This continuing dismal weather – five weeks of spring and early summer so far wet wet wet and miserably cold – has got me wondering again about the meaning of this arcane and somewhat dodgy piece of advice.

For example: does the ‘may’ in the rhyme refer to the month of May? That’s usually the preferred interpretation, but it doesn’t make the best sense. And if you go with that, is the recommendation that you shouldn’t cast a clout until the month of May is ‘out’ – that is, over? So, for just one e.g., you shouldn’t get your winter coats dry-cleaned until the end of May. In most years, that would be somewhat over-cautious. (Today I’m slightly regretting having done exactly that, in a burst of foolish impulsiveness.)

Or does ‘may’ refer to blossom on the May tree? So, the rhyme is suggesting, when the blossom comes out, you can cast a clout or two? Get your winter coat dry-cleaned? Sort out that shelf of summer clothes?

I’ve always gone for the second interpretation because it seems to make better sense – especially of the word “out”. (And yes, I do realise that it might only be there to effect a rhyme with “clout”, but then again, why choose “clout” at all? Why not try for something more dramatic: maybe “Ne’er cast a jumper/Till may be asunder.”) And by the time the blossom on the May trees has opened, presumably the temperatures have warmed up sufficiently to justify taking off the odd layer.

Yes?

Well, here’s the present problem. The May trees on Primrose Hill are showing definite signs of opening blossom but it’s still much too cold to cast off sweaters, or finally – finally! – to sort out your summer clothes, let alone put them on. It’s cold. And rainy. And downright dismal.

But take a look at this:

And a close-up of another one:

It’s possible that pink May blossom comes out with less regard for the weather than the traditional white blossom. But even so …

Red; it’s overrated. See that token
red on a single stem, that
redness of me waiting like a pillar box.
Red’s too easy.

Blue is foolish.
Blueness; I can dive right into it. Yes,
blue’s an invite; it’s the touch of tiles in a pool.
Blue. Don’t do it.

Yellow’s hell. Avoid it.
Yellowness is madness.
Yellow. Break it down and it’s the sound it makes.
Yellow. I won’t enter it.

Greenness; it isn’t me.
Green is somebody else’s smell and
green’s their home, fingers, mould.
Green grows. Best keep away from it.

White? Now, that’s more like it.
White’s an absence. It’s nothing and all I ever wanted.
Whiteness, pure and sweet as a fantasy.
White. I can almost taste it.

I posted a poem by Rachel last June: ‘The Language of Cat’ from her collection of poetry for children with the same name. This poem, ‘Nothing’, has been selected for an anthology of poems for adults: ‘Languages of Colour’, published next month by the Frogmore Press. So it turns out that Rachel is fluent in colour as well as cat.

And while we’re talking poetry, why don’t you look at what the other Tuesday Poets are offering: if one of the posts on the sidebar mentions a Tuesday Poem you can be sure there’s a poem in there somewhere. The Tuesday Poets have just celebrated their second anniversary in cyberspace by writing another ‘group’ poem. Each member of the group added a line every 12 hours or so, for about 14 days. You can still see the terrific result at the Hub by scrolling down the main section. (Oh go on, have a look: we’re very proud of it!)

This characterisation of humans as strictly controlled, temporary incomers gives me enormous pleasure, and I believe it’s these restrictions that give the Ness its own distinctive character. That stretch of shingle has a particular and unusual beauty that I find both moving and inspirational. The loveliness is more than the sum of its parts, although each of the parts is so individually beautiful, and so intensely ‘other’, that it takes your breath away.  And although this was my third visit in recent years no memory quite prepared me for the feral joy of its diversity: the reed beds thrumming with wind and bird song, the rolling marshland where larks and swans nest, the harsh salt marshes where this time we glimpsed not only hares but also one of the rare water deer, and the steeply shelved shingle beach where just about every single one of the thousands of pebbles seems a distinctive and natural work of art worth individual attention.

Orford Ness has a long history of supporting secrecy. In the 13th century it protected the port of Orford from surprise attack, but more recently, and most notoriously, it was used for a sequence of top-secret military research and development programs during the 20th century. It was finally bought by the National Trust in 1993, and the Trust aims to preserve past evidence of the site’s use while also allowing natural process to run their course – which means the slow decay of the remaining military buildings and leftover junk. Some visitors, I’m told, complain about “the mess” of decay and rust: I love it.

We saw: a barn owl, oyster catchers, lots of gulls (I’m no good at identifying one gull from another, but some were black-head gulls and others might have been skuas), larks, swans, redshanks, shelduck, cormorants and a skein of geese in the sky. We also saw hares and a water deer. I heard, I’m sure, a cuckoo – but the call was coming from the mainland and not actually on the Ness itself.

