A Royal Gift: Qasida for the Outlands Crown

So spoke Ullr Konungr to his cousins upon their meeting at Gulf Wars XXX:

We rode from Dragon lands to southern fight
Meeting the armies panoplied in might
Here now with joy the noble stag befriending
In bonds of faith that shall be neverending.

Behold the Sultan Barekr in his glory!
He shall be praised in poetry and story.
His strength surpasses all as his fell blade
Defends the good and leaves the foe dismayed.
Behold the valorous Beatrice! fair Queen
Whose fame commands the Dragon’s high esteem.
She yields to none in beauty or prowess
Or any virtue proper to noblesse.
Two knights united on the Outlands throne
Now doubly guard the realm. Yet little known
To any but their cousins are the cares
Of sovereign and consort. We who share
The burden of the crown may understand
The weight of duty to Your well lov’d land.
Accept of us this word of thanks and praise,
And long and joyous be Your ruling days.

This verse the bear-dame wrote at Our behest
To honor cousins traveled from the west.
Long be the Stag a brother in renown
Of Dragon proud, and Crown at peace with Crown.

Process notes

This qasida was written at Ullr Konungs behest, to be given as a gift to the Outlands Crown. Mistress Bianca then gave of her art to inscribe them upon a scroll which she ornamented with gold. The king honored our combined arts by presenting them himself, and it is my lasting regret that I was not present to hear.

Art by Mistress Bianca Rosamund di Firenze (Marlene Broderick)

I found myself returning to two habitual practices I teach in my classes: suiting the poetic form to the persona of the subject, and researching the subject’s SCA history. Lesson learned: It is surprisingly hard to collect details about someone you don’t know in a kingdom where you also don’t know anyone that is thousands of miles away. Next time, start hunting earlier!

A Tanka Pair

In time of sickness,
the people miss our Shogun,
we do not see him.
Our villages are lonely,
our feasts uncelebrated.

But he is with us,
at the Middle Kingdom’s heart
where he always was,
as the Sun when out of sight
behind a cloud, still gives warmth.

50 Lines for 50 Winters, a tanka chain

Fifty years are dust
Rust is Quicksilver my blade
At the beginning
Winter spring, ash back to wood,
A new seed sprouts here today
CB

Wind whispers old names
Ripples cross the Inland Sea
Stories bring wisdom
Carrying tales from the past
On the shore, a man listens.
OA

A delicate breeze
Foretells a mighty tempest
Sweeping all before
Only the ceaseless mountain
Withstands the typhoon’s fury.
UM

Laden with bounty
Strong in storm and sound in calm
Great sugi bursts forth.
His sheltering branches stretch
To guide and guard a kingdom.
DC

Chrysanthemum king
Upon the great dragon throne.
Flower and fire join.
Three dragon scales shield the realm
As joy and fortune blossom.
DC

Summer leads to fall
Winter leads on turn to spring
Each day, a sunrise
At dawn the dragon takes flight
Guarding, guiding and seeking
OA

The Dragon’s wings rise
Beat the air with strength and flame.
War’s fury unleashed.
Dragon king, fierce in battle,
Fiercer yet in blessed peace.
DC

Inhale wind-whispers:
The fiery exhalation
Sings out, full of joy,
Calling to the flame-hearted;
A beacon in cool darkness.
EÁ

Seeds planted in rain
Rise quietly in sunlight
Flowers gleam brightly
Petals one by one recount
Ancient days and current deeds.
OA

Wise and good is he
who tends this garden of peace.
His fame shall not die,
But live in song forever
A light to our descendants.
UM

Notes on the Project

The inspiration for this project came from Master Owen Alun, O.L., of Northshield. After I wrote the tanka for Akira-dono, Owen engaged me in a form of poetic dialogue called a tanka chain. When, a few weeks later, Seto-heika became the Middle Kingdom’s 100th heir, I had the idea to gather a team of poets from the daughter kingdoms of Calontir, Northshield, and Ealdormere to create a tanka chain in his honor. Owen also suggested inviting Cariadoc of the Bow, our first King, to contribute the opening verse, and His Grace honored us by accepting.

The poets:

Duke Cariadoc of the Bow, now of the West
Master Owen Alun, O.L., Northshield
Madam Ursula Mortimer, Middle
THL Dulcibella de Chateaurien, Calontir
THL Emer ingen ui Aiden, Ealdormere

Reader: Magister Stephan Calvert de Grey, O.P.

Magister Calvert and I performed the verses for Seto-heika and for the populace of the Cleftlands at Regular Event in the Cleftlands, February 29, A.S. LIIII.

Tanka for Akira-dono

Kind of an interesting story to this one. But first, the result:

 

Blue cranes rise in flight
On a golden sunrise sky,
Their silent rapture
Seen only by the boatman
Whose hand keeps the course steady.

The Story Behind the Piece, or, How I Fell in Love with an Idea and Made it All Go Horribly Wrong

Akira was put on vigil for the Order of the Pelican. I was delighted. His wife, Mistress Katarina Peregrine, had been elevated a couple of years back, and for her I had written The Dragon and the Peregrine. I felt called upon to produce something for Akira, although I didn’t know him as well as I did her.

Katarina liked the idea, so I interviewed her about Akira’s service and his persona, Japanese. She mentioned his service as exchequer and on financial committees at various levels–the sort of unglamorous, essential work that lets us have an SCA–as well as his love of archery. She also mentioned his personal heraldry. The word “quiet” came up again and again in discussing his service. It was a phone call, and I understood her to describe three gold cranes in flight on a blue field in the shape of a hexagon.

I knew exactly two Japanese forms: the haiku and the tanka. A little research showed that while haiku developed from the tanka post-SCA period, the tanka itself fit the period. I was excited to learn that it played a similar role in Japanese literature to the sonnet in English literature. I also learned that the traditional tanka was written as a single unified sentence.

The idea of gold, the gold of the coins handled by an exchequer and the gold of pure worthiness. appealed to me. I also had hopes of working in the gold of the archery bulls-eye, as in the expression “hit in the gold,” but it turned out not to fit in a single 31-syllable sentence. Sometimes you can’t have everything.

So then I wrote this poem:

Above a small boat,
Three golden cranes rise in flight
Only seen by one,
The steersman whose knowing hand
Keeps the vessel’s course steady.

And I quite liked it. The organization as the boat; the Pelican as the steersman; the moment of hushed beauty seen by a man doing a responsible job by himself. I was disappointed that I hadn’t been able to get in anything explicit saying it was quiet, and also that I hadn’t stated for the reader, though it was clear to me, that this moment took place very early in the morning. (By the way, if anyone knows what time of day cranes are usually active, please message me. My search skills were not up to finding that detail.)

Then two days before the event, Katarina posted an image of Akira’s heraldry. I had gotten it wrong. The field was GOLD. The cranes were BLUE.
Argh!

At this point, I posted a (faulty) haiku on Facebook:

New info arrives.
I start my poem over.
Thank Muse for no rhymes.

And then I started revising. Ripped apart and put back together the other way round, four of its five lines completely rewritten, the tanka became the one at the top of this post. I saved the image and the one-sentence grammar. The language is more compressed, and I got rid of the dull “one” which added nothing to the image. I like that “silent” and “sunrise” are now spelled out. and the role of the steersman is now as subtle and barely perceptible as Akira’s work in real life.

I hope I don’t make this kind of mistake too often. But I’m grateful I learned about it in time to fix it.