by Allie Esiri
He’s lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.
May
1 May • Verses said to be written on the Union • Jonathan Swift
On 1 May 1707, the Acts of Union between England and Scotland were passed, forming modern Great Britain. Queen Anne was on the throne at the time, and Swift, a satirist, produced the following lines.
The Queen has lately lost a Part
Of her entirely-English Heart,
For want of which, by way of Botch,
She piec’d it up again with Scotch.
Blest Revolution, which creates
Divided Hearts, united States.
See how the double Nation lies;
Like a rich Coat with Skirts of Frize:
As if a Man in making Posies
Should bundle Thistles up with Roses.
Who ever yet a Union saw
Of Kingdoms, without Faith or Law.
Henceforward let no Statesman dare,
A Kingdom, to a Ship compare;
Lest he should call our Commonweal
A Vessel with a double Keel:
Which just like ours, new rigg’d and mann’d,
And got about a League from Land,
By Change of Wind to Leeward Side
The Pilot knew not how to guide.
So tossing Faction will o’erwhelm
Our crazy double-bottom’d Realm.
1 May • May Day • Sara Teasdale
1 May, known as May Day, marks an ancient festival dating back to the pre-Christian era. Traditional English activities associated with the day include morris dancing, the crowning of a May Queen to lead the festival celebrations, and dancing around a maypole. This poem by the American poet Sara Teasdale celebrates the beauty of nature on May Day– even in a city.
The shining line of motors,
The swaying motor-bus,
The prancing dancing horses
Are passing by for us.
The sunlight on the steeple,
The toys we stop to see,
The smiling passing people
Are all for you and me.
‘I love you and I love you!’—
‘And oh, I love you, too!’
‘All of the flower girl’s lilies
Were only grown for you!’
Fifth Avenue and April
And love and lack of care—
The world is mad with music
Too beautiful to bear.
2 May • The Merry Month of May • Thomas Dekker
Thomas Dekker was a poet and playwright during the Elizabethan and Jacobean era. This poem overflows with praise for bright May days.
O! the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O! and then did I unto my true Love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen.
Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the forest choir,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love’s
tale:
Lo! yonder she sitteth, her breast against a briar.
But O! I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;
See where she sitteth; come away, my joy:
Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo
Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.
O! the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
And then did I unto my true Love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen.
2 May • Leisure • W. H. Davies
Sometimes we are so busy that we forget to look up and notice the glories of nature.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
3 May • Tartary • Walter de la Mare
‘Tartary’ is a historical region that covers most of Russia, northern China, and stretches down to India – but it’s a word that hasn’t been commonly used in centuries. In this poem, de la Mare imagines Tartary as a beautiful and fantastical land, and even goes as far as to imagine himself as its ruler!
If I were Lord of Tartary,
Myself, and me alone,
My bed should be of ivory,
Of beaten gold my throne;
And in my court should peacocks flaunt,
And in my forests tigers haunt,
And in my pools great fishes slant
Their fins athwart the sun.
If I were Lord of Tartary,
Trumpeters every day
To all my meals should summon me,
And in my courtyards bray;
And in the evening lamps should shine,
Yellow as honey, red as wine,
While harp, and flute, and mandoline
Made music sweet and gay.
If I were Lord of Tartary,
I’d wear a robe of beads,
White, and gold, and green they’d be –
And small and thick as seeds;
And ere should wane the morning star,
I’d don my robe and scimitar.
And zebras seven should draw my car
Through Tartary’s dark glades.
Lord of the fruits of Tartary,
Her rivers silver-pale!
Lord of the hills of Tartary,
Glen, thicket, wood, and dale!
Her flashing stars, her scented breeze,
Her trembling lakes, like foamless seas,
Her bird-delighting citron-trees,
In every purple vale!
3 May • The Fawn • Edna St Vincent Millay
Millay often wrote about nature, and in this poem she describes a moment in which she came upon a fawn on a ‘forest day’.
There it was I saw what I shall never forget
And never retrieve.
Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to believe,
He lay, yet there he lay,
Asleep on the moss, his head on his polished cleft small ebony hooves,
The child of the doe, the dappled child of the deer.
Surely his mother had never said, ‘Lie here
Till I return,’ so spotty and plain to see
On the green moss lay he.
