Poetry and music

Well, the majority of the snow we got yesterday melted today. To me it is a plus about the Western Washington climate that it doesn't snow all that much and, when it does, it doesn't stay all that long. I ran a few errands: bought ice-melter for the sidewalks for the next time we get iced up, bird seed for the feeders (I still need to put it out, but there is still some in the big one), and groceries, which I was low on.

Tonight my parents and I went to a concert of music and poetry called Noel that I have been to the last two years, this being my third time. They specific music and reading vary, but it is an ensemble of several harps, a cello, two violins, in previous years a viola, a percussionist, and a flute, and the reader. All the performers wear renaissance costumes. Certain elements don't change. They always walk in playing "Masters in This Hall," and they always end with the audience singing, "We wish you a merry Christmas."

One poem I heard tonight that I think I've heard every time is The Twelve Days of Christmas, by John Julius Norwich. I was hoping it was in the public domain, so I could quote it at length or even in its entirety, but it seems to have been published in 1998. It seems to be available only as used copies. It consists of letters from young lady thanking her young man for the gifts he is sending her every day, which of course are those from the famous Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas. As she is a modern town-dweller, her enthusiasm for the gifts fades with each passing day as she receives hens, geese, swans, dancing ladies, drummers, etc. It's funny and cute.

Interestingly, John Julius Norwich is the author of a three-volume history of Byzantium, which I have read with great enjoyment. As heirs of the Western or Latin Roman Empire, we know and hear very little about the Eastern, Greek Empire, of which the religion was Eastern Orthodoxy, as opposed to Roman Catholicism, after the Great Schism of 1054. The history starts with Constantine, the emperor who founded Constantinople in 330 A.D., and ends with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, since when it is known as Istanbul.






This great civilization, with an unbroken history of more than 1,000 years, disappeared and we in the West seldom mention it. Its heirs are all the branches of the Eastern Orthodox church: Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, and other parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

I order beeswax candles from an Eastern Orthodox convent in Snohomish, Washington. In fact, I have a candle from there burning right now.