13 Sept 21 Bracken Forest

Completion – Echoing “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas

This post finishes the homage to Dylan Thomas, completing my echo, “Bracken Forest,” to his poem “Fern Hill,” which appears at the end of this post. My version takes a viewpoint of an elder looking back to younger years, as does Thomas’ perspective. Maybe it’s obvious that Thomas’ poetry has a range of tones and emotions that few poets achieve. (See “Background” below.) I must also thank the Chairman for his part in helping me develop echo poems.

                               Bracken Forest 

With Final Bows to Dylan Thomas (1914 – 1953)

                                        I

    When I was trembling old near the willow’s shade

     All winds gone down – All shouts and star-climbs done

     Once honored, then a discarded blunt blade

            bracken ferns turned brown before the frost

            jester in black-flecked peaked hat and gown

            kept by the Horse Prince hated by the town

     Lady’s Slipper couched in fire grate ashes   

     Three sisters dancing down the falling stairs


     Silver-haired me and burdened – true-blood-mad

     Moping gardens’ skirts – drooling damned man

     Elegant time, a mercy, raging by

     Twelve white elects stripped furies from my roots

     Bloated fish bellies drowned my unstrung lyre

     I was too raving wild to raise disputes

     Salt-pepper wolves howled treble clefs three times

     Midnight crushed one note with each clawed step



                                    II

      Moon long since high – me uncoiled from the burn

      Soot and ashes speckled my mourning cloak

      streamed violet through ten hundred torch-lit ferns

      Ten gray whippoorwills and I clutched our nests

      Below, fired weeds, too far distant rivers

      Pebbled ears, coined eyes, and sleepless shivers

      Killing spoiled cherubs won’t stay the long sun  

      nor archangels snorts, nor prelates’ plainsong


      Soundless claps from miles of copper-clad ferns

      Lord- ridden horses broiling through fog ferns

      Behind Lords silver foxes rode rare steeds

               and chased flying cattle to winter barns

               where bracken bedding’s fluffed up and kept warm

     But some have druthers to wait out the storm

     Cows don’t go gentle no matter their time

     One death- crown for each rode closely behind

     I wore black widow’s weeds herding those kine



                                III

    Tolerated by flapping crows and baying feral dogs

    Leaped gracefully, ‘midst branching memories and buried songs

    Moon fluid at dusk – sun laid to rest

    I meandered humming

    to the clip-clop of stone hearts breaking

    past spike-high mansion hedges under purple sunset

    where I held one thing with care in my warm-cupped hands and fled

    toward white lilacs where three elders sat  

    chewing childhoods’ fierce obsidian   


    Black calves long side purpled lilacs, afternoon suspended

    Two barred owls perched on rafters and penumbraed my hand 

    I held feathering the steady morning star

    toward afternoon’s drowsing

    I heard wings glide the gloaming foothills

    I gazed from under hooded eyes toward villages’ rivers 

    Oh! I was old and grown older – median but ageless still

    Time let me go on living

    like Prometheus’ immortal liver

Background     

Here are some quotes from Dylan Thomas that express his range of viewpoints, his sense of humor, and his ability to contain two points of view or opposites in one sentence. What a guy!                                      

• Though lovers be lost love shall not.
• After the first death, there is no other.
• I've just had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that's the record.
• An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.
• When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.
• Somebody's boring me. I think it's me.
• It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.
• The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it.

Exploration 1: Now that you have the complete poems, “Bracken Forest” and "Fern Hill", what do you think of this poet’s attempt to echo Mr. Thomas?

Exploration 2: Does the counterpoint between the two poems work well or poorly or both? 

Exploration 3: See how many echoes you can find between the two poems. Hint: specific words, opposite tone, similar images, plant names chosen, animal references . . .

Fern Hill By Dylan Thomas

                                          I

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

     The night above the dingle starry,

          Time let me hail and climb

     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

          Trail with daisies and barley

     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

     In the sun that is young once only,

          Time let me play and be

     Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,

          And the sabbath rang slowly

     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

                  II

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

     And playing, lovely and watery

          And fire green as grass.

     And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars

     Flying with the ricks, and the horses

          Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all

     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,

          The sky gathered again

     And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

     Out of the whinnying green stable

          On to the fields of praise.

            III

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

     In the sun born over and over,

          I ran my heedless ways,

     My wishes raced through the house high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

     Before the children green and golden

          Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

     In the moon that is always rising,

          Nor that riding to sleep

     I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

          Time held me green and dying

     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.