the panama-pacific, that is! • part 4

just gaze for a moment at this spot which really existed for a few short months, about a hundred years ago, as its city still reeled from its earthquake and fire, and while the rest of the world warred on.

can you imagine? wonderland indeed.

you've come to see the murals and the french painters, and now see the statues. there are more statues at this fair than you can look at in a week and a half, and that is just the beginning.

you can see the bathing beauties,

then fifteen minutes later you can go listen to john philip sousa and his band play a march.

you can visit, with- out leaving the fair, yellowstone, the grand canyon, or even mt fuji.

perhaps you're curious about panama itself -- well then visit there -- or maybe china, or samoa, or, other nations far and near.

or maybe, after visiting the national parks, and then japan, you decide to visit hawaii, as you've just heard hawiian music for the first time and you couldn't keep your those hips from swingin' to one of the many new songs introduced at the fair (even irving berlin had one) that then went on to make it big all over the world.




but the palace of fine arts keeps drawing you; you see some japonisme,

but maybe less than you had expected, given what you'd seen in europe just one year ago.

you love being introduced to tonalism and now that you have spent more than a week in san francisco with it's cover of fog all day, even in the summertime!, you understand why the tonalists use such muted colors.

and since you loved her husband's mural, you are thrilled to learn his wife's a painter too.

lots of etchings are exhibited, but nothing like the won- drous work from nabis or any of the other new-century art trends that you'd seen overseas.

and what they did show was usually without color and sometimes even appeared to have travelled back in time while the rest of the world moved forward. were the american judges classically trained and old-fashioned?

why were so few of the prints and paintings so far less colorful and free as the murals. certainly not that guerin guy.

and yet, is there any way to say that this has not been a dream with sincere magic? has not your heart been lifted and your mind eased and entertained?

and in the end you are grateful, very grateful, for all the colors
of the jewel city.

(tomorrow more references than you can shake a stick at)

the bath, part 1

THE BATH

Washing Kai in the sauna,
The kerosene lantern set on a box
outside the ground-level window,
Lights up the edge of the iron stove and the
washtub down on the slab
Steaming air and crackle of waterdrops
brushed by on the pile of rocks on top
He stands in warm water
Soap all over the smooth of his
thigh and stomach
“Gary don’t soap my hair!”

—his eye-sting fear—
the soapy hand feeling
through and around the globes and curves of his body
up in the crotch,
And washing-tickling out the scrotum, little anus,
his penis curving up and getting hard
as I pull back skin and try to wash it
Laughing and jumping,
flinging arms around,
I squat all naked too,
is this our body?

Sweating and panting in the
stove-steam hot-stone
cedar-planking wooden bucket
water-splashing
kerosene lantern-flicker
wind-in-the-pines-out
sierra forest ridges night—
Masa comes in, letting fresh cool air
sweep down from the door
a deep sweet breath
And she tips him over gripping neatly,
one knee down
her hair falling hiding one whole side of
shoulder, breast, and belly,

Washes deftly Kai’s head-hair
as he gets mad and yells—
The body of my lady,
the winding valley spine,
the space between the thighs
I reach through,
cup her curving vulva arch and
hold it from behind,
a soapy tickle a hand of grail
The gates of Awe
That open back
a turning double-mirror world of
wombs in wombs, in rings,
that start in music,
is this our body?

The hidden place of seed
The veins net flow across the ribs,
that gathers
milk and peaks up in a nipple—fits
our mouth—
The sucking milk from this
our body sends through
jolts of light; the son, the father,
sharing mother’s joy
That brings a softness to the
flower of the awesome
open curling lotus gate I cup and kiss
As Kai laughs at his mother’s breast he now is weaned
from, we
wash each other,
this our body

Kai’s little scrotum up
close to his groin,
the seed still tucked away, that
moved from us to him
In flows that lifted with
the same joys forces
as his nursing Masa later,
playing with her breast,
Or me within her,
Or him emerging,
this is our body:

Clean, and rinsed, and sweating more, we stretch
out on the redwood benches hearts all beating
Quiet to the simmer of the stove,
the scent of cedar
And then turn over,
murmuring gossip of the grasses,
talking firewood,
Wondering how Gen’s napping,
how to bring him in
soon wash him too—
These boys who love their mother
who loves men, who passes on
her sons to other women;

The cloud across the sky. The windy pines.
the trickle gurgle in the swampy meadow

this is our body.

