falls apart in the perfume

THE LEMON TREES

Hear me a moment. Laureate poets
seem to wander among plants
no one knows: boxwood, acanthus,
where nothing is alive to touch.

I prefer small streets that falter
into grassy ditches where a boy,
searching in the sinking puddles,
might capture a struggling eel.

The little path that winds down
along the slope plunges
through cane-tufts
and opens suddenly
into the orchard
among the moss-green trunks
of the lemon trees.

Perhaps it is better
if the jubilee of small birds
dies down, swallowed in the sky,
yet more real to one who listens,
the murmur of tender leaves
in a breathless, unmoving air.

The senses are graced with an odor
filled with the earth.
It is like rain in a troubled breast,
sweet as an air that arrives
too suddenly and vanishes.

A miracle is hushed; all passions
are swept aside. Even the poor
know that richness,
the fragrance of the lemon trees.

You realize that in silences
things yield and almost betray
their ultimate secrets.

At times, one half expects
to discover an error in Nature,
the still point of reality,
the missing link
that will not hold,
the thread we cannot untangle
in order to get at the truth.

You look around. Your mind seeks,
makes harmonies, falls apart
in the perfume, expands
when the day wearies away.
There are silences in which one watches
in every fading human shadow
something divine let go.

The illusion wanes,
and in time we return
to our noisy cities where the blue
appears only in fragments
high up
among the towering shapes.
Then rain leaching the earth.
Tedious,
winter burdens the roofs,
and light is a miser, the soul bitter.

Yet, one day
through an open gate,
among the green luxuriance
of a yard,
the yellow lemons fire
and the heart melts,
and golden songs pour
into the breast
from the raised cornets of the sun.

Eugenio Montale

translated by Lee Gerlach

Copyright © 2002, 2004 Harry Thomas, Handsel Books (an imprint of Other Press LLC).

more than enough

MORE THAN ENOUGH

The first lily of June opens its red mouth.
All over the sand road where we walk
multiflora rose climbs trees cascading
white or pink blossoms, simple, intense
the scene drifting like colored mist.

The arrowhead is spreading its creamy
clumps of flower and the blackberries
are blooming in the thickets. Season of
joy for the bee. The green will never
again be so green, so purely and lushly

new,

grass lifting its wheaty seedheads
into the wind. Rich fresh wine
of June, we stagger into you smeared
with pollen, overcome as the turtle
laying her eggs in roadside sand.

Marge Piercy

More than Enough copyright © 2003 by Marge Piercy and reprinted from The Paterson Literary Review.

evolution of a rose

we have looked at roses before, mackintosh, hunter, but the 20s saw some strange new develop- ments in the portrayal of flowers. they went all crazy, all wiggley, and more abstracted than ever! trace the change to mackintosh, to poiret (both of whom had stylistic ties to vienna), or the new guys, ruhlmann, brandt, or dufet? why did this happen??!!

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Loveliness extreme.
Extra gaiters,
Loveliness extreme.
Sweetest ice-cream.
Pages ages page ages page ages.

•

Do we suppose that all she knows is that a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.

•

...she would carve on the tree Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose until it went all the way around.

•

A rose tree may be a rose tree may be a rosy rose tree if watered.

•

Indeed a rose is a rose makes a pretty plate.

collected from gertrude stein 1

•

JULIET:
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague?
it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face,
nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

WASTEFUL GESTURE ONLY NOT

Ruth visits her mother’s grave in
the California hills.
She knows her mother isn’t there but the rectangle of grass
marks off the place where the memories are kept,

like a library book named Dorothy.
Some of the chapters might be: Dorothy:
Better Bird-Watcher Than Cook;

Dorothy, Wife and Atheist;
Passionate Recycler Dorothy,
Here Lies But Not.
In the summer hills,
where the tall tough grass

reminds you of persistence
and the endless wind
reminds you of indifference,

Ruth brings batches of
white roses,
extravagant gesture
not entirely wasteful
because as soon as she is gone she knows
the deer come out of the woods to eat them.

What was made for the eye
goes into the mouth,
thinks Ruth to herself as she drives away,
and in bed when she tries to remember her mother,

she drifts instead to the roses,
and when she thinks about
the roses she
sees instead the deer
chewing them—

pale petals of the roses in the dark
warm bellies
of the sleeping deer—
that’s what going to sleep is like.

Tony Hoagland

from What Narcissism Means to Me.
Copyright © 2003 by Tony Hoagland.

au clair de la lune

- 1 -
Au clair de la lune
Mon ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta plume
Pour écrire un mot
Ma chandelle est morte
Je n'ai plus de feu
Ouvre-moi ta porte
Pour l'amour de Dieu.








- 2 -
Au clair de la lune
Pierrot répondit
Je n'ai pas de plume
Je suis dans mon lit
Va chez la voisine
Je crois qu'elle y est
Car dans sa cuisine
On bat le briquet.

- 3 -
Au clair de la lune
L'aimable Lisa
Frappe chez la brune
Elle répond soudain
Qui frappe de la sorte?
Il dit à son tour
Ouvrez votre porte
Pour le Dieu d'amour.


