May 22nd club, 9th day 8th sharing.

Los Angeles.

John just opened my Auden's selected peoms,the book fell opened at this poem,which on reflection feels appropriate,because Susan told her grand-daughter the her grand-father had gone to the stars.
I was told my grandfather was the brightest star in the sky and I always looked for the brightest star and remembered him.


W.H. Auden

Listen (to Auden read)

A cloudless night like this
Can set the spirit soaring:
After a tiring day
The clockwork spectacle is
Impressive in a slightly boring
Eighteenth-century way.

It soothed adolescence a lot
To meet so shamelesss a stare;
The things I did could not
Be so shocking as they said
If that would still be there
After the shocked were dead

Now, unready to die
Bur already at the stage
When one starts to resent the young,
I am glad those points in the sky
May also be counted among
The creatures of middle-age.

It’s cosier thinking of night
As more an Old People’s Home
Than a shed for a faultless machine,
That the red pre-Cambrian light
Is gone like Imperial Rome
Or myself at seventeen.

Yet however much we may like
The stoic manner in which
The classical authors wrote,
Only the young and rich
Have the nerve or the figure to strike
The lacrimae rerum note.

For the present stalks abroad
Like the past and its wronged again
Whimper and are ignored,
And the truth cannot be hid;
Somebody chose their pain,
What needn’t have happened did.

Occuring this very night
By no established rule,
Some event may already have hurled
Its first little No at the right
Of the laws we accept to school
Our post-diluvian world:

But the stars burn on overhead,
Unconscious of final ends,
As I walk home to bed,
Asking what judgment waits
My person, all my friends,
And these United States.

We both agree that Auden is surprising funny.

I chose to read from John's favourite book since his childhood.I chose this because I love him, and wanted to choose something he would enjoy.

I watched Beatrix Potter to-day ,it of course told the story of her great loss ,it seems everywhere we look right now we see loss and grief.

However her stories and her art and uplifting and full of fun.

The Tailor of Gloucester.

The sun was shining on the snow when the tailor got up and dressed,and came out into the street with Simpkin running before him.

The starlings whistled on the chimney stacks,and the throstles and robins sang--
but they sang their own little noises,not the words they had sung in the night.

"Alack" said the tailor,"I have my twist; but no more strength--nor time-- than will serve to make me one single button-hole; for this is Christmas Day in the Morning!
The Mayor of Gloucester shall be married by noon--and where is his cherry-coloured coat?"

He unlocked the door of the little shop in Westgate Street,and Simpkin ran in,like a cat that expects something,

But there was no one there! Not even one little brown mouse!

The boards swept clean; the little ends of thread and the little silk snippets were all tidied away,and gone from off the floor.

But upon the table--oh joy! the tailor gave a shout--there,where he had left cuttings of silk--there lay the most beautifullest coat and embroidered satin waistcoat that ever was worn by a mayor of Gloucester.
There were roses and pansies upon the facings of the coat;and the waistcoat was worked with poppies and corn-flowers.

Everything was finished except just one single cherry-coloured button-hole,and where the button-hole was wanting there was pinned a scrap of paper with these words
--in little teeny weeny writing----no more twist.

and from then began the luck of the Tailor of Gloucester;he grew quite stout,and he grew quite rich.

He made the most wonderful waistcoats for all the rich merchants of Gloucester,and for all the fine gentlemen of the counrty round.

Never were seen such ruffles, or such embroidered cuffs and lappets!But his button-holes were the greatest triumph of it all.

The stitches of those button-holes were so neat----SO neat---I wonder how they could be stiched by an old man in spectacles,with crooked old fingers,and a tailors thimble.

The stiches of those button-holes were so small----SO small---they looked as if they had been made by little mice.

A wee reminder in difficult times---that all's well that ends well---and the one unmade button, left by the mice reminds us of what the Mores say---only Ala is perfect.