Tea at Trianon: Mother Chaos: Under Electric Light

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, March 10, 2008

Mother Chaos: Under Electric Light

The night shifts, shorn from the sky.
The stars fall away from their center.
The tilting, timed for now,
Lifts my feet from the ground.
I fix my eyes to the network of lights
Tacked to the night's blanket of curved space.
My night walk has drawn the last impossibility:
Stars rush from their center, uprooted by my waves.

~ from "Shifting Night" by Mattie Quesenberry Smith

I had the pleasure this weekend of savoring a brand new book of poetry by Mattie Quesenberry Smith. A native of old Virginia and mother of ten children, Mattie is the wife of independent film maker Doug Smith, whose Oscar-winning documentary Between Two Fires was reviewed on this blog. Mattie is a gifted writer who co-produced the film with her husband. Her poems, which have appeared in various journals over the years, have finally been gathered into one volume. Mother Chaos: Under Electric Light, published by Finishing Line Press, is a compelling collection which mingles searing insight with spiritual journeying. Various aspects of a contemporary young woman's life are explored, including the crassness and despair of modernity, the exploitation of the innocent, the mystical beauty of nature, and the awakening of faith.

It seems to me that the crafting of poetry requires a finely tuned command of the English language. Mattie possesses this quality in a manner which has become rare in our time. Her poems can be pondered over and over again with fresh insights gleaned, illumining the present realities with words that conjure images like a watercolor painting. The unseen world is pierced as well, especially in the following lines from "The Mourning Cloak:"

A palm spread across my face,
Impressed sky's air, and I cried
Through a lifetime: "Where's life
On the other side of 'I die'?"

Yes, I see You made the butterfly:
Egg, larva, silken spin, chrysalis sleep;
A moment's metamorphosis
Furled in a dull purple hue, gold and blue.

It rises to greet You now
In this snow white moment,
Heralding Spring on wing,
Pressing time's titanium hand.