Happy Birthday, Bottecelli

Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (detail), 1486

It is thought that Sandro Bottecelli was born on this day in 1445.

Blind.

Botticelli, La Privavera (detail), 1483

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,

Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

William Shakespeare, from Act One, Scene One of A Midsummer Night's Dream

Own.

Botticelli, La Primavera (detail), 1482

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,

   And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet

Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;

Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,

   Sandals more interwoven and complete

To fit the naked foot of poesy;

Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress

Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd

   By ear industrious, and attention meet:

Misers of sound and syllable, no less

   Than Midas of his coinage, let us be

   Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;

So, if we may not let the Muse be free,

   She will be bound with garlands of her own.

John Keats

Remember.

Bottecelli, Birth of Venus (detail), 1846

WHAT YOU MISSED THAT DAY YOU WERE ABSENT FROM FOURTH GRADE

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen

to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took

questions on how not to feel lost in the dark

After lunch she distributed worksheets

that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s

voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep

without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—

something important—and how to believe

the house you wake in is your home. This prompted

Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing

how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts

are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am

is a complete sentence.

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation

look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,

and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking

for whatever it was you lost, and one person

add up to something.

Brad Aaron Modlin

Other.

Bottecelli, Birth of Venus (detail), 1486

AFTER YEARS

Today, from a distance, I saw you

walking away, and without a sound

the glittering face of a glacier

slid into the sea. An ancient oak

fell in the Cumberlands, holding only

a handful of leaves, and an old woman

scattering corn to her chickens looked up

for an instant. At the other side

of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times

the size of our own sun exploded

and vanished, leaving a small green spot

on the astronomer’s retina

as he stood in the great open dome

of my heart with no one to tell.

Ted Kooser

Real.

Botticelli, Young Man (detail), 1483

My real dwelling
Has no pillars
And no roof either
So rain cannot soak it
And wind cannot blow it down.

Ikkyu

Live-long.

Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (detail), 1480

LOVE & LIFE: A SONG

All my past life is mine no more,

The flying hours are gone,

Like transitory dreams giv’n o’er,

Whose images are kept in store

By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;

How can it then be mine?

The present moment’s all my lot;

And that, as fast as it is got,

Phyllis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,

False hearts, and broken vows;

If I, by miracle, can be

This live-long minute true to thee,
’Tis all that Heav'n allows.

John Wilmot

On.

Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (detail), 1486

KING WIND

Of all the weathers wind is king.
Snow would not blow, rain would not beat,
Nor green grasses ripple, nor trees break, 
Except for the will of this blind thing
That neither is seen nor sees, but anyway
Comes, and anyway goes -- from where
To where?  Nobody knows.

I never am tired of thinking of him.
Even in sleep -- but where is his bed? --
He dreams of filling the world again
With waves of water and walls of air
That neither can stop nor stand, but anyway
Rise, and anyway, fall.  So on
Forever.  Motion is all.

Mark Van Doren

Thinking.

Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (detail), 1485

THE YELLOWHAMMER'S NEST

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,

For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,

And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,

And love is burning diamonds in my true lover's breast;

She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,

And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;

I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,

And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,

The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,

And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest

In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover's breast;

I'll lean upon her breast and I'll whisper in her ear

That I cannot get a wink o'sleep for thinking of my dear;

I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away

Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.

John Clare