“Orchard with Blossoming Trees” (1888, oil on canvas)
by Vincent van Gogh
“Bloomy Apple Garden” (1936)
by Nikolay Bogdanov Belsky
“Fruit Trees in Blossom” (1910-11)
by Edvard Munch
“Apple Trees in Blossom” (1896)
by Isaac Levitan
“Orchard in Bloom. Neskuchnoye” (1908)
by Zinaida Zerebriakova
“Apple Trees in Bloom, Old Lyme”
by Childe Hassam
“Apricot Tree in Blossom” (1942)
by Martiros Saryan
“Cherry Tree in Bloom” (1905, oil on canvas)
by Ferdinand Hodler
“Peach Trees in Blossom” (1888, oil on canvas)
by Vincent van Gogh
“Apple Tree, I” (1912, oil on canvas)
by Gustav Klimt
“Lilacs in the Sun” (1872)
by Claude Monet
“Apple Tree after Rain” (1906)
by Mikhail Larionov
“Bluhende Baume” (1935, oil on canvas)
by Ernst Stocker
“Cottonwood Tree in Spring” (1943)
by Georgia O’Keeffe
“Flowering Plum Tree, Eragny” (1894, oil on canvas)
by Camille Pissarro
“Almond Tree in Flower” (1947)
by Pierre Bonnard
“Apple Trees in Full Bloom at Giverny”
by Claude Monet
“Cherry Tree Blossoms”
by Jozsef Rippl-Ronai
“Apple Tree Blooming aka The Eternal Spring” (1908)
by Maurice Denis
Sunday Afternoon Saudade
Here. Have some spring blossoms, scents of apple, peach, lilac, and plum. Listen to some music. Read a poem.
Music by Natalie Walker, “Waking Dream”
Elegy
What to do with this knowledge
that our living is not guaranteed?
Perhaps one day you touch the young branch
of something beautiful. & it grows & grows
despite your birthdays & the death certificate,
& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful
or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out
of your house, then, believing in this.
Nothing else matters.
All above us is the touching
of strangers & parrots,
some of them human,
some of them not human.
Listen to me. I am telling you
a true thing. This is the only kingdom.
The kingdom of touching;
the touches of the disappearing, things.
“Flowering Garden in Spring” (1920, oil on canvas) by Henri Martin
“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” ~ Iris Murdoch
The Bradford pears and Tulip trees are in full bloom, and I am reminded of the year I made mother’s day cards from photos I had taken of the trees in bloom—I was very pleased with how they had turned out, but my mother looked at hers and said, “What’s this?” Lex later told me that Mom had complained that I was too cheap to buy a card; Lex tried to explain to her that I had shot the photograph, worked with it on Photoshop, and had the print made. I had thought the gesture special. Oh well.
Anyway, I have to admit that when I was clearing out the thousands of cards in my mother’s drawers, I came across almost every card I had given her in the past decade and sometimes beyond, and the flimsy free homemade card I had made her was there.
Here. Have some flowers of spring:
“Poppy Field” by Michael Creese (nd)
“Wannsee Garden” (1923, oil on canvas) by Max Liebermann
“Bloomy Apple Garden” (1936) by Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky
“The Poppy FIelds” (c1963) by Anne Redpath
“Flower Garden, Pansies” (1908, oil on canvas) by Emil Nolde
“Poppies and Grasses” (1914, oil on canvas) by Pierre Bonnard
“Yellow Irises” (1901, oil on canvas) by Pablo Picasso
“Black Will-o-the-Wisp” (date unknown, ink and wash) by Takato Yamamoto
“Marsh Marigolds” (1906) by Wladyslaw Slewinski
“Flowers on a Chair” (1958, oil on canvas) by Adrian Ryan
“Sunflowers” (1958-59, oil on board) by Peter Coker
“Magnolien” (1945, oil on canvas) by Cuno Amiet
“Two Austrian Copper Roses III” (1957, oil on canvas laid down on board) by Georgia O’Keeffe
“Still Life with Pansies and Gladiolas” (nd, oil on canvas) by Arthur B. Carles
“Flowers by the Sea” (1965, oil on composition board) by Fairfield Porter
“Les Dahlias” (1921, oil on canvas) by Tsuguhara Foujita
“Glass with Wild Flowers” (1890, oil on canvas) by Vincent van Gogh
“Spring Breeze” (1946, oil on canvas) by Otto Torsten Andersson
“Petunias” (1925, oil on hardboard panel) by Georgia O’Keeffe
“Paris Bouquet of Wild Flowers” (1923) by Pierre Bonnard
“Les Roses” (1925-26, oil on canvas) by Claude Monet
“Hyacinth” (1941, oil on board) by Chen Baoyi
“Apple Tree Blooming” aka “The Eternal Spring” (1908) by Maurice Denis
“Poppies and Violet Asters” (nd, watercolor) by Emil Nolde
“L’amandier en fleurs” (1947) by Pierre Bonnard
“The Orchard” (nd, oil on canvas) by Robert William Vonnoh
“Meadow” (1913, oil on canvas) by Mikko Oinonen
“Pink Roses” (1890, oil on canvas) by Vincent van Gogh
“Pink and Yellow Tree” (nd, oil on canvas) by Albert Henry Krehbiel
“Orchard with Blossoming Trees” (1888, oil on canvas) by Vincent van Gogh
Music by Mussorgsky, “Pictures at an Exhibition” (Promenade), performed by The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
“Landscape, Olive Trees, Corfu (1909, watercolor), by John Singer Sargent
“Olive Trees” (nd), by Constantine Maleas
“Avenue of Olive Trees” (1952, oil on canvas), by Henri Matisse
“Olive Grove, Bright Blue Sky” (1889), by Vincent van Gogh
“Grove of Olive Trees in Bordighera” (1884), by Claude Monet
“It turned out that being together at twilight in the olive groves of Umbria did, indeed, measure everything after that.” ~ Jack Gilbert, from “Living Hungry After”
Some poems from Jack Gilbert’s book The Dance Most of All: Poems
Winter in the Night Fields
I was getting water tonight
off guard when I saw the moon
in my bucket and was tempted
by those Chinese poets
and their immaculate pain.
After Love
He is watching the music with his eyes closed.
Hearing the piano like a man moving
through the woods thinking by feeling.
The orchestra up in the trees, the heart below,
step by step. The music hurrying sometimes,
but always returning to quiet, like the man
remembering and hoping. It is a thing in us,
mostly unnoticed. There is somehow a pleasure
in the loss. In the yearning. The pain
going this way and that. Never again.
Never bodied again. Again the never.
Slowly. No undergrowth. Almost leaving.
A humming beauty in the silence.
To having been. Having had. And the man
knowing all of him will come to the end.
Going Home
Mother was the daughter of sharecroppers.
And my father the black sheep of rich Virginia
merchants. She went barefoot until twelve.
He ran away with the circus at fourteen.
Neither one got through grammar school.
And here I am in the faculty toilet
trying to remember the dates of Emperor Vespasian.
“The Seine at Port-Villez, Blue Effect” (1894, oil on canvas) by Claude Monet
“And what were they anyway, sprigs of grass, things of blue? For a long time I wanted to use words, then didn’t.” ~ Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey
Friday early evening, 80 degrees. Tropic Storm Andrea warning in effect.
I know. I know. The time between real posts seems to stretch on inexorably. The truth is, writing is hard at the moment. The truth is, I find myself in the midst of a major depressive episode, the likes of which I haven’t seen in many years.
“New Moon” (1906, oil on canvas) by Isaak Brodsky
Why?
If I knew, I might be able to find some kind of resolution, but there really is no why. Not really. I’m just kind of empty, kind of numb, kind of unable to string together words to form sentences, sentences to form paragraphs. Mostly, I can write about why I can’t write, and I’m not really sure what kind of post that will produce, but I thought that I’d at least try.
If you’ve never suffered from depression, you simply cannot relate. You might try to understand, but it will be hard. It’s hard enough for the person who is suffering from depression. And because it is to hard for her or for him, it is hard for anyone who might happen to be in the vicinity.
I can only say in advance, that I’m sorry.
“—You’re very poetic. —No, just sad.” ~ José Saramago, fromBlindness
I think that this started about six weeks ago, but to be honest, I’m not sure. I know that it started while Corey was still at sea. It didn’t abate once he returned home, and it (the depression) took a major hit when I held my small dog Alfie’s body in my arms as Brett dug a grave beneath his bedroom window.
