radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)
radiantfracture ([personal profile] radiantfracture) wrote2025-04-14 10:19 am

Lazy poetry month part 3

I was trying to use the word "sillion" in a word puzzle, which meant that I had to pick up Gerard Manley Hopkins, who is always close to hand, so that's what you get today.

It might as well be "The Windhover," source of the sillion (which means dirt), though I think I have posted it before.

(A windhover is a kestrel.)

You really have to read it out loud to hear the great sweeping wingbeats of it.


I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
cmcmck: (Default)

[personal profile] cmcmck 2025-04-14 05:30 pm (UTC)(link)
This is one of my all time favourite poems! :o)
isis: (Default)

[personal profile] isis 2025-04-14 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm, is sillion related to mud-sill?
larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (Default)

[personal profile] larryhammer 2025-04-14 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Not just dirt: it means a newly plowed furrow.
mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)

[personal profile] mdlbear 2025-04-14 07:15 pm (UTC)(link)

One of my favorites. That last line--gods! Pure magic.

sovay: (PJ Harvey: crow)

[personal profile] sovay 2025-04-14 08:03 pm (UTC)(link)
It might as well be "The Windhover," source of the sillion (which means dirt), though I think I have posted it before.

It's always time for Gerard Manley Hopkins!

I may also have already linked you to Johnny Flynn's Sillion (2017).
sabotabby: (books!)

[personal profile] sabotabby 2025-04-14 10:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Oooh, this reminds me of a painting I saw.
smokingboot: (Default)

[personal profile] smokingboot 2025-04-15 07:47 am (UTC)(link)
Love this poem, even schoolstudy couldn't ruin it. But never heard sillion used before or since.
haertstitch: (Default)

[personal profile] haertstitch 2025-04-16 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
new words for dirt
are sorely needed
the popular one of mineral/sand on mars then other sci fi stories
is regolith the hole planet can't be regolith

I like sillion for freshly plowed earth

a definite smell like petrichor