[Turner Cassity]

Wede Away
(For JMA)


Wisteria soft against a deeper blue,
and hyacinth, youth's talisman: those bright
creations filled my wakening world with light.
I miss the flowers of spring and all things new.

Fulfilment followed promise to a time
rich with the scents and ripeness spring foretold-
honeysuckle, poppy, marigold.
I miss the flowers of summer in its prime.

Sparse as the season fades towards December,
pale soldier roses, rearguard in retreat,
still blossom as they face an old defeat,
while asters linger late into November
to hurl their small defiance at the fall.
-I'll miss the flowers of autumn most of all.


Comments:
With the possible exception of orchids, roses seem to me the least military of all flowers. The poem might be more effective with only one flower to represent each season.

[Catherine Chandler]

Wede Away

For a better understanding of the term “Wede Away” I invite you to link here:

http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_forest.htm

and here:

http://www.video4viet.com/watchvideo...20The%20Forest


“Wede Away” means “withered away” in Scots dialect. It is a reference to “The Flowers of the Forest,” a lament the Scots often play at the funerals of those who died early. Played on the bagpipes, it is the official lament of the Canadian Army, a tune only too frequently played in recent years since Operation Enduring Freedom began. Being a Canadian by choice, as well as a proud American by birth, and the cousin of a young man killed in Viet Nam, I read this poem (“pale soldier roses, rearguard in retreat”) as one might expect, as a sorrowful funeral dirge but also as a powerful anti-war hymn, where flags and flowers are poor comfort for those who live on.

I found that each of the flowers that are named in the poem have been assigned contradictory symbolism, depending on the source, both positive and negative, and I believe they were chosen with great care. For example, wisteria (also the first word in the poem) is a symbol both of youth and longevity as well as of memory and honor. Hyacinths are known as emblems of sports and youth, but also refer to sorrow and resignation. Poppies can mean wealth, pleasure and success, as well as eternal sleep, rest, and death. The honeysuckle, though, has one meaning only: devoted fraternal affection and love.

But it is the soldier rose that had me perplexed. As Mr. Cassity says, roses are not usual military symbols. And my symbolism dictionary contains dozens of types of roses, but no reference to the soldier rose. Finally, Wikipedia came through, with a description of the hibiscus militaris, also known as the soldier rose. The article states “These flowers require exposure to sunlight to open up properly, and then last only a single day.” Then, the plant reseeds itself and, though its stalk dies down in the winter, it grows back in the spring. This is the most significant flower of all those named in the poem.

“Wede Away” cannot leave the reader, of any age, indifferent. I chose this sonnet because it is true to the spirit of the sonnet in so many ways, not least of which is how it takes a very personal experience and transforms it into what Rossetti called “a moment’s monument, --Memorial from the Soul’s eternity/To one dead deathless hour”.

[Tim Murphy]

I liked this poem for its mastery of the form, but I didn't have a clue what it meant, was too stupid, too lazy, to figure it out. Thank you Cathy for your close, close reading. My only reservation is the poem's difficulty. If it defeats me, it will defeat most readers. But for those who connect with it and find every flower in its place, it must be instantly devastating. Non dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

[Holly Martins]

An extremely attractive sonnet, and beautifully written. I'm a sucker for flower poems and this is very distinctive.

[Janice D. Soderling]

while asters linger late into November
to hurl their small defiance at the fall.

These two lines are magnificent. A brilliant concept is presented with melodious "Ls" and ended with soft-spoken "Fs".

[Petra Norr]

I recognize the sonnet, but even if I didn’t I think I would be able to identify the poet. In my opinion, there aren’t many people writing today whose meter is as beautiful as this poet’s. The meter is so quiet and lovely and has such fine pacing. I also think the rhymes meld well with the meter. It’s a beautiful sonnet, and I liked coming out of it with an armful of flowers and not just a few.

[Tim Murphy]

I didn't recognize the sonnet, but I knew for sure who wrote it.

[Michael Cantor]

I wasn't enthralled by this one - I'm not a flower person to begin with, and I don't believe that poems should require googling to be fully appreciated - there was too much that depended on specialized knowledge.

On the other hand, there's some gutsy and admirable stuff going on with the sonics that works very well with the voice and content of the poem The meter is very loose, and difficult to pin down because of ellisions, substitutions and pronunciation variants, but there seems to be a wonderful bouquet of pentamteter and some hex, mixed with headless or trochaic lines - and it's always interesting and never clangs. Good music.

The repeats on L4, L8 and L14 were also kind of gutsy for a sonnet - throwing away two lines, in effect, to get an effect - but I think the writer got away with it. There's a mini-villanelle feeling here. Also - and this doesn't work for me - a reminder of Thomas's I See the Boys of Summer.

[Kevin Cutrer]

Without Catherine's explication, I too was mostly lost, but I was able to appreciate how the rhythmn carried the argument of the poem, masterfully so.

[John Beaton]

The title grabs me right away because, as a boy, I learned the song and always thought it beautiful. The dedication also catches my eye and I expect to be moved.

For me, it doesn't live up to that initial promise. The flower names are clever and I think the soldier rose is a fine stroke. But, finely-written as it is, the garden scene can't help being a let-down after the invocation of the haunting melody and sadness of the song. You just can't pull off a mood-switch from pipers playing over 10,000 dead boyfriends, husbands, and fathers on the moors of Flodden to horticulture.

I'm also not sure about the progression. I associate the various seasons with generations of dead soldiers: spring, the young ones, summer, the ones of intermediate age, and autumn, the older ones. So the last line seems to say that the loss of the old soldiers is sadder than the loss of the young ones, and that doesn't ring true for me.

John