It’s time for the revels of the ancient
Roman Saturnalia. Saturnalia was officially celebrated on December 17th, in
honor of Saturnus, the god of seed and sowing. It was eventually expanded to
seven days, December 17-23. When the emperor Augustus tried to shorten the
holiday to only three days, riots ensued.
During Saturnalia, social roles
were symbolically reversed. Slaves were allowed a banquet that was
supposed to be served by their masters. Of course, the role reversal in Roman
times was mostly superficial; the banquet was usually prepared by the slaves
themselves, along with their masters’ dinners (yeah, nothing ever changes).
Over the centuries the drunken,
role-reversing Saturnalia merged with the Christmas celebration: gangs of
drunks went roaming door to door, demanding food and drink, threatening
vandalism if the lords of the manor refused (Wassail!). In America, the
Puritans outlawed Christmas celebrations not only to avoid days of drunkenness
and riot, but because they couldn’t bear the social role-reversals required by
custom during the season (we must have order!).
How we arrived at the family-friendly
turkey dinner, presents, and Father Christmas can be attributed to two books
written in the nineteenth century: A Christmas Carol by Charles
Dickens and A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Moore. Both of
these books helped create a more palatable version of the season’s celebrations
(at least for property owners). No more drunken rabble beating on the
manor door in the middle of the night.
A good book that traces how
this celebration of social misrule was transformed into the sanitized celebration
of today is Battle
for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum.
It abounds in wonderful stories about
gangs of men banging on upper-class doors late at night, singing, demanding
food and drink; of carnivalesque riots in the streets…truly a book to warm
the heart during this festive season.
I’m more of a solstice person
myself. It’s all about the mystery of the long night. One winter solstice, a few years back, I was wandering around Bryn Mill Park in Swansea, Wales,
at twilight, and came upon an elderly woman staring intently at a lone heron perched on a
wire cage in the dead center of the park pond; her cold-reddened hands clutched
a green vinyl purse.
I watched her watch the heron as the sky grew dark
and a gibbous moon rose, shining in black water between pond reeds. How long
I watched her staring – frozen, transfixed – I don’t know. The heron remained equally
still, eyeing her. I imagined her face inside his eye. The reeds
rattled in the wind…
********
Here
are three somewhat seasonal poems
(from All The
Beautiful Dead, a book coming out in the spring from Bitter Oleander Press ). The
first, Tundra Swans, happened at Barker Reservoir in Nederland, Colorado, a small town
about three thousand feet above Boulder, near the divide. I was standing down
by the water when a flock of tundra swans landed…
Tundra Swans
Circling
together off-shore, four
white and one dark, long arc
of
the neck dipping down
to black water; raising black beaks
to
falling snow, black water
sliding down the long throat; slow-
dipping
again into the winter-black cold
otherworld beneath (The way
you
can sometimes suddenly plunge your hands
into the night sky, feel around, touch
objects
on the other side). Black beaks,
sensing the criss-cross ice-branch
nets
concealing
the still-curious eyes
of a mountain lion, long-dead.
Homeless.
Not homeless
(How connected to the man selling his
homeless shelter’s newspaper
across from the Boulder bus station?
People
passing all day he said – not one taker.
Me thinking how hard it is trying to
simultaneously
be seen and keep out of sight).
Homeless. Not homeless. Come down
from
the arctic, on their way to Texas, Baja.
The whole flyway an extension of their
bodies
like
black drops falling from black beaks
back to the black otherworld beneath.
(Previously published in 2River)
*******
This second poem was written near the Great Sand Dunes National Park. We were camping and some snow fell during the night. I woke in the middle of the night and heard a flute playing in the distance. Dream? Snow spirit?
Bones are the
origin of snow fog;
Dreams are the
origin of trees
Fog slips
through keyholes, door cracks,
into bone.
Midnight: a
tree, bare branches. Not far off
something stamps
cold ground.
A man in an
orange hat plays flute. Whoever’s in range
becomes an echo
of wood.
Pine needles
collect ice through the night: white fingers
interlaced.
Morning is fire and water
The root of
light
Rising
(Previously
published in Cimarron Review)
******
The third
poem comes from a time when I was living in Woodstock, New York, and
traveled down to Philadelphia to see my mother for Christmas.
Showing my mother photos on my laptop the day after Christmas
Every time I show
them to her
I notice the same
thing: so few faces.
Trees, snails in walls,
shells, patterns of lichen
on rock, rock
and moss, a snowman
with seaweed hair, Swansea
Bay. She lights up
when she sees a face. “Who is that?”
She has seen these photos
before, so many times,
continually forgets.
What was it she wanted when she started out?
*
Bare trees follow me home.
Crossing the Delaware into
New Jersey, up 287
to the New York state line. All
the way,
the tantalizing pattern of bare
branches.
Stories, runes:
I have spent my life
desperately trying to read them, knowing
there is no answer, acting
as if the answer is still there, just
out of reach.
(Previously published in 2River)
*******
Peace.
