Tanka Prose

Clouds

I would build a cloudy House

For my thoughts to live in,

When for earth too fancy-loose,

And too low for Heaven. [1]

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If I didn't know better, Elizabeth, I'd say you were haunting me. It all may have started just down the street from a school I attended—at the St. Marylebone Parish Church, where you and your dear Robert secretly married (though I was ignorant of that fact until only recently). I passed by a few hundred times as a youth, never stepping foot inside. Then five years later, and more than an ocean away, I came to live in a college dormitory building that to this day faces a world-renowned library dedicated to you and Robert. So close to you again, yet I continued to be deaf to your presence.

How the decades have turned to vapor. Now, I find myself back in London, roaming the streets as if lured from place to place by your hand, soft and warm. Yesterday, to the National Portrait Gallery and its famous likenesses of the two of you. And this afternoon to this church at Marylebone Road. As soon as I slip in, I notice the plain, dark door labeled "The Browning Room." Ah! It's locked, but I hope you'll give me credit for vigorously rattling the knob. At least I manage to snap a photograph of the heart of the church—from pews to pulpit and grand ceiling—generating stares from a handful of workers before I dash back out.

some have said

cameras steal souls . . .

with this one shot

all I wish to capture

is the splendor within

In search of another wispy trace of you, I next make my way down a section of the High Street and onto quiet blocks known for their opulent, historical residences and medical establishments. My silent gasp as I eventually come upon that famous address where you spent the last eight years of your life before you eloped. Etched quite simply, near ground level, into the building's stone facade: "Elizabeth Barrett Browning . . . Lived in a house on this site." I imagine you, fragile in constitution but your pen bold and strong, crafting your words in a way thought somewhat uncharacteristic for a woman of your time.

a sign 

at 50 Wimpole Street,

once the home 

of a beloved poet: 

The Heart Hospital

Finally, I wind my way through an overly crowded commercial district to Trafalgar Square and then to Westminster Abbey with its numerous pointed arches and sky-piercing Gothic spires. Here, your husband lies buried in the company of other notables, though far away from your own resting place at The English Cemetery in Florence, Italy. I bid adieu to you and yours, Elizabeth . . . but surely only for now.

evensong—

a hush of humanity 

as the sun 

slowly lowers itself

to a choral introit

_______________

Author's Notes:

[1] From "The House of Clouds," lines 1–4, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1841). The first-published version (in Athenaeum) is used here; in subsequently published versions, the punctuation is different.

The wording soft and warm is from "Sonnets from the Portuguese 24," line 3 ("In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm"), by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850).

The St. Marylebone Parish Church, which has been associated with a great deal of history, was established "sometime after 1086" (per the church's website). The basic structure of the present-day parish church was completed in 1817. Various well-known individuals have attended the church, including Charles Dickens and his son. The Brownings were married there in 1846.

A round commemorative plaque (first installed in 1899), too small and located too high for the narrator to read in person, is affixed to the building at 50 Wimpole Street. Its interesting wording: "Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Poetess, Afterwards Wife of Robert Browning, Lived Here, 1838–1846."

The poet's Georgian Wimpole Street house, which she shared with Barrett family members, was likely torn down in 1935 (sources vary on the date). Curiously, the current structure at that location is associated with a major heart center.

Elizabeth was a semi-invalid for much of her life, apparently suffering from a collection of maladies (the exact set of illnesses is open to debate). Also, it is said she was prescribed opiates, to which she became addicted.

Coincidentally (unknown to the author until she had completed this story), a legend exists that the ghost of Elizabeth haunts the Armstrong Browning Library in Waco, Texas. Also refer to the tanka prose piece "All Things Browning," Haibun Today, 11:1.

_______________

Haibun Today, Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2017

Update: As if I didn't already have enough unexpected Browning and Barrett  "connections" (that I never before paid attention to) . . . A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out old purses and in one of them found a small flyer about a cruise line's shore excursion we went on roughly 20 years ago. It was for Greenwood Great House, a Barrett family residence in Jamaica. 

Tanka Prose

All Things Browning

God's in His heaven—All's right with the world! [1] 

—Robert Browning

"Would you also like to see the balcony on the third floor?" a library attendant asks me. "We keep the door locked, but I can open it for you. The view is lovely."

For two years as a college student, I lived across the street from this lavish Italian Renaissance-style building. Yet until now, decades later, I'd never actually explored inside these walls, nor outside them either. I'd only attended a ceremony or two—in then out, no time for more. Today, Pippa, the bronze statue surrounded by greenery at the front of the long, manicured lawn, comes to life for me . . . drawing me in.

