Category: Myths & Folklore

The Prayer in the Purr

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The Prayer in the Purr

What do cats dream,
Those tabbies, napping in the Sun all day ?
Are they getting cream,
Or perhaps they fighting with a scar-clawed stray ?
Does it scratch their itch,
Or raise a threat that’s coming out to creep ?
Ev’ry time they twitch,
Are they trembling from a nightmare stalking sleep ?

A cat has no other cats to call for mental health,
It’s up to them alone to learn to wake themself.
Is that why they sleep when the Sun is shining stark ?
As if they’re too afraid to have to lie there in the dark ?

What do we dream,
We humans, snoring to the Moon all night ?
Cheering on our team,
Or racing through our minds from guilt and fright ?
So is it so odd,
If felines fear, and maybe find some faith ?
If cats have a god,
I hope she’s keeping well her clowder safe.

So when they come to humans, just to join us on our bed,
And even though we partly know they’re looking to be fed –
Yet just for a moment, we feel it feel so deep,
As if they’re seeking comfort here to calm their troubled sleep.

New Kid in Town

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Nashville Athena by orientalizing

New Kid in Town

Country folk are godly folk,
They sing to holy Jesus,
Sing how he’s the one they set their heart upon.
Yet over Nashville way, no joke,
They worship olive trees, yes,
Sing to Grecians in their mighty Parthenon.
They built a statue of Athena
Dressed in gold and ivory,
With ancient eyes of blue that never blink.
They built a temple to the Virgin,
Yet in rivalry –
Cos she ain’t the usual Virgin that they think –

Hallelujah, hail Athena !
Sing it loud and sing it free !
You beat Poseidon with his trident,
And now Jesus with his trinity.
We need a goddess, not a patriarch
To stir these sisters free –
In the Athens of the South, your spark
Lights up your mystery.

Country folk are gawdy folk,
They love their rhinestone rings –
Yet their churches are just warehouses of prayers.
Is Jesus stoney broke
That he can’t afford some decent bling
In which his shouty preachers flog his wares ?
But over at Athena’s place,
There’s statues in the pediments
Of epic battles fought in ancient times –
She may be stoic in her face,
But not so harsh and regiment
To frown upon our splashing-out the dimes.

Hallelujah, hail Athena !
Sing it free and sing it loud !
Lady Wisdom, Lady with the Owl,
Intelligent and proud –
We need a goddess to the arts
For fans to worship when we hum –
A diva moving-up the charts,
Who’s number one till kingdom come.

The original statue was sculpted by Phedias in 9563HE.  This replica was designed by Alan LeQuire in 11990, using gypsum cement, fibreglass-infused plaster, and gold leaf (not ivory, like the original, but close enough – and surely Phedias would have loved to have access to these…)  It is, I believe, based on ancient descriptions and other statues, but I’m sure some original interpretation has been included, and quite right too !

The Cherry, Then

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Pai Pai on Pexels.com

The Cherry, Then

Sweet cherry, bird cherry,
British since the glacier –
White of flower, red of berry,
Showing Spring is on the merry
With their blossoms looking very
Much the lacier.

And yet our folklore shrugs and mocks
Our modern-day delight.
Did Stonehenge mark the equinox
As cherry petals blew in flocks ?
Did Boudicca manoeuvre and out-fox
From woods of white ?

Did Patrick banish Irish snakes
From out of trees so halcyon ?
Did Alfred burn the cherry cakes,
Or Sherwood sport such dancing flakes,
Or Shakespeare pine on ruddy aches,
Throughout old Albion ?

The Japanese have celebrated long
The bloom before the leaf,
But Europe only saw a throng
Of messy trees not worth a song.
Was Easter’s shadow just too strong,
Or blossoming too brief ?

There is also talk of a local tradition in the Chilterns of using cherry blossom braches to decorate churches at Easter, though I can’t find any Pre-Victorian sources to indicate how old this is.

So the only legitimate references I can find to cherry blossom (as opposed to the fruit) in British culture is in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale: “As whit as is the blosme vpon the rys.”  ‘Rys’ is a Middle-English word for ‘branch’, so no individual tree is specified – and neither is a particular season in the Tale, not that it would really matter for the metaphor anyway.  But the very first line of the General Prologue mentions April, so the Miller and his audience would have been on their pilgrimage at the perfect time to appreciate any roadside displays.  And what other native British tree has flowers worth a poet’s attention beside the cherry and it’s close relatives like blackthorn or apple ?

Judas Trees

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Iudas Iscarioth by Abraham Bloemaert

     Judas Trees

Judas hanged himself, we’re told,
But from which tree in the potter’s field ?
Some say Elder, pagan and bold,
And some say Cercis bore his yield.
The Elder is likely the tale that’s old,
Though the Bible has the facts concealed.

