Xanadu
It never occurred to me that Russia’s war on the Ukraine would last six months, much less a year. At more than 375 days, and with Bakhmut seemingly about to fall, it is looking more and more as if, without NATO forces joining the battle, Ukraine will never become absolutely victorious as they so richly deserve. Spearheaded by the USA, the EU and the UK, through rhetoric and donations of cash and weapons, NATO does seem to be edging in that direction.
NATO stands united. Always. It’s their strength. When they engage, all countries participate, meaning troops, munitions, tanks, boats, planes, and drones - full battle support - from each one of:
Albania
Belgium
Bulgaria
Canada
Croatia
Czechia
Denmark
Estonia
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Montenegro
Netherlands
North Macedonia
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Türkiye
United Kingdom
United States
Versus how many nations? Russia, for sure. China? North Korea? Iran? Iraq? How many more? That would most definitely be the onset of World War III. Are we ready for that? Can we afford to not be ready for that? Without NATO support, how on earth does this war end? Truly, it’s more than my wee brain can handle so I take counteractive measures by running away to the countryside.
Xanadu
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan… So begins Mr. Coleridge’s legendary poem which, by his own admission, was imagined and composed while he was stoned, during and after an opium high he experienced. Still, I love the result! Mr. Coleridge was reluctant to publish this work but, according to letters and journals, we’ve Lord Byron to thank for convincing his friend otherwise. The full text is copied at the end of this post - enjoy!
The opening lines of the poem describe Kubla Khan's idyll (pleasure dome) built alongside a sacred river. Exactly my experience in Chatham last Wednesday. Won’t you please join me at my very own Xanadu, down by the Thames River, where spring came long before its official arrival.
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, spring 2023 officially begins on Monday, 20th March but le joyeux printemps is already trickling north. On Wednesday it felt, looked and smelled like early spring! It was one of those all-too-rare March days when the sun blazes warmly and the breeze wafts gently, the type of day when I love to throw open all the doors and windows. Definitely a lamb year!
More than is usual for me (and I always cherish its arrival), I don’t want to miss a moment of spring this year. Between purging, packing and house hunting - preparatory to our move to Kingsville - I can barely even remember last spring so this year I find myself very mindful of the change of seasons.
Here in Ontario, many’s a time when winter storms attack us well into April even, in 2021, into the first week of May, after the golf course had opened. I mostly hibernate my winter months away, but come that first sunny, balmy day, I cannot resist the outdoors and the ecstasy of sudden, faux-spring. Wednesday was exactly such a day and I found myself in Chatham, beside the Thames River.
On this glorious spring morning the air was sweetly fresh, golden-green new shoots were poking out of the ground, the river was as smooth as glass and, trapped in the shillets on its banks, hundreds of small pools left by the receding water. Even the lightest tread of my foot on the rivage drew water and mud, as high as my ankles. Yes, I returned home a muddy, smelly mess but happily so because, as the divine Margaret Atwood wrote, In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. And I did!
Even though I could not see much wildlife, the Starlings have all returned and they were as noisy and busy as can be. There were two ducks, thoroughly enjoying the serene water.
Ducks, Geese, Starlings, Crows, Blue Jays and Cardinals - all performers in the Thames River Pageant. After I’d settled on a fallen tree for a bit, the avian cast reappeared and their chorus rose to a crescendo. The return of the birds is always one of the first signs that spring is about to emerge. Life on the river bank calmly and majestically passes through one season after another, each one creating beautiful tableaux and on Wednesday the early spring scene that greeted me was spectacularly lovely.
March 2023 arrived in Essex County like a gentle wee lamb. Even so, we’re hoping like mad that the worst of the winter weather is behind us, and that the proverbial lion has taken a vacation this year. Wednesday was a perfect spring day - a prophecy, maybe? I hope so! Happily wandering aimlessly and undisturbed along the river, and with the sun shining warmly, the soft spring breeze teasing my hair, a bounce in my step and joy in my heart, the world's problems couldn't possibly have seemed further away.
Xanadu worked its magic on me!
’Til next time, y’all…
Shillet = shale. Shillets are flat stones made from the shale of the river bed, that have been washed onto the banks by the high water of the spring melt and runoff.
Kubla Khan
(Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.)
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge