from Grove of Academe (6)

.......

"no, these are camomile-daisies

that I crush as I reach out;
Arabian-gum fragrance?
no, that was the amber-beads

on the cherry-bark,
and the sticky pine-bark,
and sassafras-bark that we bit on,

and some dusty butter-and-eggs
(wild snap-dragon)
in a hot lane;"..............

(from 'Hermetic Definition' by H.D.)

beann

in Gaelic means (SPEAR): horn, spine
It can also mean: antler, wing, mountain peak, crest, branch,
peak-pate, stag-head

alchemical terms

bittern: solution of magnesium salts
black ash: impure sodium carbonate
black lead: graphite, an allotrope of carbon
brimstone: sulfur (S)
chalk: calcium carbonate (CaCO3, carbonate of lime, mild calcareous earth). Acid of chalk is carbon dioxide (CO2, carbonic acid, fixed air)
charcoal: either a charred carbonaceous material or its primary constituent, namely carbon. Lavoisier coined the term carbone (carbon) to distinguish the element from impure charred material; however, the distinction was not universally adopted right away.
cobalt. Named by the copper miners of the Hartz Mountains after the evil spirits the 'kobolds' which gave a false copper ore; despised because of its uselessness and unhealthiness (it was often found mixed with arsenic), and because it resembled silver but wasn't.
copper-nickel, named for another devil, because it looked like copper but wasn't-- our nickel.
cuprite. Red cuprous oxide ore.
fulminating gold. Made by adding ammonia to the auric hydroxide formed by precipitation by potash from metallic gold dissolved in aqua regis. Highly explosive when dry.
King's Yellow. A mixture of orpiment with white arsenic.

you are graphite dust

You are graphite dust,
blown.

You are gold without knowing it,
Smoke from a slow fire,
wet.

You are leaves in a pile at dusk,
You are webbed like a spider’s nest underground, you are seen,
sheen,
opalescent.

You can smolder
like coal fires underground,
But leave only soft chalk on my arms as you hold them under you.

You are earthly,
and sharp,
and bright,
like hot cut black stones.

(I tried to show you myself in places,
tried to exchange a running picture-show for words,
tried to surround you with a moving screen of myself,
projected).

I should quiet down,
still myself
watch as bruises on white skin appearing,
charcoal on scrim,
silhouette on sugar backdrop.

You are a cameo, love,
black shape cut poised on pearl,
black smoke curling around me in the night.

collected terms and titles from the Natural History Museum

hornblende
alluvial soil
glacial till
stratified sands and clays
quartz
feldspar
calcite
gneiss
three-toothed cinqufoil
rock-tripe
limestone
shale
calcerous bog
glatiation
the water cycle
marl sedge (composed chiefly of shells)
the shale rocks of the Hudson River Series often develop a slaty cleavage… and fertility of the derived soils is variable, though decidedly on the poor side.
quartzite
wintergreen
checkerberry
teaberry
mountaintea
the mountain laurel is a frequent companion
Relation of Plants to Geology and Soil
barley oats timothy rye wheat alfalfa
Friends and Enemies of the Orchard
Fertilization of the Apple
Life in the Soil
Cycles of Nutrition and Decay
Structure of a Bean Plant
From Field to Lake
Life in Early June
Scavengers
Food Substances Removed from the Water
Microscopic Animals
Christmas Fern
Ground Pine
Black Birch
Redstart on Beech Tree
Wild Cherry
Striped Maple
Oven Bird
Heart-Leaved Aster

Flowers again appear in the woodland, mostly asters and goldenrods. These have formed their flower buds during the summer, and do not ordinarily carry them through the winter.

Winter buds of Dogwood
Plant Succession on Limestone
Progressive Changes after Fire, cattle grazing, and forest cutting
Indigo bird and nest
Fireweed
Fire Cherry
Aspen
Field Sparrow and Nest
Smooth Sumac
Blueberry
Plant Succession on Shale

dictionary of alchemy

Absorbent Earth: chlk, marble, and clays. no specific formulas. generally carbonates, silicates, and sulphates.

Acesunt: any substance which is slightly acid, or turning sour.

Acid of Ants: Formic acid

Acid of Amber: Succine acid

Acid of Apples: Malic acid

Alembic: a type of distillation apparatus

Bezoar: a counter-poison or antidote, especially a stony calculus from an animal’s stomach

Bismuth corne

Bittern: Liquor remaining after salt-boiling; a solution containing Magnesium salts and bromides from the preparation of salt from sea-water by evaporation

Bitter Earth: Magnesium oxide or carbonate

Bitter Salt: Magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts)

Bitter Spar: “Dolomite”—Calcium and Magnesium Carbonate

Bitumens: an amorphous grouping of resinous and petroleum products: crude oil, amber, asphaltum, coal

Cucubit: the lower part of an alembic. shorter, more squat and ovoid than a matrass.

Damps: any dangerous vapors in caves, mines, etc.

from 'The Poetry of Seamus Heaney: All the Realms of Whisper' by Elmer Andrews; Lecturer in Extra-Mural Department, University of Ulster

draws on the battering vitality of the Anglo-Saxon alliterative tradition to give utterance to an imagination informed by the austerity of cold, plastering rains and sharp-toothed winds. It is a landscape which the Anglo-Saxon Wanderer or Seafarer would recognize. 152

clamor and clogging 159

tribulation is purifying. In hard times it is necessary to become hard too-- even traitorous. 160

sacral, archetypal and mythic resonances of experience. Heaney submits all to the dark. 160

morning field smells
read poems as prayers
'a marvelous lightship that will surface from muddied waters'
elver-gleams in the dark
hide-bound boundary tree 173

"S's only consort now, are the birds of the air...."
The First Flight
gannet's strike
camaraderie of rookeries
discovering his new zone of being through the various birds he encounters.

oisin and st. patrick vs. holly tree (ink)
lobe and larynx of the mossy places
the old dry glut
living like a rook in the air 180
unroofed tower....
rest balm wingflap
unpainted spaces

An Artists' sensuous delight in his wife is complicated by his awareness that he has chosen to reject her. He imagines his wife's eyelids/glister and burgeon
the fleshed hyacinth

what it is like to gather holly in the rain
'gleamed like bottle glass'
'a black-letter bush, a glittering shield-wall, cutting as holly and ice'