Vahids

The first is out of love,
the second to hear Your voice.

The third is in submission,
the next in worship to Your First,
the fifth to call You hence.

And then the silent sixth;
how can I let You go?

Vahid is a Persian name meaning “the one” and by inference, “oneness” or “unity.” In the Abjad numerology system (which assigns a numeric value to each letter) the value of the word is 19.

Baháʼís are enjoined, each day, to repeat the Greatest Name of God, “Alláh-u-Abhá” 95 times—that is, 5 vahids. This devotional act is the root of this poem.

Thank you for reading Vahids. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken on a recent trip to Haifa, Israel and is a detail of the Shrine of the Báb. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

j.

Poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge, https://bookofpain.wordpress.com.

Root cellar

(It is the conceit of the old
to tell the young
what is neither requested
nor heeded, so)

let us delve deep down into the loam
and there preserve the produce of want
and the fruits of self-satisfaction.
Line it with stone, bolster it with oak,
and bolt it with iron locks, but be careful;
for in that room (in that gloom)
where our hopes lie deep
and our treasures heap,
you may not be able to draw breath.

What we too often build is a tomb.

Root cellars, a means of preserving root vegetables and storable fruit, are relics of the past. As a child, I remember some rural friends still having one. Now they make a great metaphor.

The photograph is a copyright-free photo of two root cellars from Elliston, Newfoundland (my Canadian birth province). It has somewhat self-congratulatoryily awarded itself the title of Root Cellar Capitol of the World because so many are preserved there. The truth is every place everywhere was once dotted with them, but proof, as they say in Newfoundland is in the pudding. In Elliston, you can still see some of the puddings (so to speak) dug into the hillsides.

Thank you for reading Root cellar. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

j.

Poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com.

Just like the last time

After the d’Orsay (tired, but happy)
we walk along le Rue de Lille and then de Poitiers
to lunch at the boulangerie
where the Rue de Bac meets the Rue de Verneuil.
After, we have dessert next door
at the Artisan Chocolatier.
Nowhere beats our Paris, does it?

Oh, my darling! I haven’t seen you smile like that
in such a long time. But wait, dear heart!
I wept to get you here
and weep to keep you here…
Why go?

This poem and the three that preceded it were all first drafted on a solo trip to London and Paris that I undertook last October. It was the first travel I had undertaken after my darling wife’s passing eight months previously, and obviously, her passing was (and is) much on my mind and in my heart.

Lyn and I had never traveled to London together so that leg of the trip was easier, as I was able to keep busy during the day. The Paris leg was, in retrospect, ill-fated, as I naturally fell into revisiting many of the spots that she and I had visited only a few years earlier. Still, even within that loss, there was a poem to be found.

Thank you for reading Just like the last time. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken on that most recent trip to Paris and is a detail of the Eiffel Tower. I like the sense of interconnectedness that it suggests; some parts illuminated and clear, others dark and hard to perceive, but nonetheless as strong. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

j.

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.

Rushing between flights

Through the bright yellow
the little bubbles gently swim up
to snuggle in the cloud above.
Why am I doing this? I wonder,
sliding by on the people-mover,
that isn’t me anymore.
(He continues to stare at
the beer in front of him,
certain there is some wisdom there.)
He’s right, I think, gliding away.
We’re never so lost
as when we desperately seek
where we want to go.

The third of a quattro of travel poems and a true story: a glimpse, a reflection, and what I saw…

Thank you for reading Rushing between flights. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken in my hometown of Putnam. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

john

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.

Thirty minutes out from the Gare de Nord

In France the windmills
all spin the wrong way,
no wonder I feel at home here.
But like so much else
my French is not what it used to be,
how do you say “whirl-a-gig”?
Is there enough left, je me demand,
for one more final joust?

French has no commonly-said direct equivalent to the English “I wonder.” The closest you can get is, Je me demand—I ask myself. The point, however, is not that there is no direct translation of the words, but that the French do not express themselves as do the English. In French, one just directly asks the question. C’est curieux, n’est-ce pas?

If you’ve never done the Eurostar train ride between London’s St. Pancras International and Paris’s Gare de Nord, which goes through the Chunnel, you are in for a treat. A little over two hours in duration, the ride is not only swift, it is also comfortable and quiet.

Thank you for reading Thirty minutes out from the Gare de Nord. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken, I believe, in Rhode Island. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

john

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.

Rag-tag relics on a rag-tag road

They say that if you can’t find it
at the Portobello Market
you don’t want it,
but the opposite seems true to me.
The antique lead soldiers intrigue me the most
and the affable Cockney sells them hard.
They are so beautiful, so darling,
I want to sing them a song—
a song of life so sweet and endearing
that their little lungs will swell and pump,
their tiny heads will look up and cry,
their hardened hearts swell with certain faith.

But I don’t, or can’t, or try and fail,
because they’re just not listening.
Sad to say, there are only gawkers,
not buyers, here in this place.

Thank you for reading Rag-tag relics on a rag-tag road. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken at the Portobello Market in London, England. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

john

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.

