The Babe

On parent knees, a naked new-born child,
Weeping thou sat’st while all around thee smiled:
So live, that, sinking to thy life’s last sleep,
Calm thou may’st smile, while all around thee weep.

William Jones (1746-1794)

William Jones was a Persian scholar and linguist. He translated this poem from a Persian poem by an unknown author. This poem is sometimes called “The Babe”, sometimes “On Parent Knees”, and sometimes “Epigram”. An Epigram is a short, witty poem. It can also mean a paradoxical statement.

If anyone knows the original Persian version, please send me a copy at lisa@mamalisa.com and I’ll add it to this post.

Thanks!

Lisa

Here’s a Thanksgiving poem I wrote in honor of turkeys all over the U.S. in autumn. It’s geared towards older kids.

You can click on the mp3 below to hear my husband and me recite it…

You’re Not Supposed to Say That!

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” said the turkey.
“What?!” went the rooster.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
“You’re not supposed to say
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
Said the rooster.
“Oh yes I am!”
Said the turkey.
“No you’re not!”
Said the rooster.
“What am I supposed to say?”
Asked the turkey.
The rooster replied,
“Gobble, gobble, gobble!”
“BOOM”
Went the farmer’s gun
And the rooster fell down dead.
“Don’t tell me what I’m
Supposed to say!”
Said the turkey,
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

You’re Not Supposed to Say That MP3

Many thanks to my husband, Jason Pomerantz, for playing the part of the Turkey (hee, hee, hee)!

Hope you enjoyed the show!

Mama Lisa

We took a walk today in Walt Whitman’s woods in West Hills, on Long Island, east of New York City.  I highly recommend taking an autumnal hike or stroll if you can.  Then you may feel the truth in Whitman’s line, "As to me I know of nothing else but miracles". There’s much beauty out there.  Here are some photos I took in Walt’s woods, followed by his poem "Miracles", and then recordings of two people reading the poem.

Miracles
by Walt Whitman

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim-the rocks-the motion of the waves-the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

*****

MP3 of Miracles read by Jeannette Selig

MP3 of Miracles read by Mark J. Wilson

Do you know the nursery rhyme that begins:

Hou-py, hou-py, hou-py,
Ko-cka sue-dla krou-py
Do-cour hruch

I’ll try my best to write this poem-rhyme out for you. Of course, I will not be able to add the correct accent marks, punctuations marks, etc. The writing I have to copy is very small, so I hope my letters are accurate! Here goes!

Hou-pa-cka

hou-py, hou-py, hou-py!
ko-cka sue-dla krou-py,
ko-cour hrac
na ka-mnach;
ko-la-la se hue-va-ly,
ze jim ta-ky ne-da-ly.
hou-py, hou-py, hou-py!
by-ly vsec-ky hlou-py.

A friend of mine gave me a beautiful framed gift of this rhyme… he says his grandfather would sing it to him. But he doesn’t know what it means.

My mother is Czech, Vlasta, but she no longer can help me with this.

Your help would be very nice.

Thank you, Anna Vdolek Bratney

If anyone knows the correct spelling of the rhyme and/or if you can provide an English translation, please let us know in the comments below.

Thanks in advance!

Mama Lisa

It’s interesting that the specific wording of the proverb, “Good fences make good neighbors” is fairly modern. It comes from Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall from 1914. The poem centers around this concept and questions whether it’s true or not. Here’s the poem…

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors”.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Listen to an MP3 of Mending Wall as read by Alan Davis-Drake for LibriVox

Listen to a different MP3 of Mending Wall as read by Teresa Montgomery for Librivox

The narrator of the poem is annoyed by his neighbor’s insistence that there has to be a fence between them. If only his neighbor would get beyond his father’s beliefs – originating in an old proverb – and reconsider his thinking.

What’s ironic is that Frost coined the new wording of a proverb: “Good fences make good neighbors”, while questioning the very wisdom behind it!

The first podcast features Egyptian poets Mohamed Metwalli and Maged Zaher and Chinese poet Zhang Er. They compare Chinese and Arabic poetry to English poetry.

Zhang Er points out that Chinese poetry has no tense – so it has an eternal feeling to it. It has no plurals, no articles and no pronouns. Whereas English poetry is more static – it’s set in time.

Maged Zaher points out that the spoken Arabic language is different from the written language. He said the written Arabic language is more ornamental and rhetorical and that made his poetry more sentimental. To be free of this he writes his poetry in English.

Mohamed Metwalli said he writes in Arabic because that’s the language he dreams in. He speaks English and studied English literature growing up, so there is an influence of it on his poetry. He writes in a modern Arabic form that’s influenced by English.

You can listen to the 1st podcast here.

The poem below by Jane Taylor (1783-1824) is about a child telling how gently she will handle her little pussy-cat. The 1st two verses can be found in many collections of nursery rhymes. If you read the whole poem, you can see how it could be a good one to read to children with pets… talking about how to treat them nicely.

Little Pussy
By Jane Taylor

I love little Pussy,
Her coat is so warm;
And if I don’t hurt her
She’ll do me no harm.

So I’ll not pull her tail,
Nor drive her away,
But Pussy and I
Very gently will play.

She shall sit by my side,
And I’ll give her some food;
And she’ll love me because
I am gentle and good.

I’ll pat little Pussy,
And then she will purr,
And thus show her thanks
For my kindness to her.

I’ll not pinch her ears,
Nor tread on her paw,
Lest I should provoke her
To use her sharp claw.

I never will vex her,
Nor make her displeased,
For Puss doesn’t like
To be worried or teased.

MP3 of Little Pussy-cat

Land, green-brown;
Sea, brown-grey;
Island, dull peacock blue;
Sky, stone-grey.

I like the imagery of this poem. What’s interesting is that the sea is brown-grey and the island is blue.

“A Landscape” was originally Japanese. If anyone can send in the original, I’d love to add it here. Please email me at lisa@mamalisa.com .

Thanks!

Mama Lisa

When I spin round without a stop
And keep my balance like the top,
I find that soon the floor will swim
Before my eyes; and then, like him,
I lie all dizzy on the floor
Until I feel like spinning more.