MarysLibrary

Vagabond Song

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood –

Touch of manner, hint of mood;

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

 

The scarlet of the maple can shake me like a cry

Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

 

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;

We must rise and follow her,

when from every hill of flame

She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

                                        -- Bliss Carman    

New Arrivals

 

Two much-anticipated books arrived today. Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews: Volume Two: Belonging, 1492-1900, is the second of two volumes, the first of which was published in 2013. A long wait for the rest of the story - at least the rest of the story up to the Dreyfus Affair. The first volume is The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 BCE - 1492 CE. 

Dave Butler's Full Curl is the first in a new mystery series featuring Jenny Willson, a warden from Banff National Park. It's a story of poaching and bureaucratic red tape, neither of which Jenny has much patience with, and some scenes are set a couple of blocks from my house here in Spokane, Washington. It was recommended to me by Canadian novelist Elinor Florence, author of Bird's Eye View.

Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance

Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget

The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters, which knows the way

The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,

And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate

Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,

Which knows what time and weather are doing

To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;

Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers 

My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps

My suspect edifice upright in air,

As Atlas did the sky.

 

Susan Hill's new book of essays, Jacob's Room Is Full of Books, mentions this poem by U A Fanthorpe called "Atlas." I was going to look it up but of course as is the way with these things I didn't write down the title and forgot about it. Until I picked up Nancy Pearl's new novel, George & Lizzie. And there it was in the back. It made me cry because i have an Atlas of my own who loves me and who keeps my edifice upright.

Weakness

 'Obedience in this world depends as frequently on the weakness of him who is governed as on the strength of him that governs.' - Anthony Trollope, Rachel Ray