My wife’s death and, later, a heartening incident

[Grimes]

I’m really very sorry for your loss Grimes

What a lovely heart warming story

Best wishes to you and Simon

Thank you very much for your kind wishes, Bob. I’ll mention them to Si. I’m glad so many of you have enjoyed the story.

[Grimes]

Condolences Grimes.

Thanks, mate. They are much appreciated by me.

[Grimes]

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour

A sweet tale Grimes, replete with the appealing reflective whimsy that’s been a hallmark of your posts

Condolences to you and yours

Thank you for your kind condolences, Drone. Also, the poetry. Indeed, you have the soul of a poet. Are you Irish by any chance?

I first saw that passage of Blake’s in an essay on comparative religion by Aldous Huxley, called, The Perennial Philosophy, which had many beautiful quotes. Two, by an English poet and visionary, Thomas Traherne. One was,

"The corn was orient and immortal what, that never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting." How about that?

Then, there was this one:

"You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you."

Wonderful stuff.

[Grimes]

Grimes; I so understand where you’re coming from. When my marriage broke up 10 or so years ago, I took to sleeping in the back bedroom of our house next to the window. Overlooking the window was the branch of a tree and, for a few nights on that branch [never before and never since] sat a tawny owl. I was convinced that it was my long departed mother who was somehow looking after me. Whether it was true or not, it gave me comfort at the time and, I guess, still does. Sorry to hear about your loss.

Thank you for your kind sentiments over my loss, moehat. I’ve missed her more than ever, since Sunday morning.

I’m deeply sorry to hear of your marriage break-up. Anthea’s first marriage was really fated to fail, but she took it very hard. It sounds as if it was ‘no walk in the park’ for you, either, though I hope you didn’t set out to self-destruct, in order to get back at others, at fate, or whatever. If only someone had took Anthea to one side and told her that she had her whole life before her, and not to mess it up, protesting at the grief caused to her in the past.

A young doctor asked me what she had done, workwise, in her earlier life. "Well, she modelled fur coats for a brief spell," I said. After which, I remembered she’d mostly worked at the War office as a secretary, and told him. Then, I said that I thought she might have married down a little, when she married me – at which he absolutely burst out laughing. A very funny moment. Why do I always lead with my chin?

I can’t have impressed, looking that bit less smart than usual, with buttons missing, long johns showing above my shoes, Tesco’s cheapest trousers, which have a very sacklike look about them.

Re the owl, it’s precisely those details, in your case, the "[never before and never since]" that convince and excite you at a deep level, isn’t it?

[moehat]

My poor old mum was such a nervous wreck of a woman [not helped by having a much longed for only child reach adolescence just when the swinging sixties happened and, in this case a life of hippiedom called] so I would never have told her of my woes and expected support from her had she still been alive at the time. But, what the owl represented in a way was the love that my parents had had for me which, even though they were long since departed was never going to go away, because it isn’t something that can ever be destroyed. On the subject of poetry a poetry loving friend died suddenly and I was left most of his poetry books. One poem in particual caught my eye

, and it was one of Emily Dickinsons.
You left me, sweet, two legacies,-
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea
Between eternity and time
Your consciousness and me.

Seemed to sum it up pretty well what I was feeling.He was an Edinburgh man. Good stuff, poetry! We’re in Bamburgh for a couple of weeks in August, Grimes. Feel free to travel down for a day and walk on the beach with us.

[Drone]

Thank you for your kind condolences, Drone. Also, the poetry. Indeed, you have the soul of a poet. Are you Irish by any chance? .

I’m a part-Irish Quadroon actually My maternal grandmother came from Birr,Offaly and my paternal grandfather from Arima, Trinidad. This once-sceptred isle beckoned both in the 1920s

‘Real men read poetry and listen to string quartets’.

A truism if ever there were one

Pastoral, pantheistic, perhaps sometimes overly-romantic and cloying poetry is my thing

A pub in Tralee, a street table, a pint of perfect porter, a dog-eared and foxed Collected Poems Of WB Yeats: a somewhat ostentatious, but treasured memory.

