FEAR BROUGHT ME THIS FAR

Ode #21 - Transcribed Poetic Dictation, Nuthatched Ode

[I am all array in the aftermath of this year’s holidaze. I come to you bewildered, as I often do. Finding myself again and again. As it had been some time since the last ode came through, I wondered if something might be offered on the eve of this solar year’s turning. The 21st Ode, bringing us an antlerless wonder-hind. Head bowed, the fairy tale of Magyarország, where the humble shepherd boy plays the branch flute made of beautiful Princess Hajnalka, transformed into a willow tree by the ploy of her sister Princess Rósza. The playing of this flute before the King and Queen of Sunland undoes the curse and Hajnalka appears before the assembly radiant. She is embraced with tears of joy by her parents and by the low-born shepherd boy. This boy then becomes her lover prince. A few years later, when the aged King and Queen peacefully passed away, the princess and her shepherd boy reigned long and happily as the new Queen and King of Sunland, and a new era dawned for all who lived there~ ] Received 12/31/2025 | 4:14-37pm

Companion Missive #21 - SOME ANTICS SEMANTICS (10/3/2023)

Listen to the Recitation:

FEAR BROUGHT ME THIS FAR
To an endless shore, shaking
In the bitter cold sweetness
I notice where I am
Hearing the hermit thrush
I pause to wonder what
This is all leading to, where
This is all about, why
The cat yowls in the night
As if someone or something
Was listening, in the recess
That faint sense palls
Covering the chalice
Blood thickens in spirit
The glowing antlers shed
Revealing bare-headed hind
No less mystical, though the stars
Become one, upon the crest
And the head bows down to snow
Dust in its wake, the will
Singes a startling, strafed
Nuthatch jamming seeds into bark
Crevixes, hammered open
Short tails and large heads
Loud, simple calls
We call simply to one another
In the quiet still of day
Blanketed sheer, shearing wheat
White-breasted with a black eye stripe
Who stole the song from the eagle?
From the turkey vulture? The falcon?
Or the thrush? Olive-backed
Salmonberry bird, smaller
Than the mighty, far
Earning themselves a trill
Of willow flute, the tune
Of a lost basket of strawberries
Gathered by three sisters:
The Orange and the Citron Princess;
Boys with the Golden Stars;
Tündérek in cypress are felled
Burned, and the servant sees
Her reflection in the smoke
The well beside the willow tree
Hides the girl cursed as a fish
A young boy carves flute from branch
And plays her voice to the king
Return to the site of betrayal
And rebirth the young one
To renew the kingdom, go
Shaking if you must. Yes,
It was fear that brought me this far:
Do not leave it behind.

---

Helene Schjerfbeck, The Convalescent (1888)

Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka, Magányos cédrus “Lonely Cedar” (1907) — one of my favorite new discoveries, CSKT (Csontváry Kosztka Tivadar) is remembered as the “Mad Painter” of Hungary. That magic Slovak-German side of Magyar, alike to my Slovak-German Magyar side of the ancestral tree. CSKT’s depiction of cedars and other trees is always striking, conjuring up our lineage’s iconography of the égig érő fa and életfa, világfa — the sky-high world tree of life; lonely as it is proud and magnificent, the stable foundation and source and wellspring upon which life grows~

Csontváry Kosztka Tivadar, Mária kútja Názáretben “Maria’s Well in Nazareth” (1908)

Csontváry Kosztka Tivadar, Ruins of the Greek Theatre at Taormina (1905)

     The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
         they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
     planted in the house of the Lord,
         they will flourish in the courts of our God.
     They will still bear fruit in old age,
         they will stay fresh and green,
     proclaiming, “The Lord is upright..

                                         ~ Psalm 92:12-15