Is today’s National Poetry Month entry a
poem? Well, yes. I mean, it rhymes, like that
Mother Goose stuff.
And, like the Korean Sijo that I shared
with you on Saturday, the images just flow from line to line. If you wanted
to, you could probably keep going on and on.
Until the last line, of course. That one’s
kind of final.
“Man of Double Deed”
There was a man of double deed,
Who sowed his garden full of seed.
When the seed began to grow,
Twas like a garden full of snow,
When the snow began to fall,
Like birds it was upon the wall.
When the birds began to fly,
Twas like a shipwreck in the sky.
And when the sky began to crack,
Twas like a stick upon my back.
And when my back began to smart,
Twas like a penknife in my heart,
And when my heart began to bleed,
Then I was dead and dead indeed.
But I asked the question because I first knew
this as a song, a children’s nonsense song. And of course I heard it from the
Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. There’s no way I can ever come across this in
a collection of poems, or on a website, and not hear them starting out with the
single voice, and layering on harmony after harmony, giving depth and substance
to it.
Well, in fact, I don’t really know whether I
noticed the transitions in the middle, because I got so wrapped up in the
beauty of the song. I was a kid, after all.
(I could never figure out why you’d want to
sing a song to your child about sticking penknives in your heart. But then,
there’s that whole bough-breaking and baby-falling schtick in lullabies, so
whatever.)
If you'd like the Clancy experience, here they are singing it at the
Newport Folk Festival—so long ago it was shot on film; black-and-white film.
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