Art Kumbalek Valentine heart
I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, my flabber has been gasted that I have yet to hear that our President Humpty Dumbty Trumpel-thinksin claim that tear gas is a surefire cure for this cofveve-COVID schmutz that seems to be making the rounds for a while now, what the fock. Seems to me that our amply derrièred fockstick-in-chief is losing his fastball, I kid you not.
But thus, here we are in the month of June, that favorite time of year for young ladies to become new brides; and their boyfriends to become new grooms, whether they like it or not. And so June, as the years pass, does become the month for anniversaries, the remembrance pleasant, or bittersweet.
So this guy goes to the Wizard to ask him if he can remove a curse he has been living with for the past 40 years. The Wizard says, “Perhaps, but you will have to tell me the exact words that you believe were used to put the curse on you.” And without hesitation, the man says, “I now pronounce you man and wife.” Ba-ding!
Anniversaries, remembrance. June. For yours truly, this happens to be the week of the day when I sit in my chair, wrap myself in solitude and pray to be warmed by a sentimental mood for reveries of memories that never die—our young man Mr. B, forever to be rejoiced and blessed in the legendary land known as Kloveria.
Too many young men and women. Black, white and of all the rainbow, “a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass.” Way the fock too soon.
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I could toss my own two-cents worth into the platter about these days of remembrance, but what the hell, I’m going to throw someone else’s two-cents worth into the pot ’cause his two-cents worth is way the fock better than mine own, you betcha.
The following two-cents belong to the Irish guy named William Butler Yeats and they were spent pre-1900—1899 to be exact. Odd that a lot of people seem to wonder how come Irish guys are so good with the words. I do not, ’cause I know.
This word-smithing prowess of the Irish was borne of a habit of always either being late for work or just plain not showing up, and then having to concoct the most elaborate of excuses day after day, year after year, century after century—an ass-saving practice that over the course of time evolved into a native genius for cranking out a goodly portion of this world’s poetry, literature.
The poem by the great man that follows belongs right at the top of the list. And so, for you’s mortals who may turn to this essay for some kind of savvy succulent, I present to you the following transcribing that’s been seemingly absent from the public arena for too long, but that is now available, here, for a short time only via the electronically remastered version that goes something like this:
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand.
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
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For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
Okey-doke, as I search through my stack of CDs for Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s “The Inflated Tear” so’s for musical accompaniment, I got to tell you’s that I’ve got nothing to finish this essay with. Instead, I ought to deploy myself to a front where the objective requires I be locked and loaded with the faith to quietly keep a personal memorial day observance, this day—“a distant bell, and stars that fell like rain, out of the blue,” like the old song says.
“In all the old, familiar places; that this heart of mine embraces,” I plan to spend the rest of this day to cultivate my garden, such as it is, through kind words and good deeds. That’s right—kind words and good deeds. No one ever said observance and remembrance was easy, and I believe it. But if that’s what it takes to see our own lost boy Mr. B now over there in Kloveria, then done is done, for this week at least, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.
