Epitaph

Do not carve on stone or wood,
"He was honest" or "He was good."
Write in smoke on a passing breeze
Seven words… and the words are these,
Telling all that a volume could,
"He lived, he laughed and… he understood.

Don Blanding
1894-1957






Donald Benson Blanding (November 7, 1894 – June 9, 1957) 

was an American poet who sentimentalized warm climates and was 

sometimes described as "poet laureate of Hawaii". He was also known 

as a journalist, author of prose, and speaker.

                                   

Don Blanding (1894-1957)

"Artist by nature
Actor by instinct
Poet by accident
Vagabond by choice"
 

                                    PELICAN

                            The pelican is a homely fowl.
                            It's not as comely as the owl.
                            The owl is a pretty bird.
                            The pelican is quite absurd.

                             It has unattractive skin,
                             A baggy pouch in place of chin.
                             Its manners are grotesque and rude.
                             It's very sloppy with its food...

                             A dozen fishes at a gulp.
                             Its body is a shapeless pulp
                             with much-too-much or not enough
                             To make a bird you'd want to stuff.
                  Don Blanding (1941) [in Jones and O'Sullivan 1995] 
On the contrary, Don;
 

A magnificent Pink-Backed Pelican (Pelicanus rufescens) I found, already mounted, in the foyer of the Zoo de l'Auxois, Burgundy. 
Normally it sits on my window sill, across the room from my desk, and keeps an eye on the street. It shares its perch with a stemmed boxwood bowl crafted by a talented young wood-turner called Remi Marceau of Saint Père sous Vézelay. The morning light reveals the narrowness of the bird's bill and causes its parchment pouch to glow. 

The Double Life

~By Don Blanding~
How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.
And that’s just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell,
But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content
With hearth and home — dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well-loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,
With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun,
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where…just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.
One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back.
I’m getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It’s tough to have an idle brain)
But One says “Stay” and One says “Go”
And One says “Yes,” and One says “No,”
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter’s life.

The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.