Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

I could detect an accent that was deeply Slavic in the very last patient I brought back yesterday- an elderly lady who was confined to a wheelchair. I couldn't resist and asked her if she would mind my asking its origin. Turns out, as I suspected, it was Russian.

I asked her if she knew who FyodorTyutchev was and she looked at me with a sort of crazed astonishment- how the hell does this 'kid' know who Tyutchev is? I explained that I discovered his works about five years ago through translations rendered by VladimirNabokov, to which she smiled.

She said to me, “Listen”, and without missing a beat recited one of his poems in its entirety, in Russian!

Люблю грозу в начале мая,
Когда весенний, первый гром,
Как бы резвяся и играя,
Грохочет в небе голубом.

Гремят раскаты молодые!
Вот дождик брызнул, пыль летит…
Повисли перлы дождевые,
И солнце нити золотит…

С горы бежит поток проворный,
В лесу не молкнет птичий гам,
И гам лесной, и шум нагорный —
Все вторит весело громам…

Ты скажешь: ветреная Геба,
Кормя Зевесова орла,
Громокипящий кубок с неба,
Смеясь, на землю пролила!

I looked at her with crazed astonishment! I told her how beautiful her delivery of it was, and she told me that in English the poem is called, Spring Storm (ВЕСЕННЯЯ ГРОЗА). I've read it, and Nabokov translation of it is gorgeous- I couldn't imagine how much better it must be in its native language.

With that said, and considering that on this very day in 1803 our poet, Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, was born, I thought it would be awesome to post this poem as a tribute to his legacy and contribution to Russian literature and the realm of poetry itself. Happy birthday, Tyutchev.


Spring Storm

I love a storm in early May
When springtime's boisterous, firstborn thunder
Over the sky will gaily wander
And growl and roar as though in play.

A peal, another - gleeful, cheering...
Rain, raindust... On the trees, behold!-
The drops hang, each a long pearl earring;
Bright sunshine paints the thin threads gold.

A stream downhill goes rushing reckless,
And in the woods the birds rejoice.
Din. Clamour. Noise. All nature echoes
The thunder's youthful, merry voice.

You'll say: 'Tis laughing, carefree Hebe -
She fed her father's eagle, and
The Storm Cup brimming with a seething
And bubbling wine dropped from her hand. 

 

Rainfall

I woke up early this morning to the tranquil, multiple tapping of raindrops against my window. I was reluctant to get up (I love sleeping to the sound of rain), but I had to memorialize the moment with a single quatrain, so I got up briefly and wrote this:

Morning Rain 

The morning rainfall’s gentle sleeting
Slipped into my gentle dreaming
Her rhythms in my dreams were beating

Gentle tunes that were redeeming

-jwm

Bless the Rain

The rain was awful yesterday
Or so I heard some lady say
That struck me, and with deep surprise
Since we depend on all that gray

By rain the maple trees arise
Their thick blue roots absorb those skies
And we, as she, are bless as they
To curse that weather ... never wise 

-jwm

Of the Poem (Parameters and a Brief Note):

Stanza: Quatrain, Rubaiyat
Meter: Tetrameter
Rhyme Scheme: aaba bbcb 

The poem was done in tetrameter (i.e. eight syllables per line). What I like most about the poem’s s structure is that the stanza employed is a Rubaiyat stanza- the rhyme scheme being aaba bbcb (where the ‘b’ of the first stanza becomes the dominate rhyme of the second). It’s a fun form to play around with.

Hey, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed it.

On the Rains of June 11th & 12th, 2010

He Reigns

Like cascades pure in silver stream
The rain is falling like a dream-
It glistens through the street light’s glow,
And blissful flows in single seam.

And here I stand a soul below
Enjoying what may soon be snow-
A watcher of these marvels, see,
A spectator of nature’s show.

I do adore this lifted sea
Whose plenum gray move placidly
Across the sky where rains are poured,
And nebulous hangs over me.

Thank you for their tender chord
And for the peace that it restored-
For all this mist and lovely gleam,
It testifies of you, O Lord.

These cascades pure in silver stream
Are pure arcana- not a dream …

-jwm



Of the Poem (Catalysis and Parameters)

Catalysis:

I stood there under an old carport last night- it was raining and I was utterly mystified by the sparkling amber hues it produced through the streetlight above me. It was past midnight, but an urge to resist sleep and watch rain lead me outside.

I remembered what William Wordsworth once wrote:

Earth hath not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty

It was beautiful, peaceful. The loamy smell that permeated everything earlier in the day was now vaguely tangible- but a deep sense of serenity lingered on in the air, and all I could think about was my daughter and God, and how thankful- wretched as I am- of every wonderful thing I’ve been given.

I reluctantly tore myself away from the bliss of it all-I had to sleep. But once inside and finding my way to the couch, I cracked the window open to hear it rain, turned on the laptop, and began to compose.

Poetic Parameters:

Stanza: four quatrains and a closing couplet
Meter: tetrameter (e.g. four metric feet, or eight syllables per line)
Rhyme Scheme: aaba bbcb ccac aa (using the closing couplet as an oblique refrain for lines 1 and 2)

Note:

The poem’s overall structure was inspired by Robert Frost's poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (a poem whose style was in turn modeled on an even older form known as a Rubaiyat stanza).

I found an incredible similarity of events between Frost’s poem and my experience of the rain last night- a deep desire to behold nature in her beauty, and a reluctance to leave it. The structure of his poem therefore influenced that of mine.

Hope you enjoy it.

Colorado Reigns

It's raining in Colorado today, and it's utterly mystifying. Her gray skies can hardly produce a feeling of depression in me. In fact, the depth of my rapture before her raining skies can't be articulated, and it chases away every notion or prospect of gloom. Rain is, without qualification, my favorite weather of all- world without end ...


Their Version:

Rain, rain, go away
Come again some other day
We want to go outside and play
Come again some other day

My Version:

Rain, rain, come my way
Saturate this sunny day
Mystic is thy color gray
Saturate this sunny day

My Lovely Jean

I smell the cold in the rain.
It touches me through the screen
And weeps for my gain:
Its nemesis, my lovely Jean.

I found her beauty in the blue
Beyond the loamy medium,
Far beyond the multi-hue,
And further still from all this tedium.
Through it she pulled me to her heart,
And all that I called ‘I’ repined-
Since now its world was torn apart
By Love that pulled me from its bind.

Now pain sleeps in the silhouettes-
In clouded blues above and bold-
And thunders down on Jean its threats,
While shedding tears that smell of cold.

-jwm



Of the Poem:

The idea was to represent redemptive love mythologically. The story is of a person pulled into the heart of the highest heavens and, leaving the viler aspects of nature behind in the clouds, is made one with heavenly Love.

The darker aspect of the poem is Pain (in many ways one's former love), of which the raining sky and those thunderclouds represent.


I chose only to follow a rhyme scheme (there's no intentional meter).