And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze – Amen!
- Fr 23 (1858)
* Included as part of J18 (Fr21)
Most people who have attended Christian services are familiar with this Trinitarian formula first recorded as uttered by Jesus (Matthew 28:16): "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". From this springs the notion of the Holy Trinity--a triple godhead but with three distinct manifestations. The formulation is not only used in baptism but in prayers, liturgies, and perhaps most familiarly uttered when making the sign of the cross.
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The alliteration and slant rhyme of Bee and Breeze unify the poem and the four anapests--two in the first line and one each in the subsequent ones move it along briskly. The spondee of the 'Amen!' at the end punctuates the poem with conviction. All in all, a delight!
On the morning before I read
ReplyDeleteIn the name of the Bee
as I drove a few miles from home,
I noticed a small chameleon
grasping my windshield, holding on
for his dear life. Unaware and
unsure of his origin - a tree
in my front yard orhad I picked
him up along the way - I could see
his jaws rippling in the gentle wind
and felt his fear of loss of home
and family as he kept his grip
until I stopped and watched him
quicly jump, becominig ubified
with the Breeze that called his name. l
Sorry about the typos in "quickly" and "unified" - although I like the word "ubified."
ReplyDeleteOn the morning before I read
ReplyDeleteIn the name of the Bee
as I drove a few miles from home,
I noticed a small chameleon
grasping my windshield, holding on
for his dear life. Unaware and
unsure of his origin - a tree
in my front yard orhad I picked
him up along the way - I could see
his jaws rippling in the gentle wind
and felt his fear of loss of home
and family as he kept his grip
until I stopped and watched him
quicly jump, becominig ubified
with the Breeze that called his name. l
I love it! Sweet chameleon. And I do very much admire 'ubified' -- it has a certain pomp and dignity -- and implies more of a transcendence than 'unified'.
DeleteThank you for your response. I did not see the possibility for alliteration with "ubified." It was a mistake; but as Miles Davis once said,"There are no mistakes."
ReplyDeleteI did change the last lines to "
"quickly jump and at once become
one with the Breeze speaking in an
unknown tongue, calling his name."
My best friend and 30-year jogging buddy died of prostrate cancer 5 years ago after a 20-year fight. ED's three line benediction matches his humorous irreverence perfectly. Reading it resurrected Ken for me.
ReplyDeleteVendler liked this 15-word poem so much she published a 568-word essay about it in her book, ‘Dickinson’ (2010); her essay closes with this paragraph [bracket mine].
ReplyDelete“Dickinson keeps a secular Sabbath [in her garden and] in the open fields, her ear open to the bee's hum, her eye open to the butterfly's flight, and her skin open to the caress of the spring breeze; but she sanctifies them by making them "match" the Christian Trinity. It is her own imaginative effort that Dickinson is "baptizing" here, calling on the authority of Nature, not of God.”
See Prowling Bee comments 5 & 6, ‘The Gentian weaves her fringes’, Fr21.