Keep A Good Heart . . . The Worst Is Yet To Come*

I am the Great Sun

From a Normandy crucifix of 1632


I am the great sun, but you do not see me,
I am your husband, but you turn away.

I am the captive, but you do not free me,
I am the captain but you will not obey.

I am the truth, but you will not believe me,
I am the city where you will not stay.

I am your wife, your child, but you will leave me,
I am that God to whom you will not pray.

I am your counsel, but you will not hear me,
I am your lover whom you will betray.

I am the victor, but you do not cheer me,
I am the holy dove whom you will slay.

I am your life, but if you will not name me,
Seal up your soul with tears, and never blame me.

- Charles Causley

I've been listening to alot of Ghost Box material recently in particular the second Focus Group disc "Hey Let Loose Your Love". The second track of that disc, 'You Do Not See Me' has a loop of this disembodied voice repeating the phrase "I am the great sun but you do not see me". It's kind of eerie in it's blandness and that phrase always gets stuck in my head. Actually the looped phrase continues, " . . . I am your . . ." and the next word gets cut off and it always leaves me wondering what the next word is? Well w/ all of that business dancing around in my noodle the other day I remembered, "Oh Yeah, there's that internet now, I can look up pretty much anything I can think of . . . DUH. "

So I looked the phrase up and found it's from the poem "I Am The Great Sun" by the late Cornish poet Charles Causley. I rather enjoy that poem and from what little I've read about Causley he sounds pretty interesting, I'm looking forward to investigating him further.




The other bit of poetry related business that's been on my mind this week has been that PBS American Masters American Experience program on Walt Whitman. What I saw of it I thoroughly enjoyed (I still have to catch the end). Whitman has always been someone I had a vague interest in but I've never really known too much about him and it's been years since I tried reading "Leaves of Grass". What I kept thinking about while watching that program on Whitman though was how I wished Allen Ginsberg was still alive b/c they would've had him on that program talking about Whitman. Which reminded me of an addendum I was going to do on my 5th anniversary of the Iraq war post, about how the Dragon Lady, Madame Nhu is still alive and well living in Paris writing her autobiography (and I'm sure continuing to be a horrible human being) while poor Allen Ginsberg has to have merged w/ the infinite already, BLEH.

. . . And in other news of the unimportant —the GTR WRK-SHP is back home after it's year (or so) abroad, first on the Southside and then mouldering away in Forest Hills.

* That line is a piece of advice from Walt Whitman's father and it may become my new personal motto?