in the very recent past. For me to suggest that the whole concept is obsolete seems ridiculous on the face of it.  We may have world agencies and currency, we may try to coordinate a climate agreement worldwide or have a set of rules for world trade, but when it comes to serious matters such as national wealth,  a pandemic or a war, we fall back on sovereign states and national interests. Try telling the Chinese or the French or the Thais or the Brazilians or the Egyptians or a hundred more distinct groups of millions that nations belong to the past, and such a suggestion will be brushed aside. For that matter, try telling that to most Americans.

Poetry : Creation - the Big Whimper, Just Because

 

Poetry: Meanwhile

Poetry: On Writing Poetry

 

Poetry: Las Medulas

There is no wealth but life." John Ruskin

Las Medulas - Leon, Spain

The Poet's Work

The Poet's Work     The Daily Bread ( that leaves the cupboard bare)

Spring in England, fifty years ago

Sugaring Done for Now

Commentary - the speed of time

I talked today with a Tamworth neighbour about medical advances over the past 100 years. How wonderful they have been! An injury he is expecting to recover from in a few months would have brought on a permanent disability a century ago. The pandemic? 1919 was so much more virulent and destructive than Covid. Millions dead, just after WW!, and the young more badly affected than the old. Almost inconceivable.No heady Spring Breaks in Florida. The world trudged on.

Commentary: Michael Longley

Just happened to listen to "On Being" on NHPR this morning - and heard Michael Longley speaking about poetry. Since I admire and agree with 95% of what he said, I hope that you'll listen to him. And such powerful poems of his. Lovely humour too !

Richard  

 

https://onbeing.org/programs/the-vitality-of-ordinary-things/

Poetry: There is talk of greening Sinai....

Sinai

Poetry: Elegy For Crazy Horse

I am Crazy Horse
I am the wind
Air skimming the land
Breath of the five directions
I am the ghost direction
The spirit running through the grasses
Whispering to our singing Earth 

Hoye !



I am Crazy Horse
I am a moving shadow
Scenting the buffalo
Across the singing plains
Catch my echo as it passes
It will not come this way again
I am the murmuring of the world 

Hoye !



I came fair-skinned, light-haired
The people whispered "Wasichu!"
I felt a shiver at the very name
The breath of strangers on my face
"Curly"was my boyhood name
"Strange Man" I was later
Then, last, Crazy Horse, my people's warrior. 

Hoye !



I asked my grandmother
She said my mother was good Oglala
That was not my question
I was six years old and I knew my question 

Later my woman Black Buffalo
The one I broke the hoop to know
Said her aunt knew my mother
There was a time she went out under the skies 

Hoye !



Said she sought plants for the heart's ease
There was other medicine at work 

A white man found her in the hills 

A man without people
Poured his longing into her
Took her, abandoned her -
That aunt was a heavy-tongued woman 

Hoye !



I am Crazy Horse
My father gave me everything
My seat on a pony
My gaze, my speed of hand
He gave me his name, the words to live a life - 

Only now, when I sleep out here on the plain
I know his sadness, that he would outlive me. 

Hoye !



I am Crazy Horse
Among the Oglala I grew swift and strong 

Learned to ride and hunt
The ways of horse and buffalo
Found my secret animal
Learned to be invisible
Learned to stay my fear
Hoye !



A child, I studied pictures in the fire
Be patient said my father
Fire is change learn to see beyond the flames 

Flames are children of the sun.
He spoke for us
Not for the men who fire the earth
To shape it into thunderbolts of death.
Hoye !



I dreamed of riding against Shoshoni
Dreamed of raids against the Crow
They were our worthy enemies
Worthy as our friends, Cheyenne.
We watched for silent creeping thieves, Pawnee. 

I did not dream of Wasichu
They massed like locusts to the east 

Hoye !



I lay in a wallow questing the sun
I was the breath rising from the buffalo T

he mist of life hanging in the air
I was the rumble of their thunder
I caught it in my fallen cup
I drank it from the pregnant ground
I heard it far across the plains
Hoye !



My father took me hunting
We crept among the beasts
Stalked and aimed to wound
My father did not pierce the heart
This day we were to run one down
We left the ponies, stood tall in the grasses 

We were men of old that day
Hoye !



