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Moth: I gave you my life.
Flame: I allowed you to kiss me.
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http://www.techofheart.co/2008/07/moth- ... aphor.html
THE 5th OF NOVEMBER
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Redbeck
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Re: THE 5th OF NOVEMBER
Agh /x/ November the 5th is so long gone, I almost feel ashamed to be hanging up these late trimmings.
Before, I reveal the poetic gems I have uncovered concerning moths and burning candles, I feel obliged to spray a little knowledge, like some intellectual tom cat on his territorial rounds, regarding another kind of burning associated with the 5th of November, the humble bonfire, whose origins are different to what we might think.
Bone fire. A fire lit with bones instead of wood, so that when livestock were driven between two fires fuelled in this manner, the acrid smoke drove off parasites and from which the English word bonfire is derived. A 16th-century, in other words when William Shakespeare was at the peak of his playwriting, Middle English word banefire which originally concerned a fire where bones were burned.
Indeed, the Irish language word for the English word bonfire is in fact two words “tine chnámh” literally translating back into English as “fire of bones”. In Ireland the the ashes were taken the following morning and symbolically spread on the land for the fruitfulness of crops. Although, Bonfire Night in Ireland takes place on St John’s Eve, or June 23rd rather than the 5th of November, every year and mainly in the west of Ireland.
Redbeck
The Moth To The Flame
- Poem by David Thomas
glitter into the night
full of nothing good, nothing right
and settle on the light bulb
dully flickering above the burning
crackling fire,
your ancestors died here
as will you most likely,
yet here you sit gazing
wildly at the open flame
does this mesmerize you?
does this enrapture your soul?
oh dear moth,
you are nothing but a creature on which we step
but this flame
this flame that you are so adorned to,
does it make you jealous?
of how easily we may summon it
and of what raw complexity it contains?
you sit there wildly gazing
at the big hot open flame,
the sounds of rain clouds forming
and the darkness comes again.
The moths and the flame
by Farid ud-Din Attar
(English version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis)
Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle light,
And they decided one of them should go
To gather news of the elusive glow.
One flew till in the distance he discerned
A palace window where a candle burned —
And went no nearer: back again he flew
To tell the others what he thought he knew.
The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,
Remarking: “He knows nothing of the flame.”
A moth more eager than the one before
Set out and passed beyond the palace door.
He hovered in the aura of the fire,
A trembling blur of timorous desire,
Then headed back to say how far he’d been,
And how much he had undergone and seen.
The mentor said: “You do not bear the signs
Of one who’s fathomed how the candle shines.”
Another moth flew out — his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both self and fire were mingled by his dance —
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head,
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,
The moth’s form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: “He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak.”
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
Will drag you back and plunge you in despair —
No creature’s self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.
Before, I reveal the poetic gems I have uncovered concerning moths and burning candles, I feel obliged to spray a little knowledge, like some intellectual tom cat on his territorial rounds, regarding another kind of burning associated with the 5th of November, the humble bonfire, whose origins are different to what we might think.
Bone fire. A fire lit with bones instead of wood, so that when livestock were driven between two fires fuelled in this manner, the acrid smoke drove off parasites and from which the English word bonfire is derived. A 16th-century, in other words when William Shakespeare was at the peak of his playwriting, Middle English word banefire which originally concerned a fire where bones were burned.
Indeed, the Irish language word for the English word bonfire is in fact two words “tine chnámh” literally translating back into English as “fire of bones”. In Ireland the the ashes were taken the following morning and symbolically spread on the land for the fruitfulness of crops. Although, Bonfire Night in Ireland takes place on St John’s Eve, or June 23rd rather than the 5th of November, every year and mainly in the west of Ireland.
Redbeck
The Moth To The Flame
- Poem by David Thomas
glitter into the night
full of nothing good, nothing right
and settle on the light bulb
dully flickering above the burning
crackling fire,
your ancestors died here
as will you most likely,
yet here you sit gazing
wildly at the open flame
does this mesmerize you?
does this enrapture your soul?
oh dear moth,
you are nothing but a creature on which we step
but this flame
this flame that you are so adorned to,
does it make you jealous?
of how easily we may summon it
and of what raw complexity it contains?
you sit there wildly gazing
at the big hot open flame,
the sounds of rain clouds forming
and the darkness comes again.
The moths and the flame
by Farid ud-Din Attar
(English version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis)
Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle light,
And they decided one of them should go
To gather news of the elusive glow.
One flew till in the distance he discerned
A palace window where a candle burned —
And went no nearer: back again he flew
To tell the others what he thought he knew.
The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,
Remarking: “He knows nothing of the flame.”
A moth more eager than the one before
Set out and passed beyond the palace door.
He hovered in the aura of the fire,
A trembling blur of timorous desire,
Then headed back to say how far he’d been,
And how much he had undergone and seen.
The mentor said: “You do not bear the signs
Of one who’s fathomed how the candle shines.”
Another moth flew out — his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both self and fire were mingled by his dance —
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head,
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,
The moth’s form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: “He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak.”
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
Will drag you back and plunge you in despair —
No creature’s self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.
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Koguntetsu
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