As I step gently through a network of grand rooms in the Armstrong Browning Library (which is both research center and museum), I have trouble deciding where to fix my gaze. Greeting me first: rich-wood paneling, towering marble columns, ornate ceilings, a polished tile floor with a brass-inlaid border. The tranquil countenance of a young man seated at the front desk. Then book after antique book lining shelf after shelf. A multitude of stained-glass windows, sunlit and vivid, almost all of them illustrating poems by Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Personal furniture. Busts and other sculptures, miscellaneous works of era-appropriate art. And several Browning portraits, with faces that seem to stare pensively at me.

can an artist

capture on canvas

the essence

of a master of words?

this son they called Pen

Many delicate pieces of memorabilia gracefully rest in glass cases. (Not to mention that the library also maintains a vast-and-growing collection of letters and manuscripts.) I realize I could study every trinket and silver spoon, every brooch and snippet of lace, for more time than I have—as well as lose myself in the notes that accompany them. A small traveling tea set, with basket, particularly captures my attention. The story goes that the set belonged to a Mrs. Jean Sherwood, an American art critic, who used it to share tea with a stranger one day while on a train journey in Italy. During their conversation, Mrs. Sherwood remarked that in America Elizabeth Barrett Browning was considered to be the greatest woman poet. The stranger responded, "She was my wife."

this wisp of hair

held tight in the embrace

of a locket . . .

how certain small things

don't harden with age

her inkstand

made of fine porcelain . . .

a chorus

of syllables

spilling onto paper

even leaves

from the laurel wreath

on his casket

saved, arranged in a frame . . .

still a cascade of life

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways [. . .]

I shall but love thee better after death. [2]          

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

_______________________

Author's Notes:

[1] From "Pippa's Song," lines 7-8, in Pippa Passes, a dramatic poem/play by Robert Browning (1841).

[2] From "Sonnets from the Portuguese 43," first and last lines, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850).

Inspiration and information for "All Things Browning" came primarily from an in-person visit to The Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University, Waco, Texas; the library's website and the librarian/curator of books and printed materials also served as resources. The facility, which opened in 1951, "houses the world's largest collection of Browning material and other fine collections of rare 19th-century books, manuscripts, and works of art" (as stated on the website).

The life-size statue of Pippa, presented to the library in 1957, was sculpted by Waldine Tauch.

Sculptor/painter Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, or "Pen," was the Browning poets' only child. Several portraits he painted of his parents are displayed at the library.

Elizabeth (1806-1861) is buried at the English Cemetery, Florence, Italy, while Robert (1812-1889) is buried in Poets' Corner in London's Westminster Abbey.

On a personal note, the author was surprised to discover, not long ago, an additional Browning "connection." Not only did she live as a student across the street from the Armstrong Browning Library, but she also attended a middle school barely more than steps from London's St. Marylebone Parish Church, where the Brownings married in 1846.

_______________________

—Haibun Today, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2017

Haiga: Ordered

For information about this memorial, please see KYSO Flash, issue 6, Fall 2016.

Tanka Prose

Happy this tanka+prose piece was picked up for reprint in the current issue of red lights. I assumed I had posted "Circa" to twigs&stones earlier (two or three years ago), but I guess I didn't. So here it is:

Circa 1830

For me, it's the most memorable of all the cultural artifacts in the mission's collection. The lacy, shawled garment has a flamenco flavor to it. Sequins, which would have been expensive in that day, further adorn it.

no flash allowed

inside this museum

the blackness

of a widow's wedding gown

preserved behind glass

I read the small sign posted nearby and learn that, according to Spanish social custom, white wasn't an option for widows who remarried. (In fact, I later determine that widows were to wear black for the rest of their lives.) I can't help wondering if there were any particular dictates for widowers.

—first published in Haibun Today, December 2013

Castle

castle

after castle

on the banks

of this river … 

still a world of kings

—GUSTS, Autumn 2015

Castle (on hill) where Richard the Lionheart
was held captive,  Durnstein, Austria

Tanka Prose

What if?

It's a city with storybook appeal: clock towers and onion dome steeples, cobblestones, a fortress, rows of colorful little buildings. A local tour guide points out various structures in the near distance.

the gray house

across the Inn River

where Hitler 

lived as a small child 

... when he almost drowned 

Author's Note: Information regarding "when he almost drowned" can be found in the book Out of Passau: Leaving a City Hitler Called Home (Anna Elisabeth Rosmus, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC, 2004) as well as in miscellaneous articles such as this one: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082640/How-year-old-Adolf-Hitler-saved-certain-death--drowning-icy-river-rescued.html.

—Haibun Today, Volume 8, Number 1, March 2014