The Second Coming

I've never started my blog this early, but when I realized that William Butler Yeats was one of the June poets, I just knew what I was going to do.  I figured that I'd better write it now, before I cast on.

A poem by Yeats was brought up in the Bonus Materials for the second season of  'Sons of Anarchy.'  One of the characters, Opie Winston, has a tattoo across his chest that reads, "The center cannot hold, anarchy is the only hope.'  The first half of the quote is from Yeats' poem, The Second Coming.  I like that Ryan Hurst, the actor who plays Opie, chose the quote himself.

When 'Sons of Anarchy' began, I wasn't terribly fond of Opie as a character. (I was more of a Jax girl.  He looks so very much like the late Heath Ledger.)  He was just being released from prison for some nefarious act that he performed for the Sons.  Over two seasons, he's grown both as a character and on me.  He's had a crap load of  stuff happen to him that has made him evolve.  He was set up as a rat by an agent of the California Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives.  His wife was gunned down when she was mistaken for him while driving his truck.

I think that one of the things that bothered me the most about Opie was that he'd started to look like the uni-bomber.  It's the stocking cap, covering what I'd always pictured as dreads, and the ratty beard.  It is his character, though.  Then, he'd pull off that hat and he's got normal, and I use that word lightly, hair and he didn't seem quite so scruffy.

I decided that perhaps Opie might be a little more human that his rough and tumble appearance lets on.  Perhaps he might be able to curl up on the couch with his girl and watch a movie when he's not out wreaking havoc with SAMCRO on the Mayans or the Nords or the "One-Niners." (And yes, I saw him watching Horton with Lyla the porn girl and the kids, but that doesn't count!)

So, I've decided to make the Sinead Throw from Berroco.  I'm working it with Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool.  The colour is called Nature's Brown.  The cables, in their tangles, remind me a bit of anarchy, although they do have a pattern and they are ordered. Life with and within SAMCRO is just as tangled as the cables appear to be.  The colour makes it a bit more masculine than any other.  I guess the throw is more a snuggle with Opie and seeing that ink every time he sheds his SAMCRO outlaw leather vest and tatty stocking cap.

Here's the poem.

           THE SECOND COMING

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

                              By William Butler Yeats

Here are pictures of the finished throw.

 This is the whole afghan, folded over so you can see the top and bottom borders.

 This is a close up of the cables. 

Just another view.



Seasons 3 and 4 better show up sooner rather than later.  I may have to look into purchasing all 4 seasons.

A Midsummer Knight's Read

The theme for our summer reading program at the library this year is 'A Midsummer Knight's Read.'  (I know, it's a bit of a bastardization of Shakespeare, but we didn't pick it!)  I found a pattern for a knit castle baby afghan (Sleeping Baby's Castle Blanket) on Ravelry that I wanted to make for a raffle/silent auction item.

With a new set of bamboo circs, Caron Simply Soft Collection (pistachio is the colour) and the pattern, I was off and running.  I got the pattern 2/3rds of the way finished in a very short amount of time and then put it down.  I think that the castle in the center was the learning moment for me.  (I learned to make leaves on the "beanstalks" on either side of the castle.)  Finishing up the turret cables on the last section was a bit of a let-down, although it wasn't difficult at all.

After all of this working on the afghan, I decided to find a "castle" poem.  Normally, I pick a poem and then warp my projects to fit the poem.  I'm a bit backwards this time.  I remembered one poem from a book from my childhood, but it was only a few lines long, but the author made me think even harder.  Dr. Hammer would be proud.  I finally decided on 'Block City' by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I remember reading it for some class in college and liking it.  I have always like Robert Louis Stevenson.  I'll pretend for the moment that it was for Dr. Hammer's poetry class, but who knows.  That was a long time ago.

Hopefully, this will bring in some money for programs, although I won't hold my breath.  Sometimes people don't understand how much goes into a project.  If you want a chance at it, let me know.  We'll figure it out somehow. (I think it'll fit a crib/toddler bed with a crib mattress or make a nice lapghan for an adult.)

            Block City

What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I'll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.

Great is the palace with pillar and wall,
A sort of a tower on top of it all,
And steps coming down in an orderly way
To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.

This one is sailing and that one is moored:
Hark to the song of the sailors on board!
And see on the steps of my palace, the kings
Coming and going with presents and things! 

                                 By Robert Louis Stevenson

 Below are the pictures of the afghan.  I apologize for the hideous colours in the pictures.  It really is a pretty shade of pistachio green.  I'm sure that you can Google the yarn if you want to see a better rendition of the colour.

This is the blanket showing the bottom turret 

cables, drawbridge and mote as well the rest of the castle.  

This is a close-up of the turret cables.