This is a water deer, but not my photo.

The only wildlife I managed to photograph was this caterpillar.

And I was struck by an incident I witnessed on Orford Quay, waiting for the boat. Two tourists had driven on to the Quay and parked their car, despite notices that ask you not to do that (there’s a visitors’ car park close by, and the working fishermen own the parking spots on the Quay). One of the fishermen prepping his boat asked them to move, and when they argued he patiently explained the rules. And after he finally won the day, and the visitors had grumped off to move their car, one of the fisherman’s friends grinned at him and said, “And so the season begins.” You have to wonder if that sentiment is shared by the Ness wildlife.

And here they are up close so you can see just how many flowers are flowering. People say that if you plant them in the autumn you don’t get blackfly: I’m not sure. Not yet.

And – trumpet roll – here is the very first potato plant to poke its little nose above ground. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the Red Duke of Yorks – we planted them last year and they were a great success, so they’re one of the varieties of earlies we chose for this year. They only went in on 25th March.

And just for a change, I thought I’d also take a photo of this – it’s a very beautiful installation of a support structure. I could imagine seeing it in the Hayward.

We planted some more chard yesterday; we’re eating last year’s right now because it’s sprung back up in prolific style. And I’ve got out the packets of runner beans and squash seeds …

Gardens are lovely, especially in spring when they explode with promise and beauty. We have bees, we have blossom, we have bursts of rain and bursts of sunshine, and a general lifting of hearts and spirits. This is what Robert Bridges said in April, 1885, which is also the title of his poem.

April 1885

Wanton with long delay the gay spring leaping cometh;

The blackthorn starreth now his bough on the eve of May:

All day in the sweet box-tree the bee for pleasure hummeth:

The cuckoo sends afloat his note on the air all day.

Now dewy nights again and rain in gentle shower

At root of tree and flower have quenched the winter’s drouth:

On high the hot sun smiles, and banks of cloud uptower

In bulging heads that crowd for miles the dazzling south.

Robert Bridges, The Shorter Poems (1891).

Anne Tyler is presently – and unusually – in England; as far as I know she seldom travels far from Baltimore. She gave a talk at the Oxford Literary Festival yesterday and that’s utterly unusual; almost unknown. Anne Tyler never attends conferences or festivals. She never gives talks. As far as I know she’s given only two interviews in her entire working life. In the second, given recently to National Public Radio in America, she said: “I did do one [a face to face broadcast interview] about 35 years ago. I don’t have that much to say, so I figure about every 35 years will do, right?”

Well, Ms Tyler, I wouldn’t say ‘right’ but I would say, ‘better than nothing’. I couldn’t go to the Oxford Festival to hear her speak but a dear friend went and promises to give me a complete, in-depth and definitive account including hand gestures and a note about handbags, if any: meantime he says this: “You simply have to know, right here and now, that Anne Tyler has two poems on the walls of her study: ‘Walking To Sleep’ by Richard Wilbur. And an Updike poem about writing a novel.”

If anyone reading this loves Anne Tyler’s work as much as I do, and is waiting as impatiently for the release of her new novel (‘The Beginner’s Goodbye’, published in the UK tomorrow) then you might be interested in the NPR interview.

And those poems on her study wall? Well, I can’t give you the whole of Richard Wilbur’s poem because I haven’t had time to seek his permission, but it’s a magnificent poem and especially wonderful for a writer’s wall. So here are the first few lines, and a link to the rest of it on the web.

Walking to Sleep
by Richard Wilbur

As a queen sits down, knowing that a chair will be there,
Or a general raises his hand and is given the
field-glasses,
Step off assuredly into the blank of your mind.
Something will come to you. Although at first
You nod through nothing like a fogbound prow,
Gravel will breed in the margins of your gaze,
Perhaps with tussocks or a dusty flower,
And, humped like dolphins playing in the bow-wave,
Hills will suggest themselves. All such suggestions
Are yours to take or leave, but hear this warning:
Let them not be too velvet green, the fields
Which the deft needle of your eye appoints,
Nor the old farm past which you make your way
Too shady-linteled, too instinct with home.

And the John Updike poem? I have, I think, all his published poetry, so unless he wrote it privately for Ms Tyler, and nothing would surprise me there, I ought to be able to track it down. That rustling noise you can hear is me skimming the pages of John Updike’s poetry collections. Watch this space.

And while you’re waiting you might like to check out the rest of the Tuesday Poems this week (lots of them will be up already – it’s run from New Zealand where it’s already been Tuesday for five hours). And the Tuesday Poem community are embarking on another communal poem to celebrate the site’s second birthday, and members have been assigned rostered lines to write and post – roughly one every 12 hours. You can watch it grow!

