[Robert J. Clawson]

Originally posted by Tim Murphy:

The Yellowstone herd has brucelosis which is deadly to cattle, with whom bison freely mingle.

When I fished the Madison, the buffalo herd looked robust. I'm curious about the science on this. I know that ranchers fear their cows will be infected, but how often has it occurred? Also, is there scientific evidence that buffalo, when allowed to mingle, actually can pass on the disease? Has a link of contagion been established by a legitimate scientific investigation?

"A The herd is out of control due to lack of predation and must be culled."

When you say, "out of control," do you mean that it can no longer be kept penned in Yellowstone Park? Or is it romping the grasslands and humping cows?

"40 wolves have been introduced from Canada, and if they make it, they'll solve the problem."

This is pretty funny when you consider how the cattle ranchers hate wolves. Gotta shoot those fuckers too! What disease do they carry? I thought, as we, they ate those pitifully exposed cows and sheep.

"I assure you that being torn to shreds by wolves is a great deal less humane than instant death by rifle, but hey! It's natural."

Natural, right: imported Canadian wolves. That's managed shredding, Tim. Currently Nantucket rips are "infested" by gray seals and fishermen want to cull them because they're "eating all our fish." I've suggested that we should introduce some orcas.

"...like Roy, I think it is simple minded and very far from a great poem. This might be because my friends among the Sioux regard the Pawnees as having been murdering, thieving, raping savages--as do the Blackfeet. As does every other People of the Horse Culture."

Well, everybody's got to have a demon. Mine is cowboys.

Shameless




[This message has been edited by Robert J. Clawson (edited June 18, 2008).]

[John Whitworth]

Good Lord. Best poems! It's all a matter of opinion and nothing else. It's one of the best poems of the twentieth century for me. For me. Janet gets right to the meat of it.

[Roy Hamilton]

You are, of course, correct John. This poetry judging is so subjective. One that knocks my socks off may leave another reader cold. I had to defend the canon though, Prufrock et al. Here's one that always gives me goosebumps:

A Blessing

Just off the Highway to Rochester, Minnesota
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

James Wright


[This message has been edited by Roy Hamilton (edited June 18, 2008).]

[annie nance]

Roy,

Now you've posted one of MY favorite poems!

annie

[Aaron Poochigian]

Off subject--yes, Roy, James Wright was really, really good on about three occasions--here's my favorite by him--I think one of the best sonnets of the 20th century:

St. Judas

When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

[Roy Hamilton]

Annie, I know I can't believe how good it is. It is superb in all aspects and truly affecting.

Pooch, Thanks for that one. It's very good. So much to read, so much to read. Thanks for recommending The Road, much enjoyed. Now I'm ploughing through Pillars of the Earth. I just ordered collected Yeats and Eliot because I'm reading too much piecemeal. So much to read.



[This message has been edited by Roy Hamilton (edited June 18, 2008).]

[Cally Conan-Davies]

I never knew this poem before Pooch posted here, and now it has me in its thrall. Beyond its specific relevance to American History (of which I am mostly ignorant) and conservation, it possesses a mythic quality that, to my heart, makes it equal to Frost's 'Nothing Gold Can Stay', which I had by heart when I was five. The 'flower-fed buffaloes' and the 'perfumed grasses' are metaphors for the prelapsarian state, and the Fall is into the wheels of time, mortality. The nostalgia that Janet discussed goes deeper than the steady attachment we all may feel to a certain place or time. It is an archetypal yearning – I think the German word 'sensucht' expresses it better than 'yearning' or 'longing' or 'nostalgia'. The poem, for me, engenders a powerful feeling that consists of desire, joy, grief, aching, loss – Sappho's 'bittersweet'. Everything is subject to time. Everything passes, even the grasses. We will all be lying low.

[Richard Meyer]

Well said, Cally. Very well said. Your comments reveal the many layered depths that may unfold in a poem that on the surface seems so simple. The connection you make between Lindsay's poem and Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is most apt. Lindsay's poem is beautiful and haunting and sublime and elegiac and prophetic and so much more.

Richard

[John Whitworth]

To demonstrate the Lindsay, as well as not being a woman, is also more than a one-poem poet, can I post this?

The Leaden-Eyed

Let not young souls be smothered out before
They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride.
It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull,
Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed.
Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly,
Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap,
Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve,
Not that they die, but that they die like sheep.

[Richard Meyer]

John:

Lindsay's "The Leaden-Eyed" has been a longtime favorite of mine as well. When I was teaching, I would sometimes use it as the weekly poem with my seniors about midway through the academic year.

Richard