Sonnet: “I smile when my true love’s face is in sight”

Poetry

I smile when my true love’s face is in sight
And touch her hand to know that she is there.
I warm her feet with mine each winter’s night
Since first we ever had a bed to share.

Each day I see her waking with the dawn
And as we tuck our children into bed.
Day by day, together we go on,
By promises and rings forever wed.

Yet when we are apart I shed no tear,
Nor sadly sigh, nor lie all night awake;
No distance is so great that I might fear
That our love would stretch thin enough to break.

No matter how far I am from my bride,
I know that she is always by my side.

This was written for my wife on our 15th wedding anniversary, when she was out of town.

A Happy Accident

Uncategorized

When I was perusing the works of Thomas Wyatt, looking for poem structures to appropriate, I came across these lines:

Yet though thy chain hath me enwrapt,
Spite of thy hap, hap hath well hapt.

I had never seen the word “hap” before, and so, being a lover of etymology, I went to look it up. It turns out it means “luck”, so if you are “happy” you are lucky. It shows up in lots of other words, of course: perhaps (by way of luck), mishap (bad luck), happen (to come about by luck), hapless (without luck). A neat little nugget that I will keep my eye out for in the future.

Sonnet: My Lady’s Heart

Poetry

My lady’s heart seems to be carved from stone
Too adamant to mark with any tool;
I sweetly speak, abide by every rule,
And still, at evening’s end, I am alone.

What have I done? For what must I atone?
I give a dance, a glance, a shining jewel,
Yet though she smiles and dances, this poor fool
Has not the means to make her heart his own.

But no, it is no stone, it is the sea,
So beautiful, so boundless, and so deep.
Upon its waves a man must boldly sail
To distant lands of gilded mystery
And bring back naught but what it lets him keep;
No man can own the sea, only the tale.

Rhyme Royal: The Faith of Ants

Poetry 
A colony of ants has but one queen
And all the drones act only by her word;
Disloyalty is nowhere to be seen,
No grumble of complaint is ever heard.
  The faith of ant in queen is swiftly spurred
  By simple nature all throughout the hill;
  Can it be found in men who have free will?

Why should a man submit to one above
To follow orders calmly with a smile?
When ties are close, he may serve out of love,
But what about the endless rank and file?
  The lure of money may work for a while,
  But soon enough that sweet taste will go sour
  And purses will run dry that purchase power.

The ant knows in his heart the queen is true
And never would she contemplate deceit;
With such strong faith he works the whole day through
Or goes to battle, never to retreat.
  Though there are rules, a man knows he can cheat,
  And so suspects all others may as well;
  This taints his faith like poison in a well.

So what, then, is the cure for this distrust?
What balm is there to soothe the burning doubt?
The man who wishes to be followed must
In every action take the highest route.
  To earn the faith of men and gather clout
  By promises kept day by day until
  His honor grows high like the ant-queen's hill.

To lead or follow well, each is the same,
Though one is at the top and one below;
Each keeps faith and brings honor to his name,
And with each word and deed his fealty shows.
  For fealty goes both ways, as wise men know:
  The queen alone can't have her will fulfilled;
  A single ant won't know what he should build.

Pesellino Cioppa: Pleating

15th century

The yoke of the cioppa was taken straight from my farsetto pattern, expanded a bit to account for layers worn underneath and little ease to get in and out of it. Looking at the source image, I decided that the pleated section would start just under the armscye, which made things nice and simple. I guesstimated how big I wanted the final hem to be, did some math based on the number of pleats I wanted, and came up with 4″ wide finished pleats at the bottom. Since they needed to be round, I planned for them to start at 6″ wide, with the extra taken up in the tucks and the curvature. I did some similar guesswork on the width of the pleats at the top, which came out to 3″ for each of the 24 pleats. This is the same ratio I’ve used in the past, so that was reassuring. Despite the lack of precision in the design phase, everything ended up lining up exactly where I needed it to go.

If none of that pleating stuff makes sense, there’s an explanation of what I’m talking about in this handout.

