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And what is so rare as a day in June? Street Prophets Coffee Hour [1]

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Date: 2023-06-25  

Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour, where politics meets up with religion, art, nature, and life. Come in, have a cuppa and a cookie (or three!) and join us.

When I was a wee tot, we lived with my mother’s family. My father had died, but there were five adults and four children in the house, and I was the oldest child. My grandfather was a rigid, dour man with some strange ideas, but he had been raised by parents whose own families had college education going back before the Revolution. There were many lawyers on one side, mostly educated at Harvard (and one at Case-Western), and a line of doctors on the other side. To his mother, there was no greater evidence of an education than a knowledge of poetry. So Grandpa read volumes of poetry, almost every free minute. I would sit on his lap, and he’d read aloud to me.

Don’t imagine this was idyllic. He read whatever he was reading for himself, not child-centered poetry. At ages 3 and 4 and 5, I heard about flaying Gunga Din and hanging Danny Deaver. It may have been six hundred who rode into the Valley of Death, but it wasn’t six hundred who rode back out, surrounded by canon that volleyed and thundered. He didn’t seem to have the capacity to distinguish what would be child appropriate. Short lines? Rhymes? Yup, must be great literature. I’ve often said that if something in one of those books had started “There was a young man from Nantucket” he would have read it to me. Anyway, here’s an illustrated poetry excerpt.

Lines from The Vision of Sir Launfal

James Russell Lowell - 1819-1891

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days

Baby bluebirds make their entrance.

Whether we look or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten.

Penstemon (beardstongue)

And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean

To be some happy creature’s palace.

Leopard frog.

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves.

Tree Swallow

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her breast flutters and sings.

Eastern bluebird nest

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And while you’re here, check out the community needs list. There may be someone you can help.

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