Platypus of Truth

Across the grey Atlantic, Across Saint Brendan’s sea, Is the land where the lairds wear sackcloth And all the serfs are free. Across the grey Atlantic, Across the spume and foam, Lies the land of the Imram ’ s  castles Where a Gael can find a home. In the green fields of Elysium, Every blade of grass is a sword To pierce the feet of trespassers In the Garden of the Lord. Just so the Emerald Isle, Though e nslaved and conquered be, Will never lack for weapons To set her people free. But wars go on forever And the killing's never done Though the smoke rise up to heaven And strike from the sky the Sun. So many Gaels went wandering Across the Earth’s expanse, To find fair fields in foreign lands Where peaceful feet could dance. They flooded into Boston, Found safe harbor in New York, And others flew to southern climes As surely as the stork. They raked the bogs for cranberries While old Thoreau explained That if ...

Something struck me this year as I was reading through  Beowulf with  my tenth graders: Pixar's Brave  is Beowulf  from the perspective of Queen Wealtheow and Princess Freawaru and set during the time of the formation of the Kingdom of Scotland as opposed to the rise of the Danish people over their neighbors.  As in the case of Hrothgar's developing kingdom, Brave's Scotland is besieged by two troubles: a giant monster that carries off the people and an unstable network of human alliances that threatens war and division.  In each case, the reigning monarch finds himself powerless to stave off the supernatural terror and relies on the aid of his politically astute wife to keep order among the clans.  Where Beowulf  deals with questions of finding a new warrior with courage and greatness enough to solve the problems and eventually become king, Brave  deals with the problem of forging a marriage alliance with the princess and raising her up to b...

Patriots in Exile The real world has no room for an Aeneas, And perhaps that is a good thing. Troy burned and Troy rebuilt As much as seven-gated Thebes Or Hiroshima and Dresden –even Roman Carthage- though the Goths Sacked that one. There are no more seas to sail, No new worlds to discover. I’ve been from one coast To another And believe me, The World is round. On the other side is Russia And that’s right back to where You came from; Whether Irish or Algonquin. So we’ll drink another round In a bar in Massachusetts And we’ll raise a toast to Foxwoods As a Wonder of the World. I met an old Oneida in the land Of broken promise And he spoke of David Brainard And a little of John Eliot. Here we were across the world Far from both our lands and fathers And I’d bless him by Saint Patrick If I were still a papist. Homes are tricky things And a heritage’s a burden Whether it’s one that you can’t get to Or it’s lost as su...

George MacDonald begins his enigmatic Science Fiction novel, Lilith , with a quote from Henry David Thoreau's essay Walking .  Thoreau's haunting, yet ultimately satirical and political description of a trip down an abandoned wagon road in rural Massachusetts is transformed by MacDonald's imagination into a statement on how thin the barrier is that separates our world from other realms. The text below gives the quote from Thoreau as it appears in Lilith , which can be found in it entirety for free here . I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me,—to whom the sun was servant,— who had not gone into society in the village,—who had not been called on. I...

Our travels this summer took us all over Connecticut and Massachusetts on the trail of historic locations and famous figures.  One place we were particularly delighted to see was Walden Pond, the site a which Henry David Thoreau conducted his famous experiment.  Both my wife and I have taught a selection of Thoreau's works and it was a treat to see Walden complete with a replica of Thoreau's cabin (the original was sold for scrap shortly after he vacated it). I don't know what I think of Thoreau's thought.  On the whole, he seems more useful as a critic than as any positive role model.  On the other hand, we had a nice long chat with a wonderful park ranger at Walden who had been inspired in her job by Thoreau's love of nature.  If Dana Gioia can co-opt lapsed Catholics as part of a larger Catholic literary culture, maybe Thoreau can be treated as a lapsed Puritan.  His thought, iconoclastic, numinous, visionary, and full of a wonder and love for creati...

 The Wooster monument at Oak Cliff Cemetery Derby, Connecticut.  Many of the graves in this cemetery are arranged in family plots with a central monument that lists the names and dates of those buried there.  Small stones with initials mark the actual burial site of individual family members.  I have written about another family plot in this cemetery here . Buried along with the Woosters in a place of honor is Harry N. Thomas, their African-American servant.  I'm in the middle of teaching The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass  and Up From Slavery  to my seniors.  We've had some hard conversations and will be having a few more.  One goal of those conversations is to help them see that slavery may have ended in 1865, but the effects of slavery continue on in all manner of forms down to the present day. W.E.B. Du Bois begins his magnum opus The Souls of Black Folk  by saying that there is one question he continual...

The Church on the Green There are two churches on Huntington Green.  I passed them nearly every day.  Neither of them are particularly grand -at least not by the standards of other churches on other greens.  I never attended either of them, but I love them each in their own special way.  I've already shown you two gems from the Episcopal church pictured above.  Let me show you the rest.  The sky blue vault represents heaven.  The lamps you see would originally have burned whale oil but have been converted for electricity.  All these pictures were taken in natural light at about 10:30 in the morning.  The church is not laid out in a cruciform pattern, but follows the simple "salt box" colonial architecture.  In this, as in its general austerity, Congregationalist influence is evident.  To add a little Episcopal twist, the rectangular sanctuary has been divided (by the columns that support the balcony) into three pa...