Get Up and Bar the Door

Reading this poem led me, in a roundabout way, to consider the consequences of choice.

A wife and a husband have a disagreement about who should get up and lock the door, as neither of them wish to be the one to do so.  This results in their being robbed, insulted and almost assaulted while they stubbornly refuse to be the first to speak, until the husband, in desperation, finally does so, and his wife is so happy to have won the argument that she skips around on the floor.  None of the consequences of their obstinacy seem to weigh upon her.

On a larger scale, it led me to ponder one of the books I read lately, which shall remain nameless, but puts forth the theory that organized religion (and, as such, God) suppresses our "good" impulses, natural instincts, etc, etc, leading the author to the theory that God, who is responsible for such, should be overthrown.

What I cannot understand is how the author fails to realize what would happen if everyone simply did whatever they wanted to.  This might be enjoyable to a certain extent, but certainly would not be enjoyable for everyone, especially those whose rights were infringed upon.  The ultimate result of a state of being in which everyone simply did what they wanted would be not just ludicrous, but heinous, for an entire variety of reasons too numerous to write about here.

Religion exists (or should exist) to remind us to treat others as we would like to be treated.

God gives us free will because He is God...and He is only able to do so because He is God. If He were human, like us, He would find the consequences of such, with our limited understanding, unbearable, and would constantly intervene, as we often wish He would.

God gives us free will in the hope that we will make the right choices, not all of the time because it is impossible for us to do so, but most of the time, so that we can show our Love for Him and each other.  When we fail to do so, it is not God who is to blame for our failures.  Yet I think some of those who think God does not exist because bad things happen actually blame God, instead of free will.

If one stops and really thinks about it, our ability to control our own instincts and desires is what makes us godlike...and our ability to judge what is right and what is not is part of what reflects our being made in His image, as Immanuel Kant himself said when speaking of the categorical imperative.

The Wife of Usher's Well

Can people really come back to life from the dead?

Jesus did, of course (although He was not just a person, but also divine) and He raised Lazarus from the dead.  In this poem, however, there is no divine intervention mentioned--the mother of the three sons declares she will wait for her sons' return forever if need be, and they do return for one night (Martinmas) whereon they revel with her and the maids of the household until dawn.

Martinmas traditionally falls on November 11, and was once observed as the beginning of Advent. Perhaps the tradition of ghost stories at Christmastime was already prevalent in this era, or this legend may have been one of the events giving rise to it.

Do ghosts experience some sort of "liberation" around Christmas? I know that for years, Christmastime was the time of year when I had the most vivid dreams of those I had lost, and not only were the dreams very vivid, I actually was able to converse with them and ask them questions. Some of them seemed confused by where they were, but some of them were glowing with vitality and joy, and looked better than I had ever seen them look when they were actually alive!

My mother's mother appeared to her after she had died, bathed in a golden light, at Christmastime.

I actually think the spirits of those who have left us can come back and communicate with us, but not all of us are able to feel their presence.  I myself have only experienced it in dreams, but my father had an interesting story to tell about spirits.

When he was a boy, one of his aunts was a "spiritualist," for lack of a better word, who conducted seances.  Out of curiosity, he attended one.  As they were all sitting in the darkness, he kept hearing someone behind him coughing, but nobody was there.

At some point in the seance, his aunt told him that his spirit guide had appeared and was standing behind him.  She was a young girl who had died of pneumonia or consumption...hence the cough he kept hearing! He fled from the room and never returned.  Years later, as a joke, we asked him what he thought she did while he was playing tennis, since she obviously had such severe respiratory problems, and he said, "Maybe she waits in the car."

Kemp Owyne

Kemp Owyne is a tale of a maiden abused by her stepmother and cursed to remain an ugly sea monster until a man has the courage to kiss her 3 times.  The stepmother believes the maiden will be imprisoned forever, because nobody will have the fortitude to break the spell, but Kemp Owyne does, and after kissing the unfortunate girl 3 times, ends up with a beautiful wife, plus a host of weapons that will defend him from any attempts to draw his blood.

The story is similar to that of Sir Gawain, once the most noble and admired of Arthur's knights, and Dame Ragnell.  Dame Ragnell is known far and wide for her ugliness, but when Gawain is forced to marry her, and begins to love her for her character, she becomes more beautiful with each passing day, until he is so besotted with her by the time that she dies that he actually goes insane for a period of time.

While the obvious meaning of these poems deals with the lifting of enchantment by the brave, it could also be seen as a tribute to the transforming power of love.  Too many times people are given up on, because they are not seen as worth saving, or the price of the saving seems too high for the one who is attempting to accomplish it.  While there are people who stubbornly stick to self-defeating habits and addictions from which they are unable to be freed, there are others for whom love is enough to truly accomplish a change, in their lives and sometimes even in their characters.

