tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post4396205214909280072..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Petrarch: A White Deer (Una candida cerva)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58499665420983387032011-11-18T19:32:23.003-08:002011-11-18T19:32:23.003-08:00Me As A Deer
My large body is not for him.
Even w...Me As A Deer<br /><br />My large body is not for him.<br />Even with my brown velvet skirt on.<br />Soft as velvet on a young buck’s antlers.<br />What he needs most to discover<br />hurts me in the meantime.<br />I feel a bit free to walk on new moss—<br />eat the foliage I want whenever I want<br />never give up licking my soft chops.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-54008938673044371802011-11-13T06:42:37.167-08:002011-11-13T06:42:37.167-08:00Don,
To meet at last on the cloudy river of the s...Don,<br /><br />To meet at last on the cloudy river of the sky -- so beautiful.<br /><br />The elegiac/lyric tone of the poet -- and the translator -- in addressing the experience of leavetaking/separation, so close to the heart of the poetic. <br /><br />I think this great poet may have influenced the Pound of Cathay as much through Arthur Waley as through Ernest Fenollosa.<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/ezra-pound-separation-on-river-kiang.html" rel="nofollow">E. P.: Separation on the River Kiang</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-81426877961272643782011-11-13T05:53:26.431-08:002011-11-13T05:53:26.431-08:00Ah, and then there are thoughts of Li Po, drowning...Ah, and then there are thoughts of Li Po, drowning trying to embrace the moon's reflection in the water, or so the legend goes ... <br /><br />Bringing to mind his "Drinking Alone by Moonlight," lyrically, if not so literally, <a href="http://public.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/drink.html" rel="nofollow">translated by Arthur Waley</a>.Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-4575786317470330552011-11-13T05:34:05.251-08:002011-11-13T05:34:05.251-08:00Yes, Don, isn't it wonderful, he falls into th...Yes, Don, isn't it wonderful, he falls into the image of his own reflection in the water.<br /><br />Ah, poets!TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-62647067067823807612011-11-13T04:33:25.139-08:002011-11-13T04:33:25.139-08:00Beautiful photos and the Petrarch is interesting, ...Beautiful photos and the Petrarch is interesting, indeed - the last line, well, one can't help find the humor and since the symbol here is one of chastity, it would seem the speaker has, in a sense, gotten his comeuppance.<br /><br />How we weave fable and lore around the all white animal. The horse in Celtic culture still spooks me deeply. There is no question of being a ghost; in the mist in a field, the sudden completely silent appearance of an all white horse is a thing of revelation.<br /><br />Than, too, there is the Native American white buffalo. <br /><br />We humans are so odd. Sometimes I feel I react, too, the way you note deer do:<br /><br />"Just be alert. And ready to high-tail it."<br /><br />DonIssa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-25159498895821964502011-11-09T22:23:40.183-08:002011-11-09T22:23:40.183-08:00I think, to us, they ARE ghosts. The way they app...I think, to us, they ARE ghosts. The way they appear, like revenants.<br /><br />Whereas to them we are, I guess, just in the way.<br /><br />They can't do anything about us. Just be alert. And ready to high-tail it.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-63398421670623452702011-11-09T13:24:41.090-08:002011-11-09T13:24:41.090-08:00Beautiful. And the white deer do look like ghosts...Beautiful. And the white deer do look like ghosts. I wonder sometimes how they survive at all, but then the deer around are the white tailed deer, the tail lifting like a flag as if to say--here I am . . .Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-4439818069799712132011-11-09T12:26:05.801-08:002011-11-09T12:26:05.801-08:00Bill, that's a beauty, so much contained and c...Bill, that's a beauty, so much contained and compressed into those palpable substantives, tin cold, pale deer, blue light, black wood.<br /><br />And the break in "lifting/a story...", fine.<br /><br />Speaking back to the issue of deer-mangling, Michael Peverett has reminded us that some of the most desirable deer-killing grounds in England are now in the hands of the current timeshare proprietor of the Rembrandt masterpiece (at Mulgrave Castle in Yorkshire), that is, the Aussie supermodel Elle McPherson, who uses the place as a hunting camp where she her celebrity chums like Guy Richie and Madonna murder harmless beautiful animals for "stress relief". All in the name of Jusas Iscariot no doubt.<br /><br />(That's in the comment thread <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/thirty-pieces-of-silver-from-frozen.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-11992179328770503772011-11-09T11:52:43.452-08:002011-11-09T11:52:43.452-08:00a short poem I like: OF MULE AND DEER, by Farid Ma...a short poem I like: OF MULE AND DEER, by Farid Matuk, one of our younger colleagues (so to speak)<br /><br />---------- <br /><br />Out of a tin-cold, murmuring black wood<br />Lightly you lope, pale deer, lifting<br /><br />A story from pages of snow<br /><br />Nothing turns in your eye they say<br /><br />Toward the tin-cold and murmuring black wood<br />I bear a display case of blue light<br />Say it was the sky<br /><br />Say all you want it was the skybill shermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04168365468808561496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-18134811345039731182011-11-09T11:35:01.922-08:002011-11-09T11:35:01.922-08:00Yes, it's chastening to consider that annual c...Yes, it's chastening to consider that annual casual roadside slaughter.<br /><br />Petrarch's white doe symbolises chastity.<br /><br />The white fallow deer seen in these photos (obviously) symbolise nothing but themselves.<br /><br />Visitors to Argonne National Laboratory are sometimes startled by the white deer roaming the site and occasionally speculate on the nature of the experiment that produced their unusual coloring. But the deer are perfectly normal fallow deer (Dama dama), a naturally light-colored species native to North Africa, Europe and parts of Asia. There are about forty on the Argonne site. Today’s herd began with eight or nine white deer that Gustav Freund, inventor of “skinless” casings for hot dogs, received or purchased from Chicago clothier Maurice L. Rothschid.<br /><br />Petrarch's radiant and aethereal vision was rudely brought to ground, as poetry advanced from the smooth to the rough, and from Medieval Europe into Renaissance England, with this translation-by-main-force, done c. 1527:<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/thomas-wyatt-who-so-list-to-hount-i.html" rel="nofollow">Thomas Wyatt: Who so list to hount I know where is an hynde</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-48672963090713233462011-11-09T11:30:13.857-08:002011-11-09T11:30:13.857-08:00nice change of pace from the countless dead and th...nice change of pace from the countless dead and thoroughly mangled deer i pass each day alongside the road. that time of year.gamefacedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16562522181852339258noreply@blogger.com