pleasuring oneself

it is always interesting to me to watch japonisme as waves, washing over the west over the decades, as this is highlighted in one year, and that in another. from its first faces in the haystacks and bridges of the impressionists, still painted with the hand of the west, through the blossom of the poster with its asymmetry, blocks of color, outlines, and more, and on through to the beginning of the art deco years.

it is in those years, the 20s and 30s, the jazz age with its flappers and charm, that we see some of the most clearly influenced images of all: the chic simplicity of the faces of women. in magazines (and on their covers), and on the covers too of sheet music, we see as nowhere else an almost perfect uh, mirroring of the faces of the bijin in the japanese prints.

throughout the west posters, magazines, illustrated sheet music proliferated for many of the same reasons, which continuously fed back into each other: the development of modern printing, modern communication and modern transportation technologies passed new styles and info around the world as quickly as they used to pass around town after a sunday morning in church.

this is the moment when the ideal woman's body became elongated and ultra-thin, just as utamaro had fantasized in his prints. everything now must be streamlined, swift, be it autos, trains, buildings, costumes, or, of course, women. the requirement of 'charm,' was forwarded by 'movie stars,' (in her book 'charm,' actress margery wilson insisted, among much else, that 'girls' must learn to walk on 'one line,' not 'two lines.' try it.)

as women's freedom grew, so grew the strictures by which she must present herself physically. the mirror of this in the sixties are the books 'fascinating womanhood,' by helen andelin and 'the feminine mystique,' by betty friedan as analyzed brilliantly by holly welker in bitch magazine. (note: at the time, i found myself in both consciousness-raising groups and fascinating womanhood classes. come to think of it, the second actually led me to the first.)

from bitch: '[where] In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan complains that "the only passion, the only pursuit, the only goal a woman is permitted is the pursuit of a man," Andelin insists that a “fascinating woman” finds happiness precisely by assuming a secondary status and lacking an inner life. Being infantile, manic, pixie-ish, and dreamy [is] posited as an important ingredient in attracting a mate, which is the most important element of female happiness.'

in yet another iteration of several of my favorite themes i look at how malleable we as women are expected to be, even more so as we assume increased power. in any number of ways what is likely a majority of women still include a husband and children in their 'must haves.' and as long as that remains true, the girdles and facepaint will remain in the weekend bag. and it will always remain true.

sitting getting my taxes done last month in a small office surrounded by three other menopausal women, i was surprised that i was the only one to whom it had occurred that if 'mating' ceased to be a goal (and yes, that included getting laid), the need for so many other things fall away as well. we get to please ourselves, pretty much for the first time. it can be hard, but, ladies & gentlemen, it sure is sweet.

the hum of bees

.さすが花ちるにみれんはなかりけり
sasuga hana chiru ni miren wa nakari keri


when cherry blossoms
scatter...
no regrets

Issa begins the haiku with the word sasuga: "truly" or "as one might have expected." Here, the first meaning seems to fit. He proposes that, "truly," the cherry blossoms fall to death without regret.

This undated haiku resembles one that Issa wrote in 1821:

miren naku chiru mo sakura wa sakura kana

without regret
they fall and scatter...
cherry blossoms

In a related haiku (1809), he urges the blossoms to trust in Amida Buddha's
saving grace:


tada tanome hana wa hara-hara ano tôri

simply trust!
cherry blossoms flitting
down

"Blossoms" (hana) can denote cherry blossoms
in the shorthand of haiku.1

my yoshino cherry tree outside my bedroom window goes so quickly from blossoms to leaves. when it's newly fully flowered it fills so with bees that the sound of them comes in through my bedroom window, and fills the garden. and as quickly gone, on to other pollen, other trees.

a movie i just saw a bit of, cherry blossoms, says that the cherry blossom festivals, gathered in groups under the landscapes of yoshino cherry trees, are the perfect reminder to all of us of impermanence.

at 60,
it's something one has learned a bit of;
i wonder how much i will have learned
when i am 80.

solitaire

TO LUCK

In the cards and at the bend in the road
we never saw you

in the womb and in the crossfire
in the numbers
whatever you had your hand in

which was everything
we were told never to put
our faith in you
to bow to you humbly after all
because in the end there was nothing

else we could do
but not to believe in you

still we might coax you with pebbles
kept warm in the hand

or coins or the relics
of vanished animals
observances rituals
not binding upon you
who make no promises

we might do such things only
not to neglect you
and risk your disfavor
oh you who are never the same
who are secret as the day when it comes

you whom we explain
as often as we can
without understanding

W. S. Merwin

summer night-- the moon

.夏の夜や河辺の月も今三日

natsu no yo ya kawabe
no tsuki mo ima mikka

summer night--
the moon by the river
just a sliver

This is an early haiku written in the 1790s. The rhyme in my translation is accidental--so I decided to allow it. The moon is a "three-day moon"...just a sliver.

WARM SUMMER SUN

Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.

Mark Twain

1792
.寝せ付て外へは出たり夏の月
nese-tsukete soto e wa detari natsu no tsuki

it's bedtime
but out I go...
summer moon

SUMMER SONG


Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,—
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer's smile,—
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?

William Carlos Williams

1817
.短夜や草はついついついと咲
mijika yo ya kusa wa tsui-tsui-tsui to saku

short summer night--
the grasses bloom
swish, swish, swish!

MY KIND

My kind? I don’t know my kind.
I see the sunlight speaking
in the windy leaves — a clear,
cold, early summer day that says
whatever is lost will come down
the daylight to meet you.

Forget it. There’s never anyone.
And I find myself wanting
to invent a new language. My
country’s the scratch of rain on
glass, these straight miles of
crucified wire — empty as a rose.

Remember the night skies? Navy.
A silk drawn slowly from the
breast pocket for the last deep
trick of the stars: the splash,
the scraps of silver tinselling
down in the flooding white light.

Robert Dana



(all haiku by issa, translated by david g. lanou, here.)

blue skies

PRINCIPALITIES OF JUNE

Original light broke apart,
the Gnostics say,
when time began,

singular radiance
fractioned into form
— an easy theory

to believe,
in early summer,
when that first performance

seems repeated daily.
Though wouldn’t it mean
each fracturing took us

that much further
from heaven?
Not in this town,

not in June: harbor
and cloudbank, white houses’
endlessly broken planes,

a long argument
of lilac shadows and whites
as blue as noon:

phrasebooks of day,
articulated most of all
in these roses,

which mount and swell
in dynasties of bloom,
their easy idiom

a soundless compaction
of lip on lip. Their work,
these thick flowerheads?

Built to contain
sunlight, they interrupt
that movement just enough

to transfix in air, at eye level,
now: held still, and shattering,
which is the way with light:

the more you break it
the nearer it comes to whole.

Mark Doty






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all rights reserved

snuggle up tonight: tomorrow: LIGHT!!!

Aaron Neville