- 4 -
Au clair
de la lune
On n'y voit
qu'un peu
On cherche
la plume
On cherche
du feu
En cherchant d'la sorte
Je n'sais c'qu'on trouva
Mais je sais qu' la porte
Sur eux se ferma.


écouter:
Chanson enfantine du XVIIIe siècle
Interprète: Yvonne Printemps (1931)

japanese botanicals in the american midwest

holding this book in my hands, on an almost spring afternoon out in my yard, i was moved to the edge of breathlessness. not only is there a complete catalogue of edna boies hopkins' wondrous prints, beautifully reproduced, but in addition a truly relevent and meaningful narraitive. too often, as you've heard me complain, the japanese roots of the work we see is ignored. here it is covered comprehensively, and carefully.

chronicled are boies's studies with arthur wesley dow, and dow's involvement with japanese prints is discussed intelligently.

in 1908, 'mrs. hopkins' (she was now married) was discussed in depth in the bibliophile, a magazine and review for the collector, student, and general reader. while it neglects dow, it offers much. (the prints mentioned are in the new book.)


VERY numerous and various have been the vicissitudes of the wood-cut. Now in the enjoyment of a wide and flagrant popularity, now in the brief shadow of a passing disfavour to-day, its facile possibilities are more than ever appreciated.

The colour- prints of Mrs. Edna Boies Hopkins, described in this article — as will be seen from the examples given — are of an exceedingly interesting nature. Some few years ago when teaching at the Veltin School, New York, and under the stimulus of the talented principal, Mrs. Sprague-Smith, Mrs. Hopkins discovered the need of flower studies which should have something of the simple charm and direct appeal of the flowers themselves.

Such studies apparently were not to be found — they were therefore to be attempted. It seemed to Mrs. Hopkins, who had been for some years a student of Japanese art, that the methods of the wood-engravers of Japan was the one most suitable ; and a visit to Japan and practical experience of those methods confirmed this opinion. Setting aside the considerable mass of experimental work — in* itself no slight achievement—the series of ten flower studies, of which the four reproductions here given are typical, was Mrs. Hopkins' first work in this manner.

It will be noted that the motif is generally quite simple — a spray of leaf and blossom — but so disposed as to suggest at first sight the whole character and habit of the plant. To give this realism, so utterly given in the delightful flower studies of Keibun, Yasukuni and Utamaro, Mrs. Hopkins has followed largely the technique and manner of the great Japanese artists. The tools used are the half-dozen dainty little knife-chisels used by the Japanese engravers, the wood is cherry cut grain lengthwise, the brushes also are Japanese except one strange tool which is used for broad surfaces and bears an uncanny resemblance to a tooth-brush.

The prints themselves which are on fairly stout Japanese paper are taken off the blocks by rubbing with the sensitive bamboo-covered tampon — a separate block being used for each colour in addition in some rare cases to an outline key block. The register is the simple but effective Japanese method. No two prints are alike, the slightest variation in the printing giving an individuality to each impression. Indeed, one of the great charms of the process is the element of surprise in each print as it is taken off. That Mrs. Hopkins has seized the individuality of her subjects is apparent at a glance, but the manner of treatment has contributed much to the success gained.

For instance, in the large green leaves of the convolvulus (or to give it its charming trivial name in America — Morning Glory), the long vertical grain of the wood gives a most happy effect. This plate is printed without back-ground and is an excellent example of simple and frank treatment.

Perhaps the most successful print — it is indeed quite a master-piece in its own manner — is the rendering of the Phlox, in which a wonderfully complete effect is gained by reserved and subtle artistry. The great value of repression could hardly be better proven than in this extremely sensitive print, the white mass of the flowers standing out most convincingly against the dull silken sheen of the back-ground.

The prints of the bramble and the fuchsia are, each in its own way, natural and entirely decorative ; and are less interesting than the others in subject rather than in treatment. The "Petunia" print which Mrs. Hopkins has designed expressly for "The Bibliophile," though necessarily of a much smaller and simpler type than the other examples illustrated, has, nevertheless, in the decorative massing of the leafage and the clever suggestion of the flower's flaccid limpness some of the distinguishing qualities of the larger studies.

Of each of the larger flower studies so far dealt with there have been printed fifty examples, and no more will be done. Mrs. Hopkins in designing the subjects, cutting the blocks, and pulling the proofs, is entirely responsible for the prints. A second series of ten flowers has now been made, and it is the intention of Mrs. Hopkins to next produce a complete series of studies of the various fruit-tree blossoms, such as the plum, cherry and apple.

How useful such a series would be to the student goes without saying, and it is perhaps to be regretted that the prints noted in this article have not been available for art school purposes, but while the collector is abroad in the land the needs of others must bide. 1

after this piece was written, hopkins' work evolved, of course. the trumpet flower image here is an example of her more art deco style. sadly, many repositories of her work online come up with 'not yet digitalized.' much hope hangs on that 'yet.' happily though there is now a beautifully published record of her work. you have a few weeks left to see the show (see sidebar); and you have a little time too to hold it in your hands.