Here's a little closer look at the castle itself.  Take note of those beanstalks on either side.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

To A Camper

There’s this place, a special place, where I’ve spent more than half of my life.  I learned more skills there than I did in college and all of the jobs that I’ve ever had.  Driving past the wagon wheel and over the bridge means that I’m coming home.  I don’t need to go out and hike around, just being there is enough.  It’s camp.

We just had a staff reunion at Camp Conestoga, in New Liberty, Iowa.  There were staff members from when I was a camper.  There were 4 of us from my CIT group in 1987 and 1988.  There were staff members that I worked with from the first year that I was on staff in 1989.  There were staff members that I worked with in later years.  There were lots of kids running around, not really caring that it was stinking cold.  (It was snowing shortly after I arrived.)  There were new staff members who will be working at camp this summer. 

Best of all, there were babies.  It was so cool to see staff members bringing their new little ones for their first visit to camp.  The babies won’t remember it, but they were there and there are pictures to prove it.  I got to cuddle them all!

Babies in backpacks!  Coqui & Tori. Snapdragon & Sam.  Rainbow & Kirsten.  Amity & Norah.

The poem I chose is called ‘To A Camper’ by Mary S. Edgar.  This poem was read every summer, at some point during every session for Scouts’ Own or during Ecumenical on Sunday.  I can still hear different staff members reading it, each with her own pauses and accent.  No one will know this poem, unless you’ve been to camp.  I know that it means something different to each of us from camp.  But, it means camp.

We had a silent auction to help out with the costs incurred from the weekend.  (Hopefully we didn’t have to pay for all of the firewood that we used, because we used A LOT!)  I crocheted a baby dress out of this beautiful peach baby yarn.  I figured enough people either had babies or knew someone who did.  I think that it went home with Rainbow.

I know that a frilly dress doesn’t really go with the poem.  A backpack, or a camp blanket or even a sit-upon might have been more appropriate, but I seem to recall wearing a formal gown at camp for a final night skit when I was a camper.  Little girls who go to camp wearing their ripped shorts and dirty tennis shoes can still wear frilly little dresses.  

Hanging out in font of the fireplace in the Dining Hall to escape the snow and cold outside.  ( I slept in front of the fire later that night.)   That's me, Quibs, in the grey sweatshirt.

It’s hard to explain how special camp is to people who have never been.  I can’t imagine a life without it. 

Below is the poem and pictures follow afterward. 

                    TO A CAMPER

You may think my dear, when you grow quite old

You have left camp days behind

But I know the scent of wood smoke

Will always call to mind

Little paths at twilight

And trails you used to find.

You may think some day you have quite grown up

And feel so worldly wise

But suddenly from out of the past

A vision will arise

Of merry folk with brown bare knees

And laughter in their eyes. 

You may live in a house, built to your taste

In the nicest part of town

But someday for your old camp togs

You'd change your latest gown

And trade it for a balsam bed

Where stars all night look down.

You may find yourself grown wealthy

Have all that gold can buy

But you'd toss aside a fortune

For days 'neath an open sky

With sunlight and blue water

And white clouds floating high.

For once you have been a camper

Then something has come to stay

Deep in your heart forever

Which nothing can take away

And heaven can only be heaven

With a camp in which to play.

                          Mary S. Edgar

  The dress is a much darker shade of peach than the picture shows. (Obviously, peach isn't the doll's colour. And the dress was made for someone a little bigger than her.)

A close up of the bodice.

A close up of the skirt.

And who do you think is underneath? This is the cat who refused to get out of the rocking chair. I even rocked it and she stayed put. So, I threw the blanket and the doll on top of her and took the pictures. This was the last picture taken.

 

Acquainted With The Night

  Robert Frost was one of the poets for this month and I was tempted to do the first poem that came to mind--Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening.  It was my mom's favourite poem and I remember hearing it recited as a small child.  It was one of the first poems that I could recite bits of too.


  As I was browsing the Internet for a copy of the poem so that I wouldn't have to retype it, I came across a list of Frost's poems.  There, I rediscovered  Acquainted With The Night.  I've loved  this poem for a long time-- long enough that it is in my handwritten book of poems that I started way back in 1989 while nannying in Garden City, New York.  I never remember that Frost wrote this poem.  I always try to hand it off to someone else.


  I think that I first came aware of Acquainted With The Night while watching the television show Beauty and the Beast starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and Linda Hamilton (Terminator).  Vincent, the Beast, often read poetry.  Acquainted With The Night is included on Of Love and Hope: Music and Poetry from Beauty and the Beast.  Ron Perlman has a perfect voice for reading poetry.


