Goddess River
Sep. 7th, 2005 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloGODDESS RIVER
A man wrapped in a woollen cloak,
Ringing a bell- I conjured him up
One afternoon on L.S.D.
Out of the chiming of a brook
And memories of The Black Arrow.
Probably the man's a leper,
Certainly he's wise and old-
The hermit of the Tarot pack
Or Bosch's quiet St Antony-
A lover of the wilderness.
Now, when I walk by any stream
He's with me. He knows Medlock well-
Dear Goddess river- from her birth
In swampy fields at Bishops' Park
Down to her losing of herself
In Manchester below the bluff
The Romans called Mamucium-
Mammary Hill. I've heard his bell
In rocky cloughs and beech tree rides
And by the banks of stinking garlic
Where the arch of an aqueduct-
Raw enough to be Roman work-
Spans the river bed. A skein
Of water from an overflow
Mizzles down from above the keystone
Fifty foot and hits the stream
As though a giantess were pissing.
That's a place I like to linger,
Sitting on a smooth grey rock,
Watching clumps of foam revolve,
Hearing the bell. No rattle's like
That bell for scaring demons off.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 03:59 am (UTC)So you have found a wise old man who hangs around rivers ringing bells. Your orb and sunburst are perfect companions to this lovely parallel universe you've found.
How I envy you those places to explore!
Our "oldest things" are Indian arrowheads left from the Woodland Indians who first settled this region, long before the Cherokee did.
I'd much prefer finding some Roman glass or a nice aquaduct.
(I have heard that archeologists digging in the area of the ancient Babylonians have found evidence--this is from twenty years ago or so--of arches being built there, predating the Romans! I heard a presentation about this excavation at the Laboratory.)
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 04:36 am (UTC)The bridge carried one of the canals that made the industrial revolution possible. Cotton was imported from the Southern States into Liverpool and Salford docks, taken up into the hills by canal boat to be processed and then floated back to the ports to be exported world-wide.
There's a lot of industrial archaeology along the Medlock valley. 18th and 19th century ruins as romantic and impressive as anything the Romans left behind.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 04:44 am (UTC)Oh, I can probably find it with Google, but I'd rather have my own slant on it--more fun.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 04:51 am (UTC)When I was in Kentucky I visited the abandoned Shaker village at Pleasant Hill. Very pretty.
Mother Ann Lee- the Shaker Prophetess- was a Manchester lass. So many links between here and there!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 04:56 am (UTC)I'm still enjoying your poem in my head.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 05:07 am (UTC)This was over 20 years ago, of course......
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 05:30 am (UTC)And that is all I know about Shakers.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 05:49 am (UTC)Tis a gift to be free,
Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be."
They used to dance and sing and "shake" as a way of worshipping God. They practised sexual equality, but also celibacy- which is why, rather sadly, they have died out.
They were a good thing. A Protestant monastic movement.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 06:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 07:01 am (UTC)The Last Shaker--sounds like a novel.
(But I always think of salt-shakers when I hear about these people...)
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 08:28 am (UTC)Last time I checked they had been reduced to two very old ladies.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 07:04 am (UTC)"Aimee Semple MacPherson was a popular revival preacher and faith healer who brought her ministry to Los Angeles in 1923. From her church in Echo Park, she broadcast her services across the country - a precursor to the modern televangelists. In 1926, she disappeared while swimming at Venice Beach. Police were baffled, and huge rewards were offered for clues of her whereabouts. Thirty two days later, she came out of the Arizona desert, claiming to have been kidnapped and held hostage for a month before finally managing to escape. There had indeed been a plot to kidnap MacPherson uncovered in 1925, but many elements of her story did not seem to fit. While MacPherson had disappeared from a beach while clad in a swimsuit, she emerged from the desert fully clothed right down to her old-fashioned corset. The LA district attorney had several witnesses who claimed they had seen MacPherson in local hotels with Kenneth Ormiston, a technician for her church's radio broadcasts. MacPherson stuck to her story, and she was acquitted of perjury. Her popularity suffered no decline, although rumors persisted that she had gone to Mexico for an abortion, or to recover from plastic surgery."
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 08:35 am (UTC)When she was eventually found- staying in a spa hotel in Yorkshire- she claimed she had suffered from a fit of amnesia.
She never explained herself, but she most probably did it to worry her unfaithful husband.
The name she used to check into the hotel was that of her husband's mistress.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 08:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 08:40 am (UTC)But I'm really pleased to hear that there are still some of them left.
I admire the Shakers- lovely gentle people and so creative with it.