My cataract surgery

While being wheeled to surgery
I thought of her as she rolled to hers—
the ceiling tiles sliding dizzily overhead
(no real voices, just whispers instead)—
and all the while that demon
screaming silently in her head.
With no me there to hold her hand.
So I wept.

My surgeon, misunderstanding me, was sweet.
Leaning in, she said, Don’t worry, it’ll be ok.
If only, I thought.
If only.

The good news is that my cataract surgeries are now complete and very successful. My surgeon, besides being very kind, is incredibly good at her job.

Thank you for reading My cataract surgery. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken in my home of yes, my well-worn personal copy. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

john

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.

This too grew in the telling

There comes a time each year
when the days grow cooler and the nights crisper,
when the light glows a certain golden color
and the frivolity of summer gives way to
the colors of autumn and the contemplation of winter,
that the need to take it up grows,
to dust it off, and live through it once again.

The pages are careworn, many dog-eared from lazy habit,
not a few stained with tea, coffee, or red-berry jam (or all three.)
Others are bent beyond repair (I often fell asleep reading it),
a number crayoned (my eldest),
some inked (my youngest),
and one missing (but I know that part by heart.)
The cover is scratched, the spine cracked,
the dust jacket in shreds, and a corner
of the end-map missing (it was one of them, I’m not sure which.)

But the words are there.
No other work flows so sweetly through my hands
at once so down-to-earth that it’s my loved ones squabbling
and yet so noble it calls me to stand taller just reading it.
Not a-one of those words I would change if I could,
for each is a jewel in the diadem of that world, placed, just so.

There are old words: doughty, gainsaid, and barrow,
and made-up words: mathons, lembas, and huorn.
There are foreign names, common names, hard-to-pronounce names,
high names, low names (Proudfoots! Proudfeet!)
and I quote them all half as well as I should like,
and remember half of them half as well as they deserve.
But I love them all.

The Lord of the Rings is a deserved classic, a hexalogy published in three volumes that has been re-discovered by each new generation since its publication in 1954. It gave birth to a wonderful series of movies (and for me a great Amazon series) and a whole genre of literature. While nothing I say of its greatness can exceed or best what has already been written of it, I cannot but help express my personal love of it.

The title of this poem comes from Tolkien’s opening sentence of his Foreword to the Second Edition, “This tale grew in the telling, until it became a history of the Great War of the Ring…”

Thank you for reading This too grew in the telling. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken in my home of yes, my well-worn personal copy. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

john

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.

Tá brón orm

I secretly scented the first roses I gave her
with a few small drops of rose water,
a practice I kept up over the years.
Each time, she’d deeply inhale their musk
and smiling delightedly, remark on how
I always found the best just for her.
Sometimes I wondered if she knew
and didn’t let on, but probably not,
she was giving like that.

In any case, she knows now.
I used the last of the bottle
to scent the roses for the mourners.

Tá brón orm (pronounced toe-brone-urm) is Irish Celtic. In that language, one does not say, I am sad, but that, Sorrow is on me. The implication is that you are not fully identified with the emotion but that it is weighing on you and that with time all things change. Sometimes up, sometimes down, but that life is always in transition.

But still…tá brón orm.

By the way, yes, that is the bottle; I’ve not had the heart to get rid of it. It is photographed in front of some beautiful flowers from a neighbor’s yard. The kindness of friends never ends.

Thank you for reading Tá brón orm. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken in my home. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

john

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.

The generation of love

The best and sweetest left
to plant their bones whenever.
The rest of us stayed
and to spite ourselves,
we abandoned us, one, the other.
So when it comes, pray it’s quick,
and that when it’s done, it’s done,
and not this weighty, drag-on misery,
this open-maw of just begun.

As a teen, my enduring love of history was sparked by Barbara Tuchman’s masterful A Distant Mirror, in which she proposed that the death and suffering of 14^th century Europe (a century of wars and the Black Death) reflected the modern world’s 20^th century.

Bahá’u’lláh states, The world is in travail, and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its face is turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight, that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Its perversity will long continue. And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Then, and only then, will the Divine Standard be unfurled, and the Nightingale of Paradise warble its melody.

The suffering of the 14^th century acted as a catharsis, giving way to the Renaissance that followed, which in turn gave birth to the Enlightenment, stages where man’s intellectual and spiritual development advanced quickly. So although yes, the world is in travail, and will suffer, as with the pain of any birth, a new world order will come from it. Just wait.

Thank you for reading The generation of love I sincerely hope you have enjoyed it and I humbly appreciate your visiting the Book of Pain. As always, I look forward to your comments.

The photograph was taken near Putnam, CT, my hometown. To see my photography blog, please visit the Book of Bokeh.

john

Photograph, poem, and notes © John Etheridge; all rights reserved. The poem and accompanying notes are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 Unported License. This applies to all original written work found on this site unless noted otherwise. The attribution claimed under the license is © John Etheridge,  https://bookofpain.wordpress.com. The photograph is not licensed for use in any way without the expressed consent of its creator.