Asthall, nr Swinbrook, Oxfordshire

Tags

Asthall, Cotswolds, Eton College, Job, King David, Mitfords, murals, Naomi, Oxfordshire, Queen Esther, St Nicholas' church

I think Eton College funded its 19th century restoration.

Haunt of the Mitford Family.  A Cotswold cornucopia.

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Lenten Villanelle

Tags

1 Chronicles 14, Baal- Perazim, balsam tree, King David, Lent, Philistines, Populus balsamifera, Psalm 84, Rephaim, sussuration, Valley of Baca, villanelle

(Balsam- Populus balsamifera)

 

Love the phrase:  ‘Who going through the Valley of Baka maketh

it a well,’ from Psalm 84.  It relates to King David fighting the

Philistines in the Rephaim Valley.

I also liked the translation: ‘Valley of Breakthrough.’

There is more detail in 1 Chronicles, chapter 14, where

a previous victory is described.  David employs a different

military strategy on the second occasion.

Here’s the poem:

 

Blessed is the man whose lamentation

is overcome by digging for a well-

even in desert peregrination.

 

Israel, Judah became one nation

and the Philistines could no longer quell

David’s army.  Divine exhortation

 

inspired a strategic operation

and grasshoppers routed the infidel:

lamentation turned to jubilation.

 

Baal-Perazim introduced elation,

but now rearguard action relied on smell

from balsam trees and the sussuration

 

of their leaves.  The wind, on this occasion,

convinced those warrior giants by some spell,

or by an auditory sensation

 

that reinforcements, an augmentation

of David’s troops would bring a living hell.

Blessed is that man, whose lamentation

converts to joy, mid-peregrination.

 

 

 

 

Aelfryth at Longparish

Tags

Actaeon, Aelfryth, Aethelred the Unready, Aethelwold, Aethylflaed, Artemis, Bathsheba, Cranbourne Chase, Dead Man's Plack, Harewood Forest, hubris, King David, King Edgar, Longparish, Narcissus, Nathan the prophet, nemesis, penitentiary, targe, The Goddess of Light, The Wild Hunt, Uriah, Wherwell, wolfhound

(Monument to Aethelwold at Longparish, Hants, UK)

I never saw myself as a ewe lamb-

a description more apt to Aethelflaed,

or ‘White Duck‘ as she was precisely known.

Not for me metaphor’s limitations.

I was once bound to the king’s betrayer.

A lie had thrown his Master off the scent.

It was reported that I was quite drab.

But the concupiscent wolfhound tracked me down.

Royal eyes didn’t have wool pulled over them.

I’d braided my hair by the burnished gleam

of my husband’s targe. I blinked at the king

and felt Edgar undress me with his gaze;

appraise me as a type of Bathsheba.

And when the king rode down from Cranbourne Chase,

Aethelwold met him in Harewood Forest,

to be stalked as ruthlessly as any prey,

his screams masked by the baying of the pack.

I’d willed that he should turn into a stag.

And maybe now he rides with The Wild Hunt.

It’s said their hooves don’t even touch the ground.

Aethelwold was the phantom in our bed.

I bore Prince Aethelred then Edgar strayed.

He nevermore trusted his advisors,

nor pious priests who would pointedly preach

about Uriah, Nathan and David.

Prophets really know how to rub it in.

Sometimes I watch a deer drink from a pond.

I hear its groan and see it torn by hounds.

Is it the hubristic Actaeon and

am I Artemis? Or, like Narcissus,

who loved his own reflection, will I look

into this stream and see my nemesis?

I cannot be The Goddess of Light for

she would not beat her son with a candle.

But I’ve produced a right royal milksop

who flinches before a taper and whines

for the company of his step-brother.

If I felt constrained at Wherwell years ago,

when I was wedded to my first husband,

I can tell you it was nothing like this:

an Abbess in a penitentiary.

I wish that I could morph into a hind

and flit through the forest with Aethelwold,

as fleet of foot as Artemis herself,

but leaving no trace to those who follow.

If only I’d seen the wood for the trees.

Living Water

Tags

Argos Catalogue, Bethlehem well, boa constrictor, Consuelo, Hot Cross Buns, King David, Little Prince, Living Water, Midnight Mass, nard, Oliver Sacks, Parable of Vineyard, Prodigal Son, rag doll, Saint-Exupery, Samaritan woman, Wells for Africa

No, on a strict diet until Lent is over, Brassie said firmly, rejecting the proffered

Mocha.  I’ll just have a Suttonford Spring Water.  I’m parched actually.  All

that weeding at the weekend.  I was pruning some jagged rose bushes.

You sound like the aviator in The Little Prince, I commented.  Do you

remember when he said: This sweetness was born of the walk under the

stars, the song of the pulley, the effort of my arms.  It was good for the

heart, like a present?

Not specially, Brassie said.  What was that about a pulley?

