whatever you can

WALKING THE MARSHLAND

It was no place for the faithless,
so I felt a little odd
walking the marshland with my daughters,


Canada geese all around and the blue
herons just standing there;
safe, and the abundance of swans.



The girls liked saying the words,
gosling,
egret, whooping crane, and they liked

when I agreed. The casinos were a few miles
to the east.
I liked saying craps and croupier


and sometimes I wanted to be lost
in those bright
windowless ruins. It was April,

the gnats and black flies
weren't out yet.
The mosquitoes hadn't risen

from their stagnant pools to trouble
paradise and to give us
the great right to complain.

I loved these girls. The world
beyond Brigantine
awaited their beauty and beauty

is what others want to own.
I'd keep that
to myself. The obvious




was so sufficient just then.
Sandpiper. Red-wing
Blackbird. "Yes," I said.

But already we were near the end.
Praise refuge,
I thought. Praise whatever you can.

Stephen Dunn

(reprinted from Between Angels, Poems by Stephen Dunn, by permission of the author and WW Norton & Company Inc. Copyright © 1989 Stephen Dunn.)

The Japanese regard the crane as a symbol of good fortune and longevity because of its fabled life span of a thousand years. It also represents fidelity, as Japanese cranes are known to mate for life.

time travel

yesterday turned up additional serendipitous time-travel as well. another alert, this time for 'japonisme,' landed me here. there, i learned of an artist who was new to me: louis anquetin.

so what does one do in such a case? why, a google image search, of course. and that turned me up here. what a wondrous site. (for an even fuller experience, go here.) in addition to introducing me to many wonderful new artists, this site taught me two things: 1.) there really were quite a number of painters at the time who didn't seem to be at all caught into the japonisme frenzy, and 2.) that adding their work to one's knowledge really begins to give a more full feeling for what it was like to be there then. (the site even compares paintings with photographs.)

anquetin was profoundly influenced by the new japanese influx, specializing in what he called 'cloisonnisme,' just another word for 'it,' i think.

others of the new artists i met were ramon casas,

giuseppe de nittisouge,

and federico zandomeneghi.


and yes, i do see diagonals, and blocks of color, and screens.... but what i see beyond these things is that moment, that moment when all of this was taking place, so thrilling, decorative, and profound.






if you go through all the images on the lautrec site, you will see many faces that are decidedly not the sarah bernhardts, nor the jane avrils. they are not necessarily having any fun. their hairdos occasionally look rather odd, as though they were trying the fashion because it was the fashion, and not because it suited them.

in short, in a way, you will see yourself. ordinary people of another time.

(anquetin, anquetin, casas,casas, de nittisouge, zandomeneghi)