THE SHORTEST DAY

PREMONITION AT TWILIGHT







The magpie in the Joshua tree
Has come to rest. Darkness collects,







And what I cannot hear or see,
Broken limbs, the curious bird,







Become in darkness darkness too.
I had been going when I heard







The sound of something called the night;
I had been going but I stopped










To see the bird restrain his flight.
The bird in place, the shadows dropped






As if they waited in the light
Before I came for centuries



For something I could never see;






And what it was became itself,
And then the bird, and then the tree;
And then the force behind the breeze
Became at last the whole of me.


Philip Levine

from On The Edge © 1963

in honor of

Monday, November 5, 2007.

Monday
morning’s sky
features a beautiful
pairing
of the waning
crescent moon
and the
blazing planet
Venus at dawn. 1


Venus
and the moon
Will be matched to each other,
The parrot with sugar.
The most beautifully-faced Beloved
Makes a different kind of wedding every night.
rumi

.おぼろ月松出ぬけても出ぬけても

hazy moon in the pine--
passing through
passing through


.年よりや月を見るにもなむあみだ

growing old--
even while moon gazing
praising Buddha!

while fred- erick cayley robinson's allegiance to the pre- raphaelite movement is obvious, and explicit, to my eye, given the outlining of forms, the asymmetrical balance on his canvases, and, to some extent, his subject matter, he was influenced by the japanese as well.

it's not surprising; he studied in paris at the very moment when japonisme was in bloom, the prints being shown and collected,





the work inspiring illustrator and painter (and jeweller, etc.) throughout the town. japonisme once removed?



obvious also is the charles rennie mackintosh influence. cayley robinson held a professorship at the glasgow school of art,



in mackintosh's wonderful building. the elongated simplification of form can be seen in the work of many artists from 'the glasgow school.'