What Kind of Times Are These
by Adrienne Rich

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass
grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.

And the painting is David Hockney’s, from the life-enhancingly joyous exhibition presently on at the Royal Academy.

I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping the blog up very well recently: I’ve just had two more (five in all!) eye operations and they’ve been a tad distracting. But feel tons better now, and I even got enough of my act together to sort through a file drawer in my study this last weekend. That’s not a job I seek or welcome, so I usually wait until I can’t stuff even one more piece of paper into any of the files before I sit down with an enormous recycling bag to one side, and the shredder to the other. That stage – the not being able to cram in one more piece of paper – had, inarguably, been reached. I couldn’t put it off any longer.

Once I start, though, I rather enjoy the surprises and recollections as I sift through everything. Bank and credit card statements are the easy sort: everything before a certain date can be transferred to storage cases and labelled for relocation to the garage shelves where they can be forgotten for a few more years. But most of the other files carry emotional baggage, which is – duh! – why I’ve saved them in the first place. Sweet letters from dear departed friends; different translations of Cavafy’s Ithaca poem; cards from little restaurants in Venice and obscure Umbrian towns; and, I’m delighted to discover, the only known extant copy of the ‘Walking & Biking Guide to Historic Key West’.

So the sorting process brought lots of memories back – for things or people I’d more or less forgotten since the last time I looked. There are papers I can toss without a second thought, but lots of others I can’t bear to lose, even though I won’t look at them again for ages, and by the time I do I’ll probably be as surprised and delighted by their existence as I was yesterday. It’s uncomfortably like the old, cruel dementia joke: that the advantage of losing your short-term memory is that you can hide your own Easter eggs.

But the whole process reminded me of two wonderful poems about memory. Billy Collins’ ‘Forgetfulness’ has amused and moved me in just about equal measures since I first encountered it, and Kay Ryan’s ‘A hundred bolts of satin’ is a new discovery, and somewhat harsher in affect but equally remarkable.

Here they are. See which one resonates for you more closely.

FORGETFULNESS by Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

A HUNDRED BOLTS OF SATIN by Kay Ryan

All you
have to lose
is one
connection
and the mind
uncouples
all the way back.
It seems
to have been
a train.
There seems
to have been
a track.
The things
that you
unpack
from the
abandoned cars
cannot sustain
life: a crate of
tractor axles,
for example,
a dozen dozen
clasp knives,
a hundred
bolts of satin—
perhaps you
specialized
more than
you imagined.

And if you can’t see it well enough to read just click on it – that’s how you get there.

To my considerable delight I’ve just discovered that there’s a Rothko show on at the Whitechapel gallery, and we can go there on Sunday – the last day of the show. I don’t know how I missed knowing it was on when it opened last September, but I am very glad I’ll get in under the wire at the last possible chance.

There’s just a single work of art in the ‘Rothko in Britain’ exhibition. Since I think Rothko is the god of modern art I’d travel a lot further than Whitechapel for just one of his paintings, but in fact this one has been lent by the Tate so I’ve probably seen it before: Light Red Over Black, painted in 1957. There is also a sequence of photos of the visitors to Rothko’s first solo exhibition in Britain (1961, also at the Whitechapel), photos of Rothko during his visit to Britain in 1959, and a page or two from some notes taken in conversation with him then, including this famous quote:

“You think my paintings are calm, like windows in some cathedral?” Rothko supposedly said. “You should look again. I’m the most violent of all the American painters. Behind those colours there hides the final cataclysm.”

A review of the exhibition by Alistair Sooke says, “Renaissance man had altarpieces; we get the shimmering, hazy half-promises of Rothko.” But the thing is, we get both at once with Rothko – or we do if we visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston: now there’s a fine example of ‘worth the journey’. And Alex Danchev, in a review of a Cezanne exhibition, made a telling distinction about modern artists: between those who say, “look at me” and those who say, “here it is”. Rothko’s very firmly in the latter group, I believe, and saying something like, “here it is, if you can bear it.”

Masefield turns out, with the help of Wikipedia, to be a very interesting person – and unsurprisingly he worked as a sailor, including on one of the last of the commercial windjammers. ‘Sea Fever’ was published when he was 24.

Sea-Fever
by John Masefield

(1878-1967; English Poet Laureate 1930-1967.)

I must down to the seas again, to the
lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star
to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face,
and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call
of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the
vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way
where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from
a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick’s over.

And here’s a link to the late great Thomas Allen singing the version set to music. (Maybe 2012 is the year in which I finally learn how to embed YouTube links?) And while I’m talking poetry why don’t you look at what the other Tuesday Poets are offering: if one of the posts on the sidebar mentions a Tuesday Poem you can be sure there’s a poem in there somewhere.