Juliet's Lantern
The kids were clever; they found a lantern which, when lit, rises up with air currents and wind giving a poignant symbolic focus to someone moving on. In the true spirit of Juliet it was of course light-hearted, shrieks of giggles and laughter, as it spun in every conceivable direction, gathering speed and eventually height, to leave us all so hopelessly without her. Saint Ossies’s bay 2009.
posted by Robert at 3:23 pm
9 Comments:
For a moment, the lantern appears in the sky with the moon, and one actually has the sense that neither it nor you are alone.
thats a beautiful write up.
neat vid!
A wonder-full event.
BTW -- where is St. Ossie's bay?
(I wanted the satellite view - but couldn't find it on Google maps)
Near Lulworth Cove in Dorset.
Your description of a poignant symbolic focus is perfect! We released one of these lanterns late at night last bonfire night in memory of a close friend.
What a beautiful tribute...
We set off some lanterns here in the states for my uncles 60th. There was mass hysteria in town, the police shut us down...people were reporting UFOs and the airport had rerouted planes! What a scene!
We did manage to get about 50 of the 60 up... they really are magical.
I love how the floating lantern illuminates the sky and looks just like the moon. This is a very ineresting form of art. Very beautiful. Keep it up!
Lovely, Robert.
Do you know this?
Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Armadillo”
No doubt the comment box will mess it up--quatrains.
This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,
rising toward a saint
still honored in these parts,
the paper chambers flush and fill with light
that comes and goes, like hearts.
Once up against the sky it’s hard
to tell them from the stars–
planets, that is–the tinted ones:
Venus going down, or Mars,
or the pale green one. With a wind,
they flare and falter, wobble and toss;
but if it’s still they steer between
the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,
receding, dwindling, solemnly
and steadily forsaking us,
or, in the downdraft from a peak,
suddenly turning dangerous.
Last night another big one fell.
It splattered like an egg of fire
against the cliff behind the house.
The flame ran down. We saw the pair
of owls who nest there flying up
and up, their whirling black-and-white
stained bright pink underneath, until
they shrieked up out of sight.
The ancient owls’ nest must have burned.
Hastily, all alone,
a glistening armadillo left the scene,
rose-flecked, head down, tail down,
and then a baby rabbit jumped out,
short-eared, to our surprise.
So soft!–a handful of intangible ash
with fixed, ignited eyes.
Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!
O falling fire and piercing cry
and panic, and a weak mailed fist
clenched ignorant against the sky!
Marley, how on earth I missed this I know not, thank you.
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