“City Night” (1926, oil on canvas) by Georgia O’Keeffe
In an attempt to alleviate my pain and sorrow, I convinced everyone that it was time to visit the human society from which we had adopted Tillie so that we could find a playmate for her, someone closer to her size. The reality is that it was too soon; I realize that now, but of course, it’s too late as we came home with two new dogs: a hound mix 8-week-old puppy I named Kopi, which is Indonesian for coffee (I had wanted to call her Gilly, but Tillie kept getting confused), and a 17-month-old named Jake, for Jack Kerouac (his name was Jack, but we all kept saying Jake, so that was obviously what he was supposed to be called).
You would think that the adoptions would have made some of the sadness go away, but instead, Jake reminds me of Shakes because he is an obvious mama’s boy who clings to me, and this made me think of Alfie, who was never loved enough because of Shakes, and it made me sad all over.
Add to this that the playmate we hoped Jake would be has not turned out as planned: Jake and Tillie do not get along at all; in fact, they seem to despise one another, but everyone gets along with Kopi.
And all of this has led to more guilt on my part for not waiting longer, guilt for bringing home two new pets without considering that Tillie might not like it even though we took her to the shelter with us, and she played with both of them without any problems while we were there. And of course guilt that life sucks for everyone when it sucks for mom.
“In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.” ~ Isaac Marion, from Warm Bodies
Depression is so insidious and unpredictable. It creeps up like a slow-moving fog, or it hits like a mighty nor’easter, all at once and unrelenting. This time, it was a bit of both. There was the gradual descent, and then the sudden appearance of a precipice. I was unprepared.
“The Troacadero, Paris” (ca 1902, watercolor) by John Duncan Fergusson
As many of you know, I am on antidepressants and mood stabilizers, so some of you may be confused as to why I am depressed. The truth is that there is only so much that medicine can do. The brain is a funny thing. Somewhere within mine, a switch didn’t throw all of the way, or a connection was broken, and now, there is this, this nothingness, this painful numbness.
Depression comes from the brain, but it is felt in the heart.
I try very hard not to let mine show too much, but I know that I’m not very successful in doing so. And now we have two dogs and a plus one, for whom a future is uncertain. I know that we cannot return him to the shelter; that would be too cruel, for him to live with a family, get lots of attention, have a yard in which to run and play, and then to find himself inside a cage? I couldn’t do that to my worst enemy. And so we are searching for a family that can give him love. Unsuccessfully, so far. Ideally, behavior modification would be possible, and we could live happily with all three dogs.\
Ideally . . .
“I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing.” ~ Robert Hass, from “Faint Music,” in Sun Under Wood
Outside, nature seems to be a perfect reflection of my state of mind: It is at once sunny and partly cloudy, and in the very next instant, grey with whipping winds. Who knows how intense this storm will be. We may have a fierce tropical storm or a short-lived thunderstorm, but I’m trying to pen this before everything hits and before Alexis arrives with the baby.
“Starry Night” (1922-24, oil on canvas) by Edvard Munch
Even though my heart isn’t quite in it, we are taking Olivia for tonight and perhaps tomorrow night. It is going to be a task to continue to try to keep Jake and Tillie separated, try to watch over Kopi to make frequent trips outside for the potty training, and then, add to the mix the curious 11-month-old that Olivia has become, but I haven’t seen her in many days, and I miss her terribly.
Part of me thinks “to hell with it” as what’s a little more stress added to the mix, and part of me thinks this is another bad decision atop other bad decisions, and yet another part of me just doesn’t care enough to do anything about it.
The air outside is like liquid as the humidity is climbing to 100 percent, and my sinuses are constricting with the climb. A smarter person would crawl into bed for the duration, but a smarter person would not have brought home two new dogs so soon after the loss of long-time pets.
If I only had a brain . . .
“I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have been dragged through I don’t know how many consciences.”—Jean-Paul Sartre, from The Wall
It all goes back to my first section: Why?