There is, according to the Bible, no power greater than love, and the writers of Owyne Kemp and Dame Ragnell, all of the saints themselves, and everyone who has ever given love to someone and seen it literally change their lives knows this.

Johnie Armstrong

It is difficult to understand why a king, with all of his wealth and prestige, would lust after the little bit of wealth owned by Johnie Armstrong the outlaw.  Yet the king in this poem summons Johnie to his castle on the pretext of recognizing him, promising to do him no harm, and then betrays him, killing not only Johnie Armstrong but half of his followers .

When I read this poem, I thought about the landlord who rented properties to two very good friends of mine.  Both of my friends were ideal tenants...never a day late with the rent, taking good care of the properties, trying their best to be good neighbors to those people who lived near them.  Yet when they eventually moved out, he refused to give them back their deposits, even though it was a mere fraction of what they had paid to him in rent over the years.

He claimed that the unfinished wood floors had scratches on them (after 8 years!) and that the furniture and sundry other items he had stored in the basements of the homes were really theirs, left behind for him to dispose of.  He must have forgotten the Christmas baskets he sent every year with cards thanking them for being the best tenants he ever had.

When it comes to greed, unfortunately, some people will always find a way to justify their actions .  It doesn't matter how much they already have, or how little the person they are victimizing has.  All that matters is what they want.

I know my friends' landlord feels perfectly justified in keeping the deposits that he was supposed to refund.  Several years after they moved out, he happened to encounter one of them at a healthcare clinic, and had the audacity to approach him and ask him how things were going.  My friend was too polite to say to him what he should have, but if I had seen him, I wouldn't even have given him the satisfaction of speaking to him.

Binnorie: Or,The Two Sisters

Could a sister actually drown her own sister in order to obtain a lover and more lands?

Probably.  Even nowadays, some people are capable of doing just about anything to get what they want.  When I first read this, after ruminating over the heinous ending, where a harp made of the dead girl's breastbone and hair accuses her murderous sister in the king's hall, I thought of more modern parallels to the poem, like the story of my cousin's friend Teddy.

Teddy lives with his widowed mother part of the time.  The other part of the time, he spends in the local homeless shelter, whenever Teddy's three brothers and his mother become tired of his drinking, or simply do not want him around.  When Teddy's mother passes away, she intends to leave all of her money to her other sons, because "Teddy will just squander the funds on his alcohol habit."

The ironic thing about the situation is that Teddy is the only one who actually does anything for his mother.  When he does stay with her, he cooks for her, cleans her house, helps her with her finances, mows her yard or shovels her snow, goes on errands, maintains her home, repairs her car and does everything else that his brothers refuse to do.

His brothers rarely, if ever, come by.  Once in a while they will pick mom up for a social occasion or, when the mood takes them, show up to castigate her for allowing Teddy to stay there once more. Teddy then gets driven back to the homeless shelter, until such a time as his mother realizes she needs him again and fetches him back home.

Teddy's brothers say he should be grateful for the times she lets him stay with her, as she is the only one in the world who wants anything to do with him, due to his drinking.

Since being put into the shelter the first time, Teddy has endured occasional nights on the street, beatings for his few meager possessions, and a fall that has permanently damaged his shoulder, causing him to lean forward permanently.  Yet he continues to faithfully care for his mother whenever she takes the notion to take him back, in spite of his brothers having ensured that once she is gone, Teddy really will have nobody and nothing in the world, in spite of the many things he has done to help their mother and their family.

Something like a modern day King Lear, where the siblings not only refuse to help their aging parent, but hate the one sibling who actually does.

But to return to the subject of Binnorie, yes, siblings really are capable of doing in another sibling to get what they want.  Like Teddy's siblings are slowly killing him.

Thomas Rymer

So, here we have a gentleman known for his honesty lying on a bank when he is approached by a lady so lovely and magnificent that he assumes she is the Virgin Mary (Queen of Heaven).  No, she immediately tells him, she is the queen of Elfland, and she is there to take him back with her to the magical realm from whence she came so that he can serve her for 7 years.

On the way to Elfland, after a journey of 40 days and 40 days through an ocean that appears to be made of blood, she stops and shows him three paths.  One, a narrow pathway choked with thorns and briars, leads to Heaven.  The other, a wide, easily traveled and pleasant appearing road, leads to Hell.

And then there is the third road, which leads to Elfland.

