tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post2751327443276213405..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: John Clare: Sand MartinUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-70616782633439413992012-10-20T14:27:43.571-07:002012-10-20T14:27:43.571-07:00Don,
Thanks for the alert reading, sensitive and ...Don,<br /><br />Thanks for the alert reading, sensitive and as always going straight to the heart of the matter. <br /><br />I think that sense of identification of the observing poet (is he "the nesting boy" I wonder?) with the bird here is real and palpable. He is so accustomed to feeling singular and alone, it seems he transfers -- in fact for a moment almost imposes -- that lonesome singularity "Of lone seclusion and a hermit joy" upon the Sand Martin (though as he can't have helped but notice, these are the most sociable of birds, happy in their busy colonies).<br /><br />I don't think it's the dread "pathetic fallacy" at work, so much as a kind of purposive empathy (as you suggest), an in-feeling ("immediate intuitive feeling," as you so nicely put it) that he finds indescribable because it is beyond description. And too he appears to have seen some member(s) of the colony split off from the group, and climb up into "the unfrequented sky" -- free as a bird, like they say.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-81018525936830684872012-10-20T13:28:11.680-07:002012-10-20T13:28:11.680-07:00One can hardly imagine that the beauty of these ph...One can hardly imagine that the beauty of these photographs could be equaled by the mere words of a single man but here we have it - the opposite is true - the photographs, gorgeous as they are, struggle to match this amazing man, John Clare, whose immediate intuitive feeling for these little beings makes one feel that he, too, is something of the flitting martin, "in lone seclusion and a hermit joy ..." Beautiful, Tom.Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-12131047356506767562012-10-20T05:32:48.601-07:002012-10-20T05:32:48.601-07:00Thanks to the observer of things wild and common C...Thanks to the observer of things wild and common Clare and to the wonderful Riparia riparia then, full hearts all round.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-91721195521893923812012-10-20T01:52:59.379-07:002012-10-20T01:52:59.379-07:00Stone swallows: I like that very much.Stone swallows: I like that very much.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-87480195883563529142012-10-19T22:50:49.549-07:002012-10-19T22:50:49.549-07:00These fly boys and girls are called "stone sw...These fly boys and girls are called "stone swallows" in Hellas--what a flight for sore eyes every Spring!vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-57609801260207854522012-10-19T14:30:31.001-07:002012-10-19T14:30:31.001-07:00To see thee circle round nor go beyond
That lone h...To see thee circle round nor go beyond<br />That lone heath and its melancholly pond<br /><br />Poverty of place, true localities; these limits bring to mind the last stretches of common land, to learn to live with the propriety of others' fences as best you can.<br /><br />Only Clare could use the word vermin and give it a life beyond the general and required disgust.<br /><br />I love all swifts and martins. The pictures and the films fill up my heart.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-41405126671102565152012-10-19T14:02:10.783-07:002012-10-19T14:02:10.783-07:00"With strangest taste and labour undeterred&q..."With strangest taste and labour undeterred"<br /><br />Lots to think about here.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-39555315337571309382012-10-19T13:22:00.414-07:002012-10-19T13:22:00.414-07:00Tiny hawk
your egg
inside the cool
royal chamber
i...Tiny hawk<br />your egg<br />inside the cool<br />royal chamber<br />is where I want to live<br />after travels<br />inside<br />air with no edge.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-32381835748745618152012-10-19T12:59:42.206-07:002012-10-19T12:59:42.206-07:00"Thou hermit haunter of the lonely glen"..."Thou hermit haunter of the lonely glen"<br /><br />Thou bandaged passenger of my remembering brain,<br />Thou pacer of Poetry Magazine<br />ponderer of shortness,<br />Thou carrier of an unsheathed, bejeweled dagger ready to unleash...<br />Thou mumbling and preserved under the sand, casting spells left and right,<br />Thou obscure ghost just a little too real, milky, gauzy quartzy electricity,<br />Thou dictator of measured passion, as in step-by-step,<br />Thou sandy mirror in the shallow river.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-82651146509953284932012-10-19T12:35:59.900-07:002012-10-19T12:35:59.900-07:00Fragile monastic apartments
cleaned out
dynamic ...Fragile monastic apartments <br />cleaned out <br />dynamic feathers <br />need scrubby sand<br />left the bugs <br />of the "melancholly pond"<br />behind.<br />Your cousins--<br />velvet.<br />You, mealy-colored <br />slipping<br />sky<br />glazy eyes<br />back from the library.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-73742540403802473002012-10-19T11:03:43.378-07:002012-10-19T11:03:43.378-07:00(Oh, and my bad for mispelling the name of that Yo...(Oh, and my bad for mispelling the name of that Yorkshire stream. It's the River Aire -- presided over in the greater scheme of things by, of course, the interdependent Natural Departments of Air and Water.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-64948540137194356362012-10-19T10:59:47.904-07:002012-10-19T10:59:47.904-07:00Nin, many thanks, missed that until just now.
The...Nin, many thanks, missed that until just now.<br /><br />The beautiful thing about creatures other than humans is that one can never convince them of anything.<br /><br />(Just think of all those centuries of important advice they've missed out on.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-23562180479446487272012-10-19T10:53:16.677-07:002012-10-19T10:53:16.677-07:00I can't get enough of watching these little gu...I can't get enough of watching these little guys. Here's a colony of Swedish Sand Martins popping in and out of their holes (do they really know whose is whose?), working on burrowing, scrabbling about and generally making it seem that being a Sand Martin would be a wonderful thing:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV7x5EwadH8&feature=related" rel="nofollow">Sand Martins being Sand Martins</a><br /><br />(I understand that the nest burrows contain only a single egg apiece, and are abandoned after hatching, due to the incursions of vermin -- making Clare's observation about the "haunts" perhaps more accurate than he might have known.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-55465639627657810272012-10-19T10:43:53.124-07:002012-10-19T10:43:53.124-07:00Yes, beautiful. I love looking at birds. They do ...Yes, beautiful. I love looking at birds. They do decide where to live and that's it--like in our gutters and one year, right over our mailbox. No matter how many times you try to convince them to try another spot . . .Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-46048983318488315612012-10-19T07:57:38.500-07:002012-10-19T07:57:38.500-07:00lovely...:)lovely...:)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-57566753763373711392012-10-19T07:40:26.840-07:002012-10-19T07:40:26.840-07:00Many thanks, Sandra.
Clare, who looked so closely...Many thanks, Sandra.<br /><br />Clare, who looked so closely at everything in the landscape about him, didn't need a birder's guidebook to get at the essence of the curiosity of the particular behavioural habits of these wonderful little birds.<br /><br />Where frequent quarrys give thee dwelling place<br />With strangest taste and labour undeterred<br />Drilling small holes along the quarrys side<br />More like the haunts of vermin than a bird<br /><br />It is a pleasure to see them gathered in their colonial "hauntings":<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLFMlxWiyDs" rel="nofollow">A busy Sand Martin hotel on a sand bank of the River Ayre, West Yorkshire</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I-aDWIIxOM" rel="nofollow">Sociable Sand Martins at St. Ives bay, Cornwall</a><br /><br />(Their ability to make happy use of power transmission lines, as seen in the bottom photo here from the Ukraine, and in the video from St. Ives, suggests that perhaps there is a purpose to be found by some living being for everything manufactured by Industrious Man -- though of course IM had no such purpose in mind.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-63709758607802417092012-10-19T05:35:38.172-07:002012-10-19T05:35:38.172-07:00nice images...love the gestures and postures of th...nice images...love the gestures and postures of the birds...:)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com