“Jealousy Night” (1893, oil on canvas) by August Strindberg
I read an interesting piece about Stephen Fry, who I love in every single thing he does. Apparently, while working on a project in 2012, he had a major episode and attempted suicide by taking a bunch of pills with vodka. Fry, who suffers from bipolar disease, described it better than I could, although I must emphasize that I am in no way feeling suicidal:
“There is no ‘why’, it’s not the right question. There’s no reason. If there were a reason for it, you could reason someone out of it, and you could tell them why they shouldn’t take their own life.”
I mention this only because of Fry’s phrasing that there is no reason, and while he may have been talking about someone who is thinking about committing suicide, I apply the words to my own depressive episodes: There is no reason. Sometimes there is, but more often than not, there just isn’t. And so people on the outside sometimes think reductively, as in, “it’s all in her head,” and funnily enough, it is—in a way.
I’ll try to put together another post in the next few days, and maybe by then I’ll be able to express myself a bit more cogently, until then,
Peace.
Image theme: Blues
“Seascape Moonlight” (date unknown, oil on canvas) by Edward Potthast
Music by S. Carey, “In the Stream”
The Truth the Dead Know
For my mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my father, born February 1900, died June 1959
Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.
My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one’s alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
“The Manneport, Etretat in the Rain” (1885-6) by Claude Monet
You need me like ice needs the mountain
On which it breeds. Like print needs the page.
You move in me like the tongue in a mouth,
Like wind in the leaves of summer trees,
Gust-fists, hollow except for movement and desire
Which is movement.
“Autumn, Rowan Tree and Birches” (1906, oil on canvas) by Igor Grabar
“Remembered landscapes are left in me The way a bee leaves its sting, hopelessly, passion-placed, Untranslatable language.” ~ Charles Wright, from “All Landscape Is Abstract, and Tends to Repeat Itself”
Sunday night. Rainy and cool, blessedly cool.
Outside my door, the low October sky looms. I would like to say looms largely, but it seems to contrived, somehow. But it’s true. It’s low. It’s looming, and it’s large.
“Autumn Landscape” (1903, oil on canvas) by Henri Edmond Cross
Heavy. Gravid.
It is gravid in its heaviness.
I’m not trying to be coy. That’s just how it is, how it seems: low, looming, large, heavy, gravid—as if expectant.
Expectant for what, I do not know. But if I peer into the clouds long enough, I can feel the air gathering around my face, the descent of minute particles of moisture collecting in my brows. And I must say, it is heavenly. A respite from the thick humidity, more like August than October. And so I delight in this evening, despite the unending wall of clouds the color of pale rust.
You see. I have not forgotten how to live in the moment upon occasion. I can still summon that still, small voice that says to the universe in its infinite wonder, thank you.
“Ah, it is here now, the here.” ~ Jorie Graham, from “The Covenant”
“Poplars, Row in Autumn” (1891) by Claude Monet
You might find it strange that I can delight in such dismal weather, but I have spent too much of recent days wiping sweat from my face, feeling as if my skin is covered in a thin coat of oil, the kind that sprays from a can, as if I have been misted, not with mineral water, but soul-clogging oleo.
So even though it is raining, even though the cover for the grill is completely soaked and lying on the ground instead of protecting the gas grill we bought for Corey, even though the dogs will not venture outside, I am delighted, delighted that it is almost 30 degrees cooler than yesterday, that the air conditioners are off, and the ceiling fans are still. Fall is finally here. Autumn has arrived.
I can feel it. But more importantly, I can smell it, smell the beginnings of loam from the fallen leaves that have collected in piles across the grass. There is no other smell quite like it unless it is the smell of freshly fallen snow on a plot of land far away from the city.
Fall. The season of poets and painters. The time for words and golden washes.
Too much? Perhaps, but I think not.
“The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother’s call Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.” ~ Brigit Pegeen Kelly, from “Song”
“October Morning” (nd) by Guy Rose
My best October?
To tell you would be to reveal too much, but I can say that it was the year I began graduate school in the mountains of Virginia, a place where Autumn is a rite of passage, where people stop and pay attention to leaves changing color. It was a season filled with change, exciting discussions about literature, Brunswick stew cooked over a fire in an iron pot, a gathering of graduate students drunk on cheap wine and heady conversation.
My worst October?
Oh. The autumn of great loss. Caitlin. Felt hats and rain coats. New friends and old. Heartbreak before the intense pain and anguish.
My most memorable October?