  So anyway, I decided that I would work with this poem.  I've had this beautiful Lorna's Laces lace weight yarn that was given to me by my friend Susan from the QCSnB.    It's in shades of purple and grey and dark blue,  There was A LOT of yarn in this skein.  I've been hoarding this yarn for quite awhile since it's a spectacular yarn and there is sooo much of it.  I started another project with it around Christmastime, but it didn't get far.  The project really wasn't worthy of the yarn.


  At the beginning of March, I went searching for a project that would parallel the poem and do justice to the yarn--while using as much of it as possible without needing more.  I decided to go with Laura A. Patterson's pattern 'Evening'.  It is a beautiful pattern and you can search for it on Ravelry.  It uses almost all of my yarn, I do have some left over, and some nice gold glass 8/0 beads that I had in my bead stash. 


  After a few pattern issues, which I wouldn't have noticed if I only worked off of charts, this project got underway.  I learned to add beads to my knitting.  That size 13 steel crochet hook of mine got LOTS of use.  I did my first provisional cast on.  And, I learned to use a lifeline, which saved me more than once, although I did learn that I should move it up more often than I did.  Once done, it got blocked on an old cutting board and left to dry under the ceiling fan in the sewing room.  I've decided that my version of this pattern is more 'Night' for me than 'Evening'.


  Here is Robert Frost's poem and pictures of my shawl.


Acquainted With The Night


I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

The shawl on the table at the library.

A section of the shawl from top to bottom.

Big stars and the top beaded border.

Tiny stars and hard to see beads.

Big stars and the bottom border.

A better view of the actual colour of the yarn.

I think that this poem is so me in many, many ways, because, I have been one acquainted with the night...

War Is Kind

Once upon a time, a long long time ago (way back in the mid-eighties) a very shy freshman girl was talked into joining speech team.  This was even before the girl got cast as a housekeeper slash latin-singing nun slash small Von Trapp child wrangler in the school's production of The Sound of Music.  But that, as they say, is a whole 'nother story. 

Her Honors English 9 teacher made the decision that she would compete in the 'Verse' category.  No one told her that she basically had to memorize the entire poem, or three.  If this had been the case, she never would have tried to tackle 'The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock' the first time around.  There were a couple of other poems too, but they've long since been forgotten. 

The girl practiced and practiced her poems.  She thought that she was passable.  She really had no delusions of being good at what she did.  She just didn't want to completely suck.  After that first meet, she knew that there were a couple who were worse than she was.  There was a girl, however, who was spectacular.  Her name has long since been forgotten, but not her performance.  If  her high school picture were produced, she would be immediately recognized.  She always wore a plaid wool skirt ( Speech Team season runs during the cold months) a pretty white/cream coloured blouse and lacy Sunday church knee socks.

The poem that I remember her doing was Stephen Crane's 'Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind.'  She was amazing.  (She also did Dylan Thomas's 'Do Not Go Gentle In To That Good Night.')  She won more competitions than I can remember.  She was so freaking believable.  She ripped your heart out every time.  She deserved to win.  And she did. 

Below is the poem, which I believe is out of copyright.  I found a copy on Project Guttenberg, so it should be okay to post a copy here.  Also, included is a picture of my lacy Sunday church socks.  They aren't quite knee socks, but they do go well with my lug-soled black Mary-Janes. 

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom --
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

 And the shy girl bailed out of 'Verse' the next year and moved on to 'SOS- Special Occasion Speaking.'  She wasn't a whole lot better, but atleast she only had to remember what she wrote as opposed to remembering what someone else had written.

Poe's 'Annabel Lee' for Crafting Poetry's January Selection

As per instructions from Crafting Poetry on Ravelry, I chose Edgar Allen Poe as my poet for January.  I could have gone the obvious way and picked ‘The Raven’ as my poem.  I do really like it.  Instead, I chose to go for the last complete poem that Poe created before he died in 1849.  It is often theorized that the title character, Annabel Lee, was patterned after Poe’s young wife, Virginia Clemm, who died of tuberculosis.

I grew up loving Poe, feeling badly about the crappy things that were dealt to him in life.  He never seemed to get a break.  He wrote amazing tales and poetry that I’m quite sure were heavily influenced by the happenings in his life. 

The piece that I chose to create is the Guernsey Wrap designed by Jared Flood.  I can see the speaker in the poem walking the beaches with Annabel Lee, both as children and later on before her death.  Winds coming off of  the sea tend to be chilly.  And it was ‘that the wind came out of a cloud, chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.’  I wanted something to wrap up poor Annabel Lee as she walked the beaches and cliffs.

 Below is a photo of the finished wrap and the poem, as written by Mr. Poe himself.  The finished wrap is long enough to toss around your shoulders and snuggle up with.  It's just hard to get a picture of it full length without help.

Annabel Lee  by Edgar Allen Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me:--
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we--
Of many far wiser than we--
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the side of the sea.