His eyes had opened; he considered me.
I would have given more than I care to say
To thrifty ears, might I have had him for my friend
One moment only of that forest day:
Might I have had the acceptance, not the love
Of those clear eyes;
Might I have been for him in the bough above
Or the root beneath his forest bed,
A part of the forest, seen without surprise.
Was it alarm, or was it the wind of my fear lest he depart
That jerked him to his jointy knees,
And sent him crashing off, leaping and stumbling
On his new legs, between the stems of the white trees?
4 May • Back in the Playground Blues • Adrian Mitchell
Have you ever been picked on because you’re different? Or seen someone else be bullied for something that isn’t their fault at all? Today is the United Nations’ Anti-Bullying D
ay – a day which raises awareness of the damaging effects of bullying. The pain of being bullied is the subject of Adrian Mitchell’s poem. His words, revealing the damage that bullying can inflict, remind us how important it is always to be kind.
I dreamed I was back in the playground, I was about four feet high
Yes I dreamed I was back in the playground, standing about four feet high
Well the playground was three miles long and the playground was five miles wide
It was broken black tarmac with a high wire fence all around
Broken black dusty tarmac with a high fence running all around
And it had a special name to it, they called it The Killing Ground
Got a mother and a father they’re one thousand years away
The rulers of The Killing Ground are coming out to play
Everybody thinking: ‘Who they going to play with today?’
Well you get it for being Jewish
And you get it for being black
Get it for being chicken
Get it for fighting back
You get it for being big and fat
Get it for being small
O those who get it get it and get it
For any damn thing at all
Sometimes they take a beetle, tear off its six legs one by one
Beetle on its black back, rocking in the lunchtime sun
But a beetle can’t beg for mercy, a beetle’s not half the fun
Heard a deep voice talking, it had that iceberg sound,
‘It prepares them for Life’ – but I have never found
Any place in my life that’s worse than The Killing Ground.
4 May • Old Pond • Matsuo Bashō, translated by Robert Hass
In Japan, 4 May is known as Greenery Day or Midori no hi – a day for the celebration of natural beauty. Traditional Japanese haikus often took nature as their subject. This haiku is by the most revered poet, Matsuo Bashō.
The old pond –
a frog jumps in,
sound of water.
5 May • Clouds • Matsuo Bashō, translated by Robert Hass
This is another haiku by Bash-o, and like ‘Old Pond’ it uses very simple imagery to great effect.
From time to time
The clouds give rest
To the moon-beholders.
5 May • The Song of the Banana Man • Evan Jones
On 5 May 1494, Christopher Columbus became the first European to reach Jamaica, thus setting in motion events that led to the island enduring centuries of European colonialism. The Song of the Banana Man was published as part of the celebrations of Jamaica’s independence in 1962, although Jones wrote it in the fifties after some fellow students at Oxford asserted that no poem of quality could ever be written in anything other than ‘proper’ English. It has since become one of the most loved poems across the whole of the Caribbean, and is considered a modern song of Jamaican identity.
Touris’, white man, wipin’ his face,
Met me in Golden Grove market place.
He looked at m’ ol’ clothes brown wid stain,
An’ soaked right through wid de Portlan’ rain,
He cas’ his eye, turn’ up his nose,
He says, ‘You’re a beggar man, I suppose?’
He says, ‘Boy, get some occupation,
Be of some value to your nation.’
I said, ‘By God and dis big right han’
You mus’ recognize a banana man.
‘Up in de hills, where de streams are cool,
An’ mullet an’ janga swim in de pool,
I have ten acres of mountain side,
An’ a dainty-foot donkey dat I ride,
Four Gros Michel, an’ four Lacatan,
Some coconut trees, and some hills of yam,
An’ I pasture on dat very same lan’
Five she-goats an’ a big black ram,
‘Dat, by God an’ dis big right han’
Is de property of a banana man.
‘I leave m’ yard early-mornin’ time
An’ set m’ foot to de mountain climb,
I ben m’ back to de hot-sun toil,
An’ m’ cutlass rings on de stony soil,
Ploughin’ an’ weedin’, diggin’ an’ plantin’,
Till Massa Sun drop back o’ John Crow
mountain,
Den home again in cool evenin’ time,
Perhaps whistling dis likkle rhyme,
‘Praise God an’ m’ big right han’
I will live an’ die a banana man.