When darkness fell we were far beyond the river 

My father cut the liver for me
Today he said was a good day to die
There would never be a better day
Today we were men 

Today we were hunters 

We lived in the spirit 

Hoye !



When the buffalo moved across the world 

They followed the grass, the rise of the seasons 

And we moved with them.
Now their bones litter the land
Snow covers their sightless eyes
I hear the herds of years gone by
Their thunder when our ancestors were young 

Hoye !



One man was my hero, a quiet man straight and true 

One was the medicine man who looked at me
And spoke my twisted fate
Said I would lead my people
And only they could kill me -
That drove me arrow-straight in battle, 

Left me haunted at night.
Hoye !


At night I spin the bowl of stars
Campfires of the ancestors
Cloud treaders
Crossing the blue plains
Walking into fathomless black lands
Deep the streams of darkness
Sweeping by their feeble sons and daughters 

Hoye !



I am a wanderer alone
I am what cannot be dreamed,
My spirit animal is not to be told 

My path cannot be followed
Leaves no trace, no wound
My way is the way of paw and hoof 

Padding soft through time
Hoye !



From my patient watching grandfathers 

I have learned the stillness
To lie in wait and pause
I have sat facing the canyon wall
Let the snake unwind over me
Watched the war ants march across my arm - 

I became their path, their destiny
Hoye !



I have lain with the eagle-catcher
On my back in the pit
Stayed from darkness through the dawn 

Breathing shallow, still, silent
Eyes closed to blank their shine 

I have heard the sweep of wings
The terror of the swooping talons 

Hoye !



I am Crazy Horse
I do not do the sun dance
I do not speak in council
I do not beat the people's drum
My dance is a leap across the river
My drum is the world beneath my pony's hooves 

My song is the flighting arrow
Hoye !



I have learned to fight the white man's war 

To count not coup, but death itself.
Their guns reach ever further
Make giants of small men
I fly the wind with a single feather 

Their bones lie now with the buffalo 

The grass grows in the wagon tracks 

Hoye !



I came to the caverns of silence 

The quiet of trickling water 

The deep rocks of star riding 

For the wanderer in darkness
If they ask why these hills why here 

There is land enough for all
This is the cause I cannot speak 

Hoye !



I cannot speak the secrets of this earth
To men who seek the gold, the scattering of stars
They do not know the beating out of time
The slowing pulse flowing beneath
The crystal exhalations of the night
Their heads are full of plodding numbers
Their fingers count the stubborn minutes and the stumbling hours 

Hoye !



I am Crazy Horse, I am not a number
I am one, beyond counting
One a fragment of the wind
One the gleam in the eye of the buffalo 

One the glinting of the dawn
One the sun riding the sky
I am the wholeness of the world 

Hoye !



I am Crazy Horse
I have learned to probe the lies
Of easy smiles and promises 

Words distorting futures
I trust the stories of the past 

Memories worn smooth like stones 

Bubbling the water on the fire 

Hoye !


My woman was Black Buffalo Woman 

We stood outside the tipi under the robe 

She was given to another
Called me from the plains
I  heard her in the hills
My picture sleeping in the rock 

For her to conjure in the air 

Hoye !



I found her and asked her
Is this the journey of your life ?
Can you not change your path ?
Her eyes wavered she looked past me
Then searched my gaze and saw me utterly. 

She walked away with me
Took nothing, as I found her
Hoye !



He came after us
Came and shot me
Fired his gun into my face 

Left me for dead
Tore his claws across me
Left my heart beating still
Could not cut the bond between us 

Hoye !



I arrived back to the circle
Her mother cat outside
I looked for someone to speak with her
Two boys were passing
“Tell him the child is born !” she said
“Tell him she is well.”
”I have heard the empty wind of someone speaking.” I said 

Hoye !



Inside she held the child and looked me in the eyes 

“Your daughter” was all she said.
Outside her mother was speaking
Loud for all to hear
She worked a deer skin 

Flashed a glance at me
And boasted till the light failed 

Hoye !



Inside I held that tiny hand
That would hold a pony's mane 

That would grasp a bow
That would sew the beads
That would raise the poles
That would light the fire
That would light the fires within 

Hoye !



