An early work, and I love it. “To Statecraft Embalmed” starts with an image that might just as easily refer to a certain (current) political figure:
The only version of the full text I can find online isn’t formatted exactly how piece is presented in her Collected Works, a volume I seem to have misplaced precisely as I sat down to write this post.
The whole thing reads to me as uncanny prophesy, hard plumage and all.
Also called “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” or “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, 1629” or “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, Compos’d 1629.”
https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/nativity/text.shtml
I wrote a seminar thesis on this once. It’s not just about connecting the birth of Christ to the passion in theological terms. Milton is making a sort of quantum confession: the birth of God in time collapses our reality. The Christmas Day of 1629 becomes, itself, “the happy morn;” the liturgical hymn of Philippians 2:6-8 (and 9-11) is transfigured into Milton’s second stanza; everywhere the light is breaking in, nowhere can the natural order contain the “spooky action” (no longer at a distance).
In other words, John Milton was a genius.
Spacetime is a crooked smile
bent to match the mouths
we love and taste and pray with.
First published at Quatrain Fish.
In honor of this week’s weather, I offer this piece from second grade. Late ’87 or early ’88. Enjoy the terse realism of “The Snowy Day” and bonus dinosaur reports.
My friend Nathan found this among his elementary school papers. I love it. Note the terse realism.
He also found our dinosaur reports. Mine isn’t bad, but his is awesome. This is the kind of thing he probably got in trouble for for not following the rules of the assignment, but I think he deserved extra credit.
Mine:
His:
Yeah, that is awesome.
I first read this years ago. I stays with me.
I posted “Over the wintry” earlier today.
I’ve been playing “Winterlong” on guitar between outside snow day fun and shoveling.
Inspired by Natsume, I thought it would be fun to ask/make my eldest to write a haiku about today’s weather. We read The Trials of Apollo series together, and every chapter starts with a haiku, which is to say, the form is familiar. As is the cheek:
I like to eat snow.
I pelt my Dad with snowballs.
Don’t eat the yellow snow.
I mean, no lies detected.
Chris Cocca 