‘Banana day is my special day,
I cut my stems an’ I’m on m’ way,
Load up de donkey, leave de lan’
Head down de hill to banana stan’,
When de truck comes roun’ I take a ride
All de way down to de harbour side –
Dat is de night, when you, touris’ man,
Would change your place wid a banana man.
‘Yes, by God, an’ m’ big right han’
I will live an’ die a banana man.
‘De bay is calm, an’ de moon is bright
De hills look black for de sky is light,
Down at de dock is an English ship,
Restin’ after her ocean trip,
While on de pier is a monstrous hustle,
Tallymen, carriers, all in a bustle,
Wid stems on deir heads in a long black snake
Some singin’ de sons dat banana men make,
‘Like, Praise God an’ m’ big right han’
I will live an’ die a banana man.
‘Den de payment comes, an’ we have some fun,
Me, Zekiel, Bredda and Duppy Son.
Down at de bar near United Wharf
We knock back a white rum, bus’ a laugh,
Fill de empty bag for further toil
Wid saltfish, breadfruit, coconut oil.
Den head back home to m’ yard to sleep,
A proper sleep dat is long an’ deep.
‘Yes, by God, an’ m’ big right han’
I will live an’ die a banana man.
‘So when you see dese ol’ clothes brown wid
stain,
An’ soaked right through wid de Portlan’ rain,
Don’t cas’ your eye nor turn your nose,
Don’t judge a man by his patchy clothes,
I’m a strong man, a proud man, an’ I’m free,
Free as dese mountains, free as dis sea,
I know myself, an’ I know my ways,
An’ will sing wid pride to de end o’ my days
‘Praise God an’ m’ big right han’
I will live an’ die a banana man.’
6 May • Buckingham Palace • A. A. Milne
George V was proclaimed king on this day in 1910 and reigned over Britain until his death in 1936. This poem by A.A. Milne was written in 1924; George V was only the second monarch after his grandmother Queen Victoria to reside in Buckingham Palace. A. A. Milne is better known as the author of Winnie-the-Pooh, but Pooh’s fictional friend Christopher Robin – also the name of Milne’s son – features here as well.
They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace –
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Alice is marrying one of the guard.
‘A soldier’s life is terrible hard,’
Says Alice.
They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace –
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
We saw a guard in a sentry-box.
‘One of the sergeants looks after their socks,’
Says Alice.
They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace –
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
We looked for the King, but he never came.
‘Well, God take care of him, all the same,’
Says Alice.
They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace –
Christoph
er Robin went down with Alice.
They’ve great big parties inside the grounds.
‘I wouldn’t be King for a hundred pounds,’
Says Alice.
They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace –
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
A face looked out, but it wasn’t the King’s.
‘He’s much too busy a-signing things,’
Says Alice.
They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace –
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
‘Do you think the King knows all about me?’
‘Sure to, dear, but it’s time for tea,’
Says Alice.
6 May • To a Squirrel at Kyle-Na-No • W. B. Yeats
‘To a Squirrel’ was inspired by a visit to the wood of Kyle-na-no in Coole Park, County Galway. W. B. Yeats lived just three miles away from the park, and several of his poems were inspired by experiences in the beautiful nature reserve.
Come play with me;
Why should you run
Through the shaking tree
As though I’d a gun
To strike you dead?
When all I would do
Is to scratch your head
And let you go.
7 May • The Pobble Who Has No Toes • Edward Lear
Another slice of nonsense verse from Edward Lear. This poem features a ‘Runcible Cat’; Lear actually made up the word ‘runcible’, and seemed to like it a lot, as he used it frequently (there is a ‘runcible spoon’ in ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’). It even appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, defined as simply ‘a nonsense word’.
I
The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said, ‘Some day you may lose them all;’
–
He replied, – ‘Fish fiddle de-dee!’
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink,
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said, ‘The World in general knows
There’s nothing so good for a Pobble’s toes!’
II
The Pobble who has no toes,
Swam across the Bristol Channel;
But before he set out he wrapped his nose,
In a piece of scarlet flannel.