New Poem about Euclid in the Spring

Euclid in Late April

I walk down this humble street in Euclid,
“Sycamore Street,” not a sycamore in sight--
(Every tree cut down here in ‘51
Only to build a neighborhood of streets named after trees).

Dozens of crabapple trees
Planted by people long gone
Shade the sidewalk,
White, pink, and red blooms:

The wind blows a shower of petals down on me,

Perfectly gratuitous grace.

(Robert M. Coughlin
April 23, 2008)

"So Early in the Spring"--Homage to Skunk Cabbage

[See an image of skunk cabbage at this address:

http://frankwinters.wordpress.com/2007/01/25/waxing-crescent-moon-owl-and-skunk-cabbage/]

Anyone who sings the praises of Skunk Cabbage must be crazy, right? But hold on a second. The harbinger of earliest spring in Northern Ohio is a lot like us--a survivor of terrible winters, something deep-rooted in the area, shaped by the Lake Effect, and overall a tough hombre! And, yea, like us doesn't always smell too good. One of America's greatest poets, Mary Oliver, grew up in Maple Heights, just southeast of Cleveland. Mary Oliver has written many wonderful poems over the years ("Wild Geese"--one of the greatest), and below is her homage to Skunk Cabbage:

Skunk Cabbage

And now as the iron rinds over

the ponds start dissolving,

you come, dreaming of ferns and flowers

and new leaves unfolding,

upon the brash

turnip-hearted skunk cabbage

slinging its bunches of leaves up

through the chilling mud.

You kneel beside it. The smell

is lurid and flows out in the most

unabashed way, attracting

into itself a continual spattering

of protein. Appalling its rough

green caves, and the thought

of the thick root nested below, stubborn

and powerful as instinct!

But these are the woods you love,

where the secret name

of every death is life again - a miracle

wrought surely not of mere turning

but of dense and scalding reenactment. Not

tenderness, not longing, but daring and brawn

pull down the frozen waterfall, the past.

Ferns, leaves, flowers, the last subtle

refinements, elegant and easeful, wait

to rise and flourish.

What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.

Mary Oliver

St. Colmcille of Ireland

One of Ireland's greatest saints is Colmcille (also spelled Columbkille, Colum, Columba, and a half dozen other ways), who lived in the 6th century of the Christian era (born c. 521 in Donegal, Ireland; died 597 on the island of Iona, now Scotland). This period in Ireland is marked by wondrous stories of magic and miracles, and Colmcille is no exception. One legend says that the fingers of his left hand gave off light so that Colmcille could copy manuscripts in the dark. Below is a poem that I wrote about the great saint:

"St. Colmcille’s Illumination"

In medieval Ireland
The miraculous happened every day:

St. Colmcille loved books so much
He “borrowed” his master’s illuminated psalter,
And in the dark began to copy it
By hand, ink against vellum.

Starlight, moonlight, and the
Five fingers of the saint’s left hand glowed--

Illuminating his right hand as he copied down,
In his beautiful Irish hand,
The precious psalms.

Brought before King Diarmait
For this little indiscretion, the King ruled:

“To every cow her calf . . .

To every book its copy.”

(based on a passage from Thomas Cahill’s
“How the Irish Saved Civilization”)

The image at the above-left is of the monastery at Iona, founded by Colmcille. The image above-right is a Celtic Cross at Kells in Ireland.

First Irish Poet: Aimhirgin

It is said that the first person to ever set foot in Ireland was Aimhirgin (in full, Aimhirgin Gluingheal mac Mileadh), the warrior-poet. The name would be pronounced something like /AV-ur-GEEN/. Well, that is a tall tale, in a land of tall tales, by the inventors of blarney. But such wonderful blarney! Below is Aimirgin's poem, in Irish-Gaelic and in English, as set forth in the wonderful book Aniar: Voices and Verse from the Edge of the World, by Tadhg Mac Dhonnagain, Ceara Conway, and John Ryan:

Is mé an gaoth ar muir
Is mé an tonn tréan
Is mé glór na mara
Is me seitreach daimh
Is mé seabhac na haille
Is mé an gá greine
Is mé ailleacht na luibhe
Is mé torc ar ar ghail
Is mé an bradan sa linn
Is mé an loch ar an má.

I am the wind on the ocean
I am the crashing wave
I am the song of the sea
I am the bellow of the stag
I am the ray of sunlight
I am the beauty of the herb
I am the furious boar
I am the salmon in the pool
I am the lake on the plain.

Carolan Coughlin Poetry

From time to time I'll post poems by Carolan Coughlin and some other friends. Carolan is my 22-year-old daughter, a recent graduate of Ohio University, currently tramping through New Zealand with her friend Heather Ryerson. Here's a good one:

Lost in the Martian Rivers

Climb in the car
Eyes drooping heavy with the baggage of sleep- lack.
Turn the music up.
Way up.
Shake and vibrate
Heavy bass, slide inside me, throw sleep out the window.
The falcons and buzzards will feast.
Get lost in a cloud of dust winding with the river speckled with tree shade.
Throw the map out the window.
It will float and tumble and find the sleep abandoned so many miles ago.
Examine my hands.
Trace the lines with red permanent marker
Mimicking the dried up Martian rivers.
This is the route we should have been following.
Veer off the road; follow the curves of my alien planet.
Explore my anatomical terrain.
Lean back, hand raised for reference.
Think of discarded maps and empty sleep suffering on the roadside.
My insides rattle and oscillate.
(Carolan Coughlin, 2005)

The Cat Nation--Home of the Erie Indians

The French Jesuits, explorers of Canada, knew about a tribe of Indians on the south shore of Lake Erie, stretching west from what is now the city of Buffalo. They called this tribe "La Nation du Chat," or in English, "The Cat Nation." That apparently was the translation of an Indian name for the tribe. Some years ago I wrote a poem about the Cat Nation:


Cat Nation Ghosts

(--the Erie Indians, known to the French Jesuits as "La Nation du Chat," victims of genocide circa 1655 at the hands of the Iroquois Federation)

only the subtle see the signs:

panthers haunt these woods
leave titillating traces:

names, somewhat corrupted--
Geauga, Chagrin, Cuyahoga, Erie,

ambiguous forts, looking like
natural rock formations
on hills overlooking rivers
and creeks

strangely shaped rocks
chips of flint encrusted
bits of bone and antler

the remnants
haunt the sugar woods

move about on moonless nights
stealthy like the lynx
like the wildcat

we don't forget:

our blood still soaks the rocks
our bones still quicken
the clay:

these woods are full of ghosts!

Frozen Lake Erie

Lake Erie is frozen as far as the eye can see right now. Farther than the eye can see, there are open areas in the lake; it very rarely freezes over totally. There is an awesome silence out on the lake's ice; you feel as if you were in a desert or a wilderness. The snow sweeps across the silent ice and you have a sense of holiness and prayer. Years ago I wrote a poem about the frozen lake:




"Lake Erie--Frozen Solid"

the awesome sight--huge
pressure domes of ice
heaved into ridges
chaotic frozen waves
far as the eye can see
wondrous powerful lake

I could walk to Canada
if I had the imagination.

This poem began in my mind as a description of Lake Erie in winter and ended up being a poem about the power of imagination. That is the thing about the creative process--it often surprises you, takes you in unexpected directions.