Whist. Peace. Easy: No Fear, No Regret (But Maybe an Apology or Two)

[Image: “Wangerooge Island / noise,” by user hom26 on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.]

From whiskey river:

Zwijgen

I slept before a wall of books and they
calmed everything in the room, even
their contents, even me, woken
by the cold and thrill, and still
they said, like the Dutch verb for falling
silent that English has no accommodation for
in the attics and rafters of its intimacies.

(Saskia Hamilton [source])

…and:

People are frightened of themselves. It’s like Freud saying that the best thing is to have no sensation at all, as if we’re supposed to live painlessly and unconsciously in the world. I have a much different view. The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege.

(Marilynne Robinson [source])

…and:

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

(Mary Oliver [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Deep Sorriness Atonement Song
for missed appointment, BBC North, Manchester

The man who sold Manhattan for a halfway decent bangle,
He had talks with Adolf Hitler and could see it from his angle,
And he could have signed the Quarrymen but didn’t think they’d make it,
So he bought a cake on Pudding Lane and thought ‘Oh well I’ll bake it’
But his chances they were slim,
And his brothers they were Grimm,
And he’s sorry, very sorry,
But I’m sorrier than him.

And the drunken plastic surgeon who said ‘I know, let’s enlarge ’em!’
And the bloke who told the Light Brigade ‘Oh what the hell, let’s charge ’em,’
The magician with an early evening gig on the Titanic,
And the mayor who told the people of Atlantis not to panic,
And the Dong about his nose
And the Pobble re his toes,
They’re all sorry, really sorry,
But I’m sorrier than those.

And don’t forget the Bible, with the Sodomites and Judas,
And Onan who discovered something nothing was as rude as,
And anyone who reckoned it was City’s year for Wembley,
And the kid who called Napoleon a shortarse in assembly,
And the man who always smiles
‘Cause he knows I have his files,
They’re all sorry, truly sorry,
But I’m sorrier by miles.

And Robert Falcon Scott who lost the race to a Norwegian,
And anyone who’s ever spilt the pint of a Glaswegian,
Or told a Finn a joke or spent an hour with a Swiss-German,
Or got a mermaid in the sack and found it was a merman,
Or him who smelt a rat,
And got curious as a cat,
They’re all sorry, deeply sorry,
But I’m sorrier than that.

All the people who were rubbish when we needed them to do it,
Whose wires crossed, whose spirit failed, who ballsed it up or blew it,
All notchers of nul points and all who have a problem Houston,
At least they weren’t in Kensington when they should have been at Euston.
For I didn’t build the Wall
And I didn’t cause the Fall
But I’m sorry, Lord I’m sorry,
I’m the sorriest of all.

(Glyn Maxwell [source])

…and:

The Poster Girl’s Defence

It was an Artless Poster Girl pinned up against my wall,
She was tremendous ugly, she was exceeding tall;
I was gazing at her idly, and I think I must have slept,
For that poster maiden lifted up her poster voice, and wept.

She said between her poster sobs, ‘I think it’s rather rough
To be jeered and fleered and flouted, and I’ve stood it long enough;
I’m tired of being quoted as a Fright and Fad and Freak,
And I take this opportunity my poster mind to speak.

‘Although my hair is carmine and my nose is edged with blue,
Although my style is splashy and my shade effects are few,
Although I’m out of drawing and my back hair is a show,
Yet I have n’t half the whimseys of the maidens that you know.

‘I never keep you waiting while I prink before the glass,
I never talk such twaddle as that little Dawson lass,
I never paint on china, nor erotic novels write,
And I never have recited “Curfew must not ring tonight”.

‘I don’t rave over Ibsen, I never, never flirt,
I never wear a shirt waist with a disconnected skirt;
I never speak in public on “The Suffrage”, or “The Race”,
I never talk while playing whist, or trump my partner’s ace.’

I said: ‘O artless Poster Girl, you’re in the right of it,
You are a joy forever, though a thing of beauty, nit!’
And from her madder eyebrows to her utmost purple swirl,
Against all captious critics I’ll defend the Poster Girl.

(Carolyn Wells [source])

A mathematician, however, almost always works alone… When a mathematician works at mathematics he sits alone in his study staring at equations scribbled on his blackboard or at a dog-eared reprint of the research paper whose results he is trying to extend. It is quiet work, like writing poetry, and includes lots of “dead time” when the mathematician, like the poet, does nothing but sit and stare at the blank page. When you walk in on a research mathematician and find him reclining with his feet up, gazing wistfully out the window, what you say is: “Sorry, I didn’t know you were working.” Because he probably is.

(Jerry P. King [source])

___________________

About this post’s title: I was challenged by this claim in the poem called “Zwijgen”: the Dutch verb for falling / silent that English has no accommodation for. The Dutch verb for “to fall silent,” I found out fairly quickly, is — yes — zwijgen. But I couldn’t believe there was no English word for the same thing. I thought of still (as a verb), and quieted/quietened (although I’m not really sure if the latter is in fact a legitimate word!). But then I stumbled on whist. I knew the word itself, in the sense of a particular card game (something like pinochle, I think). That’s the first definition provided at reference.com… But if you scroll down on the page, you’ll find a second, unrelated meaning:

verb (used without object)
4. British Dialect: to be or become silent.

Hey, if it’s good enough for reference.com it’s good enough for me.