The year Corey and I sailed around the Caribbean, played tourist in far-away places, saw waters so blue I wanted to weep.
“overtaken by color, crowned with the hammered gold of leaves.” ~ Linda Pastan, from “The Months”
What is it exactly that I love about autumn (aside from the incipient melancholy)? Nostalgia? Oh yes, the melancholic gets very nostalgic indeed.
But what specifically? Another list?
It’s finally cold enough for Christmas socks and sweaters
The color burgundy isn’t too dark to wear.
“October Gold” (1922) by Franklin Carmichael
Velvet. I don’t know why, but I associate the softness of velvet with autumn
Dark nail polish. Do you know how many shades of dark red there are?
Classical music. My taste in music is seasonal, and cool weather heralds Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart.
Books. There is nothing that I like to do more than read on a cold, rainy afternoon.
Poetry. I write more poetry in the fall.
Black yoga pants and white cotton sweaters. I am nothing if not a creature of habit.
Beef stew, homemade vegetable soup and Brunswick stew in the crock pot simmering all afternoon. And corn bread.
The piano. I am drawn to play again, even though doing so locks up my back and wrists for days.
I know that everything isn’t golden in the way it is depicted in art, but somehow, it seems that way. Even if I don’t make it to Skyline Drive, something I haven’t done in too many years, the golds and deep reds of the changing leaves are firmly imprinted in memory.
As I draw to a close, the sky is no longer visible. The air is cool and damp, and everything smells a little bit like bread and wet dog, and it’s a strangely comforting combination.
More later. Peace.
Music by Darius Rucker, “It Won’t Be Like This Forever”
Du siehst, ich will viel (You see, I want a lot)
You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing,
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.
But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.
“Avond (Evening): The Red Tree” (1908-10, oil on canvas) by Piet Mondrian
What Makes You? Poietes is made of flowers, Folk, and determination. With a dash of Holmes.
“Wheatfields Under Thunderclouds” (1890, oil on canvas) by Vincent Van Gogh
I understand the flowers and determination, but not so sure about Folk. The dash of Holmes I completely get. We all know how well I do at keeping things inside. You know how someone somewhere comes up with some kind of relatively cute/intriguing program that supposedly tells you something about yourself? Well this one is called “What Makes You,” and I got the answer above, which only led me to think a bit more on what actually makes me.
Isak Dinesen once said that “the entire being of a woman is a secret which should be kept.” We all know how well I do at keeping things inside. So here is what I came up with on what makes me, what constitutes my being, those things that I embody and that embody me.
“The cure for anything is salt water—tears, sweat, or the sea.” ~ Isak Dinesen
I must begin with water:
The sea. I love everything about the sea, from the crashing waves to the ways in which it can be both completely placid and churning. It can be green, brown, or azure. It is never he same. The water that rolls in and licks your feet is not the same water that comes with the next wave.
“Sea at Night” (nd) by David Burliuk
Tears. Although I do not cry nearly as often as I used to, I would be lying if I said that my being is composed of all the tears I’ve shed, decades of tears—hot and fierce, quiet and passive.
Rain. The rains come and with them, the cleansing. The harder they fall, the more grime that is washed away. Does anything compare to lying in bed listening to the sound of rain on the roof, unless it’s a tin roof? Or the smell of the air after a hard rain?
Snow. When snow blankets an area, the sound of everything changes, becomes muffled. This is as close as we can come to shutting out the noise pollution of everyday life.
Ice. Dangerous and deadly, an ice storm creates its own sound. The cracking of limbs ricochets like nature’s bullets. It is a fierce sound that demands respect.
A hot bath. Perhaps the one thing that pulls together all of the rest: hot and calm, it can muffle sound. If I need a good cry, I run a bath.
“The stars: what are they? They are chunks of ice reflecting the sun; they are lights afloat on the waters beyond the transparent dome; they are nails nailed to the sky; they are holes in the great curtain between us and the sea of light; they are holes in the hard shell that protects us from the inferno beyond; they are the daughters of the sun; they are the messengers of the gods;” ~ Eliot Weinberger, from “31: The Stars” in An Elemental Thing
The sky:
The night sky. I need to live somewhere that allows me to see, really see the stars at night. These lights in the firmament are simultaneously pinholes and massive. They are both cold and hot.
