this was library. for centuries.
WALLACE STEVENS
The great poet came to me in a dream, walking toward me in a house
drenched with August light. It was late afternoon and he was old,
past a hundred, but virile, fit, leonine. I loved that my seducer
had lived more than a century and a quarter. What difference
does age make? We began to talk about the making of poems, how
I craved his green cockatoo when I was young, named my Key West
after his, like a parent naming a child "George Washington." He was
not wearing the business suit I'd expected, nor did he have the bored
Rushmore countenance of the familiar portrait. His white tee shirt
was snug over robust chest and belly, his golden hair long, his beard
full as a biker's. How many great poets ride a motorcycle? We
were discussing the limits of image, how impossible for word
to personate entirely thing: "sea," ocean an August afternoon; "elm,"
heartbreak of American boulevards after the slaughter
of sick old beautiful trees. "I have given up language," he said.
The room was crowded and noisy, so I thought I'd misheard.
"Given up words?" "Yes, but not poems," he said, whereupon
he turned away, walking into darkness. Then it was cooler, and
we were alone in the gold room. "Here is a poem," he said, proffering
a dry precisely formed leaf, on it two dead insects I recognized
as termites, next to them a tiny flag of scarlet silk no larger than
the price sticker on an antique brooch. Dusky red, though once
bright, frayed but vivid. Minute replica of a matador's provocation?
Since he could read my spin of association, he was smiling, the glee
of genius. "Yes," he said, "that is the poem." A dead leaf? His grin was
implacable. Dead, my spinner brain continued, but beautiful. Edge
curling, carp-shaped, color of bronze or verdigris.
Not one, but two
termites—dead. To the pleasures of dining on sill or floor joist, of
eating a house, and I have sold my house.
I think of my friend finding
termites when she reached, shelf suddenly dust on her fingers,
library tumbling, the extermi- nator's bill. Rapacious bugs devour,
a red flag calls up the poem: Blood. Zinnia. Emergency. Blackbird's
vermillion epaulet. Crimson of manicure. Large red man reading,
handkerchief red as a clitoris peeking from his deep tweed pocket—
Suddenly he was gone, gold draining from the walls, but the leaf,
the leaf was in my hand, and in the silence I heard an engine howl,
and through the night that darkened behind the window, I saw
light bolt forward, the tail of a comet smudge black winter sky.
Honor Moore
"Wallace Stevens" is reprinted from Red Shoes by Honor Moore.
Copyright © 2005 Honor Moore.
and then the world changed and the
gods invented internet.
when i was a child, the childish things i played with i've never put away; i sat cross-legged against the library window, hidden amongst the stacks, reading poetry books. then over the years, this moment in art history, as you know, took me over.
one day i walked into moe's bookstore, and there in the rare books store-within- a-store was a complete bound set of s. bing's '
artistic japan.' moe traded me ads in my magazine for that set, and i treasure it still.
and i can now give it to you, the last three volumes of six, anyway, and arthur wesley dow's teaching manuals, and copies of '
the studio ,' and dorothy lathrop books, and every gift a library might bestow.
libraries tumbled? no; just transferred, maybe, from paper to bolts of light, a comet smudge across a winter sky.
start
here.
i have learned that ethel larcombe was part of the glasgow art scene and worked for talwin morris at blackie's publishing. in fact, one of her designs has already been posted right in this very blog, as was kindly noted in the comments section. (added on the 24th)
i have now spent two days online and in several dozens of my books, and i think i finally have the right answer: ethel larcomb.
