Lord Returns in Glory, Fires Retro Rockets

June 6, 1944

by R.S. Mitchell

June 6, 1944

Midnight at the Greenville Morning Herald
had failed to confirm the rumored advance.
Then, at two-thirty, came news of the world.
“Ha! They did it! Our boys got into France!”
“When?” "Just this morning." “Losses?” “Don’t say.”
“We need something for the Sunrise column.”
“You want me to go out?” “No, wait. Let’s pray.”
A siren wailed. The day had come.
Driving through town, the reporter found
neighborhoods bright with curiosity,
churches open, and silhouettes around
radios, leaning forward as if to see.
“WE FEEL HUMBLE” was the banner unfurled
on the early Greenville Morning Herald.

Memorial Day

by R.S. Mitchell

What summon
like formal ceremony
slips among the shops and people
and gathers in a hush to see
the green at Lexington?

What late word
mounts the round-top hill
files through woods across the turnpike,
shakes the weeds no plough will till
in fields at Gettysburg?

What story,
rank by rank and wide,
rushes the beach and rises up
where grave and white the stones betide
the bluffs at Normandy?

None who fell
can explain that moment,
just how they came to some bloody angle
and saw it closing and tried to hold it
and hold it open still.

Some Day?

James Lileks:

Some day someone will invent a machine that records every word spoken in a room, then threads them together into a master narrative, a story that arises from the individual, disconnected conversations. At that point the short story will be dead.

Sounds a little like the opening scene of War and Peace. Anyway, that scenario strikes me as optimistic, because I thought the short story was already dead. It's still around as a thing writers do. As a form of entertainment, a cultural medium of exchange, it's defunct.

A Limerick for Friday

(on the occasion of receiving a message that someone is "extremely sensitive about his title" and that said title therefore must be handled with great care)

There once was a man with a title
which he tacked up with saddle and bridle.
As it happened of course,
what he took for a horse
was an ass that would only stand idle.

What I'm Reading

From "Wonderful Fool" by Shusaku Endo:

The stars were twinkling. Some of them had a sharp brilliance and others only a gentle dimness. Looking up at the night sky, silvery with glimmering clouds of stars, Gaston felt as if he had sprouted wings and was being called up to them. . . . the dog just lifted his head and stared at him. There was something pathetic in those eyes. They seemed to beg Gaston not to go away without him. Gaston squatted down and stroked his head. Looking into the dog’s sad eyes he felt that he understood what they were trying to say. The dog had no master to take care of it; it was ugly and old and had this bad cough. It was completely alone in the world, just as he was. He himself, of course, was still young and had a large, healthy body. But he was a coward, a simpleton, who had gone from one failure to the next. The old dog had undoubtedly been pelted with rocks and chased by everyone. From the time he was a child Gaston too had always been laughed at and made fun of by his brothers and friends.

In Gaston’s native region of Savoy, large men who are thought to be somewhat simple are called poplars. That is because the wood of the poplar tree is not good for anything but matchsticks. It does not make good lumber, and it cannot be used for pillars or beams. And so Gaston’s friends had nicknamed him ‘poplar.’

But Gaston had always wanted to trust people. Not everyone in the world, he thought, was born clever and strong like Napoleon. The earth is not just for the clever and the strong. It must be possible even for weak and pitiful creatures – like himself and this old dog – to make some contribution in their lifetime. Among this multitude of stars, too, there was some like themselves . . . not only confidently shining stars casting a strong light, but less brilliant ones. Even a weakling like himself, if he were wholly alive, if he made full use of the life that was in him, should be able to snatch for himself a fragment of the beauty of the stars.

Endo is a recent discovery for me. After finishing his novel Silence, I went to the library and got all the Endo I could find. As soon as I can gather my impressions into coherent form, I'll post some thoughts on Silence.

A Sonnet after a Walk after Lunch

A Walk after Lunch
(19 May 2009)

Cool and comely, the promiscuous air
feels with fresh fingers, tempts you with kisses,
dares you to a pedestrian affair,
whispers what a liar the office is.

Liquefaction of light, luminous brew,
pours itself out as though to a purpose made,
steeped in such a severity of blue,
cooling in little tea cups of spiced shade.

Leaves like hearts of garnet and gold,
the dry green smell of a juniper bed,
faint air quivering over a warm road——
there’s a frost warning tonight, someone said.

The sun bears copper fruit all flecked with noon,
ripening with rumors of summer soon.