Incidentally, in the land where all of these 3 paths become visible to him, there is a fruit that tempts him, but she warns him not to take it because it will unleash every curse known to mankind upon him.

The religious parallels are fairly obvious, but what about the third road? Where does it lead to? As a victim of modern times and modern television, I immediately thought of the many shows on cable TV about aliens.

When King Arthur was born, his birth was celebrated by the elves in his kingdom, and upon his reaching manhood, they presented him with weapons that no man could have made, and against which no man could stand.

There is also a veritable treasure trove of stories about Elven beings in folklore regarding their magical abilities and the events that occur when people encounter them.

So why hasn't there been more speculation on shows about aliens about these mysterious and powerful beings, instead of religious figures?

The Douglas Tragedy

Can somebody really die of a broken heart, the way poor Lady Margret did?

Actually, they can.  Scientists have discovered that when some people, especially women, suffer from tremendous grief, their hearts can literally develop cardiomyopathy, or an abnormality, that can lead to death.

I have seen it happen myself.

A very good friend of mine had a mother who always doted on her children, and acted as if they could do no wrong.  When her husband became ill, these same children that she adored (excepting my friend) put him into a care facility and forced her to go with him, in spite of the fact that she was remarkably healthy for her age, and in possession of all of her cognitive facilities.  They took over the money that she and her husband had spent years saving, and became her medical power of attorney, as well.  Then they put her on an antidepressant because she complained too much.

They bullied and berated her so badly that she pretended to be demented in order to get relief from them.  After her husband died, she had a stroke and was put into the hospital.

While she was in her hospital bed, on a breathing mask, they sat by her bed and mocked her.  They criticized her for having bugs in her kitchen.  They made fun of her religion.  As she struggled to breathe, they sat there eating like people eating popcorn during a movie. When she begged to be allowed to go back to the nursing facility instead of going to hospice, they said, "We'll see."  In the end, it was too much for her, and she simply gave up. No medical reason was ever given for her death.

My friend was there for her every day, but it wasn't enough.  Realizing that her other children had turned against her was too much for her to bear, and nothing my friend said made enough of a difference.

People really can die of a broken heart, like poor Lady Margret.  My friend's mother is proof.

Sir Patrick Spens

A very gloomy start to a book of poetry, and not a very auspicious beginning on a search for inspiration.

Poor Sir Patrick Spens, to say nothing of all the poor ladies waiting for their lords to come home, with their fans in their hands and their gold combs in their hair.

Perhaps the writer meant to show what happens when people do not heed their premonitions, or when pride and avarice (on the part of the king) outweigh common sense, causing the loss of lives.

What I keep thinking about, though, is the poor relatives of the dead sailors, waiting and hoping, and waiting and hoping, with this enormous hole torn into the fabric of their lives, unable to heal because they will never know for sure what happened to Sir Patrick and his sailors.

Of course, the same thing has happened countless times throughout the ages...to people whose loved ones have disappeared, whether through crime or wars or just vanishing without leaving word.

It made me think of many stories I've heard throughout my life, but most especially of a little boy my mother knew in Rotterdam when she was growing up, who lived down the street from her.  They were very fond of each other, even though they were very little, and thought of themselves as boyfriend and girlfriend.  After the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, he and his family disappeared. She remembers everyone wondering where they had gone because no one knew what was happening to the Jewish people.

When the war ended, neither he nor anyone in his family ever came back, and to this day, she's not certain of what happened to him.

Maybe it's easier for her to wonder than to actually know.

It's not knowing, however, that makes it impossible for her to forget.

An Introduction to The Book of Living Verse

My brother-in-law gave me a book today...The Book of Living Verse.  I've already read at least half of the poets in it, some on my own when I was in high school, in my basement bedroom, sitting up at night when I was supposed to go to bed early to get up for school in the morning; some in my high school English classes, where I enjoyed demonstrating my talent for poetry interpretation to my less gifted classmates; and some when I went to the university and took the classes that eventually comprised my Master's Degree in English literature.  I used to be inspired by poetry.  But as the years went on, and the only writing I could sell (most of the time) was writing I couldn't even put my name to, writing for businesses where someone else took credit for what I wrote, and as the rejections of what I really wanted to write came in (sometimes pouring in, sometimes dribbling in) I quit writing poetry and reading it, and eventually I quit writing altogether a couple of years ago.  I've gone from writing every day to not writing anything for 2 years.

A severe and possibly terminal case of writer's block.

This gift, however, gave me an idea.

I wondered if reading a poem a day, and collecting my thoughts on it and putting them down, might inspire me to take up my love of writing once more.

I figured it was worth a try.

What have I got to lose?