Here’s a picture of one of the panels:

IMG_0841Here the edges are basted together (they will be run through the serger after the pleats are sewn), the pleats are marked out, and one of the tucks has been basted. The basting stitches along the line of the tuck keep the layers together so I don’t miss one when I sew it. The top and bottom edges have also been turned under and finished already. Once all the panels are complete, they are sewn together at the edges and stay tapes are installed:

IMG_0842

 

Ode: Foreign Shores

Poetry

O father, I regret
The beardlessness of youth,
My wooden sword not yet
Exchanged for arms in truth.
For foreign shores I yearn,
But I must wait my turn.
Go in my stead!

My love, gone o’er the sea,
How anxiously I pace,
For each day I can see
Our child who bears your face.
On foreign shores of strife
I worry for your life.
With God I’ve pled!

My son, I’ve grown so old
That I must stay abed;
My stories have been told
And youthful days are fled.
Those foreign shores I’ve known
Have now become your own.
Like you I bled!

This was written in 2013 on the occasion of Veteran’s Day. The style is modeled on poems by Thomas Wyatt (e.g. “Blame Not My Lute“).

Triolet: The Tree

Poetry

A tree has roots that hold on to the ground
And limbs that reach up to the sky above.
While birdsong fills her branches with its sound
A tree has roots that hold on to the ground;
For all her gifts of fruits so ripe and round,
The bird cannot return her verdant love.
A tree has roots that hold on to the ground
And limbs that reach up to the sky above.

Decima: In The Garden

Poetry

My lady, you are like a rose,
A bloom of scarlet at your lips
And curves upon your rosebud hips.
As any worthy gardener knows
The rose is best that upward grows
Upon a trellis strong and true
So that it will not go askew.
And so, my rose, it’s plain to see
That I was clearly made to be
Entwined forever more with you.

My lord, your gardener astute
Would know which plants are worth their weight
And which are but to decorate;
The rose is pretty, bloom to root,
But in the end, it bears no fruit.
No climbing rose am I, you see,
But rather like an apple tree.
And your strong wood may serve me most
As, say, a bench, a fence, a post;
For my part, sir, I shall stand free.

This is a decima written in response to a poetry challenge. 

Pesellino Cioppa: Beginning

15th century

I’ve been wanting to make a new cioppa for years now. The first one I made was an experiment using an unfortunately orange cotton print and some kind of nasty fake fur. The second was made of heavy grey upholstery velvet with bag sleeves (more on those later) that fell victim to the displeasure of a cat. The third was made of white satin and is still in service, though the pleats are unattractively flat and creased.

I was finally inspired to start working on a new cioppa by the works of Francesco Pesellino, particularly the Story of Griselda. I had found need of a way to fasten the center front of my previous cioppe, but with no obvious closure visible (and only a hint of a center front seam at all), I had used hooks and eyes. In this image, however, there are clearly cioppe with buttons! I decided to focus on the figure in the center of the image (the grey cioppa with white trim), which can also be seen from the front in the full version of the painting. The pleats start quite low on the chest, and they are relatively wide compared to other examples.

The main way I intend to deviate from the Griselda cioppa is the sleeves. There are a number of different types of bag sleeve, including one on the far left of another Pesellino painting, but I have always been enamored of a certain pair of sleeves from a tomb in Antwerp. They’re a good bit later and not Italian, but I don’t think they’re unreasonably outside of the realm of possibility.

I’ve started on the body of the cioppa already. The primary fabric is a charcoal grey wool suiting, interlined with cotton flannel and lined with red linen. The guards are synthetic burgundy velveteen. The heavy wool I used to use for lining my pleats is sadly all gone, so I am attempting to use burlap to serve the same purpose. Time will tell if this was a good idea or not.

Sonnet: The Crown’s Favor

Poetry

Upon a monarch’s head the crown shines bright
And to its wearer beckons every eye,
Yet even if it’s won by one hand’s might
More hands than one must work to raise it high.

A king must have advisors who are wise;
A queen has generals bold to guard her lands.
A herald’s voice will rise in strident cries;
A steward runs the court with subtle hands.

The wisest rulers know to show their thanks
To those who ease their seat upon the throne;
With word-fame heaped upon the loyal ranks
Or rings of gold is royal favor shown.

Glory shared is glory multiplied;
No honor comes when honors are denied.

This sonnet was written in response to one written by Eadgar of Snotengaham on the virtues of a vassal giving all glory to his liege.