When I saw that hand
When it held my finger
I felt the squeeze of firm life 

Saw the end of all my battles 

The power of my people 

Breath of all my ancestors 

Filling my lungs
Hoye !

I left her in the tipi
Walked from the circle of the people 

Rode up from the valleys
Into the winds of the world
I looked up, asked my grandfathers
My grandmothers in the circle of the sky 

How long would we stay down here 

How long, Grandfathers, do you know ? 

Hoye !



It was a strange thing to see
Wasichus craving for gold
Drops of sunsweat fallen to the earth
They died for a quill full of grains
I have seen them mad in the hills of home 

Digging and washing the earth
Sifting the fire dust, hoards of ancient light. 

Hoye !



I went to see the winter count
It told the summer's glory,
The victory against the Crows,
Three good men lost, remembered. 

“Where are the Wasichus?” I asked
It was the year they swarmed on the land.

”Not worthy of record” he said with scorn. 

Hoye !



Once I saw a storm of circling winds
Pass through a line of wagons
Limping up that rutted road
Scattered the wagon goods the people and the cattle 

Gained the heights and sang their song of victory 

That day those people met a greater thunder
A greater anger sweeping them away 

Hoye !



I became the storm from nowhere
My name was heard in countless dreams 

Before I died I lived a story
Placed the truth in empty hands
Hope was riding on my shoulder
We were brothers we endured 

Nothing dies in such a tale 

Hoye !



I am Crazy Horse
When my land was taken
I feel it like a severed limb 

It is there and not there
My people's names echoing 

Haunting the hillsides 

Calling us to save them 

Hoye !



I cannot bear to look on the sick white-woman face
The red and white faces of men who lie
There is no understanding these pay-money white people 

Or the Lakotas either
After they lived among them
I am Crazy Horse
I do not sleep by the white man's fort 

Hoye !



Father said there is a difference
Between us and them

That tells you everything 

We belong to this land
They think that it belongs to them
That is the darkness of their ways
The world is too heavy a load
Hoye !



And yet I will withstand my anger 

I will honour empty promises 

Take vain giving
See blood spilled
The very air made foul
I, Crazy Horse, called a savage
I will live and be patient in the world 

Hoye !



In our lands time flowed quiet like water 

A gentle stream bore us
Carried us in tender arms
Cast us on a friendly bank.
Now time comes in lightning strikes 

Singeing the ground beneath our feet 

Hurling us helpless to the dust
Hoye !



I know there is an end to these fair plains
That the grasses reach an ocean of trees
That ends with the ocean of water flowing to the sky - 

We came from the East to find our destiny 

Star-bowled hoop of pride and plenty
Horse and buffalo, land of richness
Sustained us tall and happy people
Hoye !



Now I ride to the white man's fort 

I will fight no more
My people starve
The beasts are gone
I shall use the word surrender
A white man's word
A little death in a foreign tongue 

Hoye !



I am Crazy horse
I can look tomorrow in the eye
I shall not flinch from destiny
I shall tread the stony path
I shall go under the gun
I shall walk the way of the wagon 

I shall come to the door with bars 

And never pass through
Hoye !



I shall ride into the mountain
My pony's hooves echo under the hill 

Will I warm the grass roots
With my war breath, my cry ?
Will I feel the cool air rise from the cleft 

The breath of caverns in the earth
I dream in with my flickering fire ? 

Hoye !



I am Crazy Horse
It was not enough to be the bravest
To be swifter than the wind
To know Coyote sleeps south of the skyline 

Not enough to climb the rocks to see the future 

It was the small hand of a girl child
Binding itself around my finger
Hoye !



I am Crazy horse
I have heard the grasses part
The soft fall of the panther's paw
I have heard the fanning of the grouse
I have heard the murmur of the streams deep underground 

Flowing through the caverns of the past
Down to the ocean round the world
Hoye !



In the hills
Smoke rises
Winding threads into the sky 

Threads from pipes also rise 

Passed from hand to peaceful hand 

To weave the people's bonds.
Can they sew our hearts together ? 

Hoye !


My rest is silence.
Yet I will still be thunder and lightning 

Striking from the looming sky.