“Eclipse” (1939) by Nicholas Roerich
Lightning. Flashes that cut the sky, lightning encompasses a side of me that I try to harness. From afar, it is relatively benign, but up close, it can be forbidding. I am drawn to the chaos of it, the seeming randomness. It cannot be controlled. It will do as it wants.
Twilight. The period right before sunset, the gloaming. It happens quickly, and can be missed if you aren’t paying attention. Within these few moments, the light shifts, the air stills, the sound pauses. Perhaps not in reality, but sometimes it seems to be so. It is the hour of magic, the time of possibilities. I like to think that it still resides within me somewhere.
“Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start there.” ~ Cheryl Strayed
Words and Images:
Books. Every book that I have ever read, one thousand? two thousand? I do not know. They are all here. Every word, every phrase, every sentence. Portals to other worlds, to other realms, to other people.
“Three Trees in Grey Weather” (1891) by Claude Monet
Songs. This combination of words and sound, how it can reach in and wrap itself around the heart, and either squeeze or massage.
Maps. Torn, yellowed records of ancient places and forgotten discoveries, with words that feel foreign on the tongue.
Poetry. How to explain this, this combination of words that can be like a song, or a prayer, or a book, or a letter? This creation that can encompass every single emotion you have ever felt. There is no explanation for the ineffable.
Art. The transference of beautiful words into an image, the selection of color and form as acute and deliberate as the choice of a noun or verb.
“I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good. I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day a day you’re feeling bad. I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.” ~ Andrea Gibson, from Asking Too Much
The physical:
Hands. My father’s hands, the older I get the more of my father I see in them. Hands that have held and caressed and soothed. Hands that have worked and toiled.
“Ladakh. Golden Clouds over Blue Mountains (1943) by Nicholas Roerich
Eyes. Who do these eyes belong to? In youth, one eye was slightly lazy, made me self-conscious as only a 13-year-old can be. I had to learn to love my eyes.
Skin. The color of olives and mocha, the meat of an overripe banana, and a fresh brown egg. Different hues on different days. It makes me, defines me, and separates me.
Hair. Dark as coffee with flashes of red wine in the sun.
Heart. The four chambers, the capacity for love and hate, empathy, sympathy, dissonance and resonance.
“Say that I starved, that I was lost and weary; That I was burned and blinded by the desert sun; Footsore, thirsty, sick with strange diseases; Lonely and wet and cold, but that I kept my dream!” ~ Everett Ruess, from Everett Ruess
Other things, too hard to categorize:
The smell of lavender and lilac, paper whites and rosemary, verbena and gardenia.
The sound of bells, ringing bells, church bells, chimes, gongs, fog horns. They are all hollow and full at the same time.
“The Evening Star” (1891) Childe Hassam
The colors of blood, sand, whales, and trees. Monet’s sad purples and greens, van Gogh’s lonely blues and yellows, Rothko’s fierce red.
The song of a mockingbird, the lament of a mourning dove, the shriek of a red-winged blackbird.
The beacon of a lighthouse and the path of a falling star.
More . . .
The first chill of an autumn night and the smell of fallen leaves and woodsmoke.
The lonely expanse of the desert, the sound of a rolling stream, the smell of mountain air, and the depth of an unexplored cave.
“Forest” (1906) by Mikalojus Ciurlionis
The sound of wind in the trees, the leaves rustling just before a storm, like a call coming from the earth itself.
The melancholy of Virginia Woolf and the madness of Carson McCullers.
The need for truth, whatever the cost, and this has cost me dearly at different times in my life. Yet I will not let go until I have it, all of it.
The past, the breath of the first person to ask why, the curiosity of the first person to crest the hill, the soul of the first person who recorded it.
The spirit of a dog, the heart of a wolf, the devotion of a dove, and the loyalty of a swan.
Poietes is water and wind, flowers and herbs, words and truth, stars and song. Poietes is heartbreak and love, devotion and silence. Poietes is the hardness of mountains and the softness of shifting sand. Poietes is gold and red and the color of the night sky. Poietes is privacy and solitude, observation and confession. Poietes is all of this simultaneously, and none of this singularly.
More later. Peace.
Music by Benjamin Francis Leftwich, “Pictures”
The Healing Time
Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say holy
holy.
