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Sunday 2 June 2013

D. H. Lawrence: Things Men Have Made


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Little horse on wheels (ancient Greek child's toy). From tomb dating 950-900 B.C.: photo by Sharon Mollerus, 8 March 2009 (Kerameikos Archaeological Museum, Athens)




Things men have made with wakened hands
are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing
for long years.
And for this reason, some old things are lovely
warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.


D. H. Lawrence: Things Men Have Made, from Pansies (1929)

9 comments:

TC said...

Lawrence had a great knack for making and repairing things with his hands.

He mended blankets and shawls, built furniture, planted gardens, baked bread, addressing these small jobs with skill and gusto.

The sweetheart of his youth, Jessie Chambers (Miriam in Sons and Lovers), recalled:

"No task seemed dull or monotonous to him. He brought such vitality to the doing that he transformed it into something creative. He was proud of his small hands, extremely clever hands they were, equally deft at arranging sweet peas in a vase or at sowing the seed."

Ed Baker said...

Sweet Peas / arranged / in a vase
placed on the window sill ...

opens up (to imagination) a life-time
in images....

no wonder that there is Magic in writing
what is ... at hand and in the doing ?

"sweetheart of his youth"
an unrequited love
- no doubt -
........................captured

jeesh... I'm going to play with this
and the other 10,000 images now
coming and going through my mind

start another run at "it" see what
pops up and flowers
among my weeds

think I'll read Sons and Lovers.... have yet to so do.


Mose23 said...

Wakened hands - the opposite of waged/indentured hands.

Lawrence's eyes have also struck me as being awake as few others are in every photo I've seen of him.

The horse is looking pretty good for nigh on 3000 years old.

TC said...

Lawrence looking...

What does he see?

Ed Baker said...

WOWOW ! 860 of his poems... uncensored !!!

whose going to protect our children?
our adults who won't be able to handle this (coming)
"stuff ? this will lead us into hard drugs into murder, mayhem and rape !

Quick, lock up your sons and daughters and the rest of the Flock. Quickly: strike up The Band ... here comes the parade ;

what political/religious group will step-up to the plate and save us from [ourselves] ?

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

"Things . . . made with hands" v. "Things made by iron and handled with steel" -- that little child's horse v. that iron horse moving through abandoned frozen world of Sengyang -- Lawrence still there, looking.


6.2

light coming into sky above black plane
of ridge, waning white moon by branches
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

in the midst of which as if
experienced, thinking

of it, light coming through
fog, improbable in it

blinding silver sun above top of ridge,
cormorant flapping across toward point

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

What does Lawrence see? Whatever it is, he’ll give it much more than just a cursory glance--you can tell by that piercing look.

Unknown said...

these last two poems remind me of a piece i just revisited for a dance performance last month:

Everything in the Universe Ought to Be Mutual

Who you see sees you.
Special relativity requires reciprocity;
our experiences experience us,
our dreams are dreaming...

That which you do unto others
you have done to yourself:
when we curse we are cursed,
when we love we are loved,
when we lift we are lifted.

We die when we kill.
We are born when we give birth.
We are known when we know:
We are they.

The things we own own us,
the things we make make us;
if you get what you pay for
you will pay for what you get.

No one is free while others are.
We are a tribe with no members,
and a member of no tribe:
a part of the world, apart.

Anonymous said...

P. A. Pashibin says...in response to The Day Goes On Forever


Answer to Tom Clark

The song is the door

Birthing wail
Dying breath

Same door
Open
Same door
Open

Your poem
Sings the song

First song same as last song

Waiting