A link to Crazy Horse

I'm looking at the talks I have given over the past twenty years or so outside the school environment.One great American I have always been drawn to, in spite of the significant racial and cultural gulf between us, was Crazy Horse. We had one extraordinary link with this man who died 140 years ago, and the living present in Tamworth up until a single decade ago.

Talk: Crazy Horse: Man of his World, Culture and Time - and his sometimes baffling individuality.

This is a link to an audio recording of this talk: 

https://soundcloud.com/user-266856264/crazy-horse/s-3lVECNODobc

- Richard.

Talk: The Crisis of the Male

It has been suggested to me that some of the public talks I have given over the years might be of interest to an audience now.  

"The Crisis of the Male" is a half-hour musing on how boys become men in our society, and the challenges facing them and the wider community. I hope that it is not too dry or lacking in humor, and it has a few beans to spill. 

I hope to record and share talks on other subjects -  Crazy Horse, Ancient Egypt and the British Empire are in the works.

--

Richard

 

Here's the link to the recorded talk:

 

https://soundcloud.com/user-266856264/the-crisis-of-the-male/s-gsud1fjK1sY

 

Commentary: Messaging and Context

I understand the word "messaging" to mean the public delivery of opinion. In communities where there is an acceptance of the importance of free speech, opinions are normally expressed either in the hope that others will agree, in which case the opinion gathers strength in community life, or that even if others disagree, they will know that others disagree with them. In the latter case, there may be a hope that those who disagree may modify their views - perhaps quickly in the light of evidence and persuasion, perhaps over the longer term as the times themselves change. If the bedrock belief in free speech is insecure or not really a belief at all, the messaging becomes propaganda.

 "Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts in order to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language in order to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda is often associated with material which is prepared by governments, but activist groups, companies, religious organizations, the media, and individuals also produce propaganda." I subscribe to this Wikipedia definition.

Poetry: Tangles with God - the final installment ? Is there ever ?

Commentary: Ancient civilizations (several) buried in Tamworth !

Dear Readers, 

Some of you know what a light-hearted little sprig I am, and how all I yearn to do on a chilly morning in beautiful Tamworth is provide a modicum of entertainment to brighten these solemn columns. (And how many of the younger set understand the origin of the use of the word "columns" for wodges of text? Oh, wait, is "wodge" too English English, or I am being safely mid-Atlantic?)

Well,. I think you might be warned already that I am happily digressing this morning as I look out on early March here and reflect for the thousandth time that the daffodils and crocuses are nodding their pretty little heads in balmy England.

Last year in my nature notes here I was still muttering about the white stuff in mid-April, so memories of February daffs up by train to London from the Scilly Isles just beyond the toe of England are really not going to help.

Ancient civilizations ? Oh, yes. Future archeologists will of course be armed with underground radar and other tech of a sensitivity we can only dream of, but even so it may take a while before they discover the unlikely sites of several puzzling settlements buried deep in our local woods.

Commentary : Neanderthals: their thinking and behaviour

I'll keep this short, but since I come from the home of lost causes, and you can't get a cause more lost than the Neanderthals, I'd better step up. I wish the president had chosen another target for his thoughtless adjective. He might have chosen one of any number of examples from our branch of hominids thinking rashly, impatiently, stupidly, some even in our own gloriously enlightened age, even among the intellectual demigods of our current  political elite.

I don't know much about those lost cousins of ours - but I gather that their brains were larger than ours,

Poetry : I have waited till 4 AM for the fiery wells...

Elevation

Commentary : Reform and Revolution

The kind of enlightened attitudes of tolerance and co-existence Noel Hodson and other correspondents are so impatient for are actually major human achievements that have only occasionally surfaced from the quagmire of history. Second-guessing the murk of oral tradition, we can speculate that over the last half a million years there have been instances, some perhaps lasting generations, of benign societies, enlightened leaders, humane mores. Certainly even the darkest periods will have seen wholly remarkable pockets of humanity living lives of light, and exceptional individuals transcending the pervasive savagery all around them. However, with only just over five thousand years of written records of any kind, and the early centuries of this eyeblink tied to agricultural civilizations, we have to make what we can of very limited recent solid evidence.