Cercis may be a later rod,
So did logistics bring its birth ?
For the Elder presence is rather odd,
As a shrub which lacks both height and girth –
So the one who kissed the face of god
Must sway just inches from the earth.

The True Cross

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Tree of Life Cross by Trinity Wood Art

The True Cross

The Romans built their crosses
Out if any local wood –
Roughly sawn and bluntly joined,
They needn’t be too good.
Growing full of nail-holes
And bloodstained, as a rule,
When used and used again, until they rotted,
Then hacked-up for fuel.

If Jesus ever lived, if Jesus died
Upon those wooden piers,
Those planks would carry-on their work,
Outlasting him by years.
Some say cedar, some say cypress,
Relics for a coronation.
All are wrong – the Cross was built
From our imagination.

Fish on Friday

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Anna Kapustina on Pexels.com

     Fish on Friday

The Catholics do it ev’ry Friday,
Or so they often claim,
The Protestants, only during lent,
Attempt to do the same.
While unbelieving heathens such as I
May join-in, if we wish,
But just as an excuse, in the event,
To share some tasty fish.
We only seem to think of it in my day,
Just as Easter comes.
But still, the start of the weekend is well spent
In batter or golden crumbs.

The Witherness of the Fig-Tree

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Icon in the Cathedral of St Andrew, Patras, Greece

The Witherness of the Fig-Tree

Fruit was demanded, out of season,
Before the wasps had arrived.
A prophet cursed you, for no reason,
Except that he was denied.
Why so passive-aggressive that day ?
Why was he out to settle a score ?
Or did he just take your life away,
To be a metaphor ?
Was it power or wine made him drunk ?
Yet, after his magic tricks,
The Romans took your withered trunk
To make them a crucifix.

Righteous & Right

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
The Preacher by Konstantin Makovsky

Righteous & Right

All I ever heard in church was
“God agrees with me”.
How they were right and I was wrong, cos
“God agrees with me”.
No matter what the subject,
What the decade,
What the town –
This world was full of sinners,
And they all were going down !
If only we would listen
To each humble, pious gent –
For only they could understand
What Jesus really meant !
No matter how opposing were their views,
Old God would not refuse –
He’d back them up – he always does –
Their pocket referee.
So all I ever learned it church was
“God agrees with me !”

Missing Those Kissing Toes

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
n654_w1150 by BioDivLibrary is licensed under CC-PDM 1.0

Missing Those Kissing Toes

The tinsel has been strung all week,
The holly wreathed around the door,
The cards bedeck the mantlepiece,
The tree is lit-up like a store.
But if we came inside to peek
On where to kiss – no go, it seems…
The mistletoe has yet to lease
It’s tenure on the ceiling beams.

The trouble is, our hostess speaks,
It dries out quickly in the warm –
And pleasures in the kiss decrease,
She finds, when beauties don’t conform.
For who can peck on rosy cheeks
Beneath such yellow-wilted leaves ?
And so, the gooser of the geese
Won’t dangle down till Christmas Eve.

“It isn’t really quaint and meek,
You know, but a toxic parasite.”
So says my clued-up, teenage niece –
“Infact, just like this kissing blight:
Demanding favours, beak-to-beak,
And women feeling bound to please.
From Pagan Briton, Ancient Greece –
Let’s leave tradition on the trees.”

But we don’t need to be so bleak,
My love, with New Year looming big !
Let’s open up our Winter fleece
And warm our lips beneath the sprig.
But if we came inside to seek
A spot to kiss, we’re out of luck –
The mistletoe, by cruel caprice,
Has not a berry left to pluck…

Yes Virginia, There Is A Conspiracy

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Hallmark Christmas Card by Norman Rockwell

Yes Virginia, There Is A Conspiracy

I know it’s a pretty dream, Virginia,
That an adult might be true,
But they’re lying through their teeth, my dear,
And laughing back at you.
They pat your pretty head, Virginia,
And feed you a fairy tale,
Then chide you when you fib, my dear,
Their hypocrisy’s off-the-scale.
The lesson to remember, kid,
When asking for the gist,
Is to never trust the printed word
Of any journalist.
For ev’rything the adults tell,
Each lesson, tale, or fact,
Is just a product that they sell,
A vast and secret pact.
Virginia, you need to know
The rule they all live by –
To keep hold of the status quo
They’ll lie and lie and lie.
I know it’s a crying shame, Virginia,
That they won’t tell you straight
That Santa Claus is a con, my dear –
For goodness sake – you’re eight !