Well, he had been asked to draw water from a well in the Sahara Desert

for the Little Prince, just as the Samarian woman was asked to give

Jesus something to quench His thirst.

Oh, yeah.  And then He said he could give her water…

..and she’d never thirst again, I supplied.

That was beautiful, Brassie agreed.  I remember reading

Saint-Exupery to the twins when they were little. I like the point

about the effort one puts into the gift.  It refreshes parts that

other drinks don’t reach.

I think that refers to beer, I countered.

So much for self-denial.  She bit into a Hot Cross bun.

It’s good when you eat food appropriate to the season, I stated.

I hate to see Hot Cross buns on shelves at the wrong time of year.

St Exupery even covered the importance of ritual..

Oh, like the regulation of the lectionary? Brassie mused aloud.

Mm, she agreed, nodding with her mouth full.  I think Exupery

said something about half the pleasure of gifts is that they should be

given in a meaningful context.

Yes, he wrote that Christmas presents, for example, received after

Midnight Mass, in the bosom of a loving, smiling family were so much

more memorable.

Not like throwing an Argos catalogue at your carping kids out of

guilt, Brassie expanded.

I seem to recall that he gave an example of a merchant who could sell you a

thirst-quenching pill which would save you fifty three minutes a week.  The

Little Prince said that he would rather spend those minutes in drinking cool,

clear water.

All this brings to mind a story that we had at Sunday School when we were

little, Brassie enthused.  It was about King David craving a drink of water

from a particular well in Bethlehem.  Some of his brave, or reckless

henchmen risked their lives and stormed through the enemy to bring him

some.

I remember that! I interrupted.  Didn’t he pour it out on the ground as an

offering?

Yeah.  He felt it was too valuable to pour down his throat, given what

they’d risked. He returned the element to its source.

But Jesus allowed the woman to pour out the expensive nard perfume all over

His feet, remarked Brassie.  He accepted the gift.  It seemed excessive, a

waste to some, but he was okay with it.

That’s because He knew His own worth, I commented.  Also, the grudging

disciple was more intent on syphoning its value off for the purse he carried,

allegedly on all the disciples’ behalf.

Brassie mulled this over.  I might have been annoyed if someone had

poured out my gift after I’d put all that effort into getting it in the first place.

Hmm.  But The Little Prince said that it all depends on how you look at

things. Grown-ups couldn’t see that Saint-Exupery’s childish drawing of the

side elevation of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant was not a brimmed

hat.

There’s a book about a man who mistook his wife for a hat, she interjected.

Brassie wanders off the point sometimes.

Oh, have you got it?  I asked.  I would like to borrow it from you.  I seem to

recognise the phenomenon. But, no, I drew her back on track.  Some people

don’t understand why the workers in the parable who joined the day’s labour

in the vineyard after the work had been largely done in the heat of the sun,

should receive the same wage as those who turned up late.

Yes, that’s never made sense to me, she said emphatically.

Well, no one is worthy.  It’s like the Elder Brother syndrome.  He felt

overlooked when the Prodigal returned and received a warm welcome. 

The Father rightly reminded him that he had had the benefit of his 

company, riches and household, all the time the younger brother had

been sharing pig swill.

Someone said that gifts that cost you nothing are not worth giving.

Correct, I replied.  That’s why I give all those unwanted Christmas prezzies

to Help the Ancient.  But I also have to give meaningfully too and that is more

of a challenge.

You gave me a nice present for my birthday, soothed Brassie.  Wasn’t it a

Wells for Africa donation certificate?

It might have been, I answered.  I can’t remember.

You didn’t waste your money, she carried on.

No.  Exupery said that the time children waste on loving their rag doll is never

– well, wasted.  One of the characters says the responsibility the children took

showed that they were lucky.

I hope you don’t see me as some kind of rag doll.  I know I didn’t change out of my

gardening trousers today.. Oh, I remember now, Brassie became agitated.

There was something about looking after your rose and watering it and not minding

if you only had one to look after, even if it had thorns.

I think Exupery’s wife, Consuelo, was rather thorny, I explained.  I don’t think

she offered him much consolation, in spite of her name.  And yet he said thorns

weren’t grown for spite.  He suggested that roses were vulnerable, but beautiful. 

His rose was so vulnerable that a sheep could have eaten it.   Flowers need to believe

that they can protect themselves with their terrible weapons, but we shouldn’t listen

to them, he said.  We should just admire them.

Was that his sexist view of women, then?  Brassie asked.

I think it was more subtle, I pondered.  He said people should think of the

affection behind the strategems and the inconsistencies of our loved ones.

In other words, forgive them..?

..as we ourselves are forgiven!

We flowers are complex creatures, as he said.

Thank goodness someone wastes time on us!

Would you like another bottle of water? I asked.

No, thanks.  I feel quite refreshed by our talk.  I’ll look out

that book for you tonight.

Oliver Sacks, I remember now.  Thanks, Brassie.