You’re never alone with a book

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

[moehat]

Drone; did you know that The Waterboys [well, Mike Scott really] have set a lot of Yeats’ poetry to music. Went to see him/them in concert recently, and it was very good.

[reetlass]

[quote="moeha
We’re in Bamburgh for a couple of weeks in August, Grimes. Feel free to travel down for a day and walk on the beach with us.

I love Bamburgh and Seahouses, also Holy Island. I spent a few wonderful days there around 5 years ago.
I know your invite wasn’t for me, Moe, but if you don’t mind I’ll be with you in spirit. Enjoy the walk

[Drone]

Drone; did you know that The Waterboys [well, Mike Scott really] have set a lot of Yeats’ poetry to music. Went to see him/them in concert recently, and it was very good.

I didn’t Moe, thanks. I’ll give Youtube a surf

[Drone]

I love Bamburgh and Seahouses, also Holy Island. I spent a few wonderful days there around 5 years ago.

A lovely area indeed. Did you visit Craster? Its kippers are famous though not a breakfast I’d choose

The ferry to the wildlife sanctuary of the Farne Islands sails from Seahouses. Vicious Terns and languid Seals

[reetlass]

Hi Drone,

Yes, visited Craster harbour and found it particularly smelly at that time. The kippers we brought home were very good, though. We took a boat trip out to the Farnes and actually managed to get onto one of the islands ( guide escorted though, and quite right). I agree about the terns, one swooped down and became in one elderly ladies hairnet – quite funny to watch but a little terrifying for her! Would love to go back before I get too immobile, though.

[reetlass]

Oops, sorry. Missed out the word ‘entangled’ in the ladies hairnet sentence. I’m sure I typed it, but it hasn’t appeared.

[Grimes]

My poor old mum was such a nervous wreck of a woman [not helped by having a much longed for only child reach adolescence just when the swinging sixties happened and, in this case a life of hippiedom called] so I would never have told her of my woes and expected support from her had she still been alive at the time. But, what the owl represented in a way was the love that my parents had had for me which, even though they were long since departed was never going to go away, because it isn’t something that can ever be destroyed. On the subject of poetry a poetry loving friend died suddenly and I was left most of his poetry books. One poem in particual caught my eye

, and it was one of Emily Dickinsons.
You left me, sweet, two legacies,-
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea
Between eternity and time
Your consciousness and me.

Seemed to sum it up pretty well what I was feeling.He was an Edinburgh man. Good stuff, poetry! We’re in Bamburgh for a couple of weeks in August, Grimes. Feel free to travel down for a day and walk on the beach with us.

That’s a very kind invitation to a faceless, old geezer, moehat, but though I’m a mere 71 going on 72, I have to walk at the pace of a very, very old man. So, walking in company is, alas, a no-no. It’s a respiration problem following a heart op. The angiogram they used to try and find the problem probe got stuck, so I asked them to turn it in. Gnough’s gnough. Sad thing is, I feel like an olympic athlete in front of the computer.

I liked this poem of Emily Dickinson on the theme of Hope:

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

I said to my wife, while she was in the semi-coma, when you have hope, you have the whole universe in the palm of your hand. I think she interpreted it preponderantly as referring to this life, but the other day, while reading the Divine Office (Psalms), when I came upon the word, ‘hope’, I saw a kind of brightness in my mind’s eye, and her telling me, though without words, that I’d been spot on about that. this’ll all be another lunatic flight of fancy to some folk (Hi Ginge!), I expect, but, well, we all have our own way to follow and reach our best goal, if we can?

Another item on hope, a brilliant anecdote, was that purported to have been told to Charles Colson by Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

http://www.incommunion.org/2005/08/06/t … the-cross/

[Grimes]

Thank you for your kind condolences, Drone. Also, the poetry. Indeed, you have the soul of a poet. Are you Irish by any chance? .

