Memories and dreams

[mdlbear]

The last few days I've been working on an arrangement for Yeats's poem "The Collar-Bone of a Hare"; it's finally coming together, I think. Might actually post some audio later this week. Odd; it insisted on intruding itself into the middle of a song I was writing, taking over some of the melodic ideas and a lot of the mindspace. The connection was waltz time and dancing.

This afternoon, though, one poem led to another and I found myself thinking of "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven". The two of them used to be among my favorites back in college when I was young, lonely, and depressed. Some day it may acquire music.

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. 

Somewhere in the house I have a necklace of blue and white beads, where each blue bead represents a letter of that poem. It was given to me by the young lady who took my virginity, one magical night in the summer of 1970. It wasn't love, but seemed something stranger and more mystical to me. Might have been simple pity on her part, though I think not. I think she was a little surprised to have been my first.

If I had found the necklace, I would have been very torn over which of my friends to send it to, to give to their lover. Perhaps it's just as well. Is there someone you need to give this poem to? Don't wait.

Comments

[donsimpson.livejournal.com]

A while back I was working on coded necklaces, like morse code with long and short beads and spacer beads for between letters. The last two lines there would (I think) take about as many beads. There's a simple way to encode runes, also, and if one is geeky enough, there's ASCII. :) I've also seen a few horoscope bead necklaces, and one of beads that represented significant events in the wearer's life, which I thought was a great idea. Humans do tend to put such significance into particular objects. I have some of those.

[chaoswolf]

The woman who took your virginity, eh? Just out of curiosity; flower_cat?

[mdlbear]

No. Our relationship started a couple of years later.