Monday
Classes are canceled again for the second day in the row as we, along with the rest of the East Coast, have been pounded by Blizzard Jonas. Actually, in southern Maryland we got off easy: we only had ten inches. I therefore send out this Ezra Pound to those who took the full brunt of the storm.
Pound is parodying the light-heart medieval poem “Cuckoo’s Song” (“Sumer is icumen in”). No singing cuckoos, bleating lambs, lowing cattle, or farting goats in this one, however. Think rather of downed power lines, smashed fenders, and flooded basements.
Sing: goddamn!
Ancient Music
By Ezra Pound
Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
Ah, poetry—it expresses what otherwise we would have difficulty articulating.