I’m a part-Irish Quadroon actually My maternal grandmother came from Birr,Offaly and my paternal grandfather from Arima, Trinidad. This once-sceptred isle beckoned both in the 1920s

‘Real men read poetry and listen to string quartets’.

A truism if ever there were one

Pastoral, pantheistic, perhaps sometimes overly-romantic and cloying poetry is my thing

A pub in Tralee, a street table, a pint of perfect porter, a dog-eared and foxed Collected Poems Of WB Yeats: a somewhat ostentatious, but treasured memory.

You’re never alone with a book

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

"You’re never alone with a book" quod he*. Aaah, the "realms of gold…" Wasn’t that how Keats described it? Strange how, when we read a book, usually our imagination is more richly evocative than any film could be.

*Love that phrase, in The Ancient Mariner.

Well, I think, ethnically, I can beat you in the exotica stakes, Drone: I believe I’m an octaroon. Maybe even a hexadecameroon!!! Part Indian, part French, part Portuguese, part Irish, quarter Scotch and half Welsh, plus Scandinavian and possibly Spanish, further back.

As far as that famous poem of Yeats goes, Drone, as with most pop songs I remember from the forties to the sixties – don’t know any since then – gone downhill since the golden age – I tend to quote/sing a garbled version of just the first line or two. My version goes: "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, and there, a hut of clay and wattle make." Quite an abridged version and its only the intro.

[Grimes]

I love the ‘nutty’ names of some of the Irish race courses:

Fairyhouse! Leopardstown! To a lesser extent, as we’re familiar with it in other contexts, Cork. And perhaps one or two others.

I don’t know if any of you have read Michael Lewis’ books on the financial villainy initiated on Wall street, but he’s a literary genius, as well as a very, very astute bond-market maven.

The introductory chapter of Liar’s Poker reads like the showdown in High Noon – on steroids. But he’s written a book called Boomerang, in which he visits various European countries to find out how they’ve been dealing with it all.

The bloke he employed to drive him around Ireland, pointed to a circle of stones, and told him that it was a fairy ring. Michael asked him if people really believed in fairies, to which he replied, ‘Not really’, or words to that effect. But he said they wouldn’t move them, just the same, if they wanted to build there, for instance(!!!!)

As Michael put it, it seemed rational enough when you consider that there’d be no upside to not believing in them. But apparently it’ not just the wild Irish who still harbour inklings of a fairy world around us.

In one of the Scandinavian countries, before selling a plot of land, again let’s say, for building, the vendor must produce an affidavit to the effect that there are no trolls in current occupancy. They use some other circumlocution, not the actual word, ‘troll’. And they’re supposed to be a hard-headed lot, not prone to riotous fights of fancy.

[Salsabil]

Grimes, I’m extremely sad to read of your wife passing away, it’s difficult to know really what to say to be honest with.

We used to speak often you and I years ago (I’m Slippy Blue by the way) and we always had a bit of banter going on if you rememeber those days, when Gamble of course was holding court!

Anyway, I hardly ever pop in here now but read your terrible news and just wanted to send my best wishes to you and your family. You were always one of the good guys on here.

Slippy

[Grimes]

Thank you for your condolences, Slippy. I feel Anthea’s loss more heavily each day, but this and one or two other forums raise my spirits.

Great to see you’re back in the fold, the craic was good, wasn’t it? I’d been wondering lately what had happened to you. And you have a brother, too, I remember, whose girlfriend took a fancy to that cocky young West Ham goalkeeper – Mervyn something, I think, and used to launder his strip for him.

They all tend to look cocky though. I remember Arsenal’s Jack Kelsey in the fifites, a little pip-squeak by ‘goalie’ standards – always chewing gum.

How’ve you been keeping? Still wheeling and dealing with real estate in Spain? Your marriage to the Scottish lass wasn’t going too well, if I remember correctly, and your mention of the Brazilian girl in Tottenham Court road wouldn’t have gone down too well. I fear the worst, I’m afraid.

[Author]

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