30 Poems: Number 3

OK, so I said that yesterday's poem reminded me of another, and I can't even hold onto it for a day.

William Butler Yeats

Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

It was used in the final episode of the third season of Ballykissangel, in a beautiful scene where the central characters are meeting on a hillside, holding a wake really, to remember a friend who has died. Each of them has something to say, a poem or a few words. And the schoolteacher, Brendan, recites this poem.

Again, Yeats' imagery is striking and evocative. His rhythm and metre are subtle, the alternate line endings are almost unnoticeable but employ subtle repetition. And I love the way that the speaker's poverty is used as an excuse for sharing something far more precious than anything money could ever buy.

It's a wonderful love poem; it's a beautiful epitaph. It's just lovely. Dammit, it makes me cry whenever I read it.

(no subject)

with thanks to reabhecc for the pointer

A sample of commentary here by Tim Wise.

Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.