Fire inside and boiling water on the stove
We sigh and slide ourselves down
from the benches
wrap the babies, step outside,

black night & all the stars.

Pour cold water on the back and thighs
Go in the house—
stand steaming by the center fire
Kai scampers on the sheepskin
Gen standing hanging on and shouting,

“Bao! bao! bao! bao! bao!”

This is our body.
Drawn up crosslegged by the flames
drinking icy water
hugging babies, kissing bellies,

Laughing on the Great Earth

Come out from the bath.

Gary Snyder

“The Bath” from Turtle Island. Copyright © 1974 by Gary Snyder.
No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992)

rain for roxy, whenever she wants it

I'M ONLY HAPPY WHEN IT RAINS

Im only happy when it rains
Im only happy when its complicated
And though I know you cant appreciate it
Im only happy when it rains





You know I love it
when the news is bad
And why it feels so good
to feel so sad
Im only happy when it rains


Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me
Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me

Im only happy when it rains
I feel good when things are going wrong
I only listen to the sad, sad songs
Im only happy when it rains

I only smile in the dark
My only comfort is the night gone black
I didnt accidentally tell you that
Im only happy when it rains

Youll get the message
by the time Im through
When I complain about me and you
Im only happy when it rains

Pour your misery down, pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down

You can keep me company
As long as you dont care

Im only happy when it rains
You wanna hear about my new obsession?
Im riding high upon a deep depression
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me

Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me ...

Garbage

(don't miss tom hanks' version of 'singing in the rain'
in the movie punchline.)

when the child was a child

When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging.
It wanted the stream to be a river
the river a torrent
and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child
It didn't know it was a child.
Everything was full of life, and all life was one.

When the child was a child
It had no opinions about anything.
It had no habits.
It sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair
and didn't make a face when photographed.

When the child was a child
it was the time of these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here,
and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Isn't life under the sun just a dream?
Isn't what I see, hear and smell
only the illusion of a world before the world?
Does evil actually exist,
and are there people who are really evil?
How can it be that I, who am I,
didn't exist before I came to be
and that someday
the one who I am
will no longer be the one I am?

When the child was a child
it choked on spinach, peas,
rice pudding
and on steamed cauliflower.
Not it eats all of those
and not just because it has to.

When the child was a child
it once woke up in a strange bed
and now it does so time and
time again.
Many people seemed beautiful then
and now only a few, if it's lucky.
It had a precise picture
of Paradise
and now it can only guess at it.
It could not conceive of nothingness
and today it shudders at the idea.

When the child was a child
it played with enthusiasm
and now
it gets equally excited
but only when it concerns
its work.

When the child was a child
berries fell into its hand as only berries do
and they still do now.
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw
and they still do now.
On every mountaintop it had a longing
for yet a higher mountain.
And in each city it had a longing
for yet a bigger city.
And it is still that way.
It reached for the cherries in the treetop
with the elation it still feels today.
It was shy with all strangers
and it still is.
It awaited the first snow
and it still waits that way.

When the child was a child
it threw a stick into a tree like a lance,
and it still quivers there today.

Peter Handke

bent

the wisteria at kameido

kono fuji wa
hayaku sakitari
Kameido no
fuji sakamaku wa
tōka mari nochi

these wisteria
have bloomed early...
the blossoming of
those at Kameido will be
more than ten days later

Masaoka Shiki
translator: Janine Beichman

seven years after helen hyde went to japan for the first time at the age of 31, she was quoted in january 1906 issue of harper's bazar as saying, "japan is a gem, a revelation, a new world filled with art possibilities beyond one's dreams."









hyde had already become an artist, an illustrator; growing up in san francisco and studying in paris had already given her a taste for, a delight in, the 'exotic,' the unexpected, the foreign, the unknown.





during her eleven years living in japan, hyde studied the japanese style of printmaking, studying with other westerners at first, and then with the japanese masters themselves.











this page has images of the bridge at kameido, near tokyo, as seen by several different artists. ms. hyde's is the one at the top left. if you like her work, you will find a great deal of her work online.











('moon bridge at kameido,' helen hyde, 1914; 'half moon bridge,' toshi yoshida, 1941; 'kameido bridge,' hiroshi yoshida, 1927; 'wisteria at kameido tenjin shrine,' hiroshige ando, 1856; photo, ca. 1895; 'kameido bridge,' koitsu tsuchiya, 1933.)

for really cool coverage of this beautiful place and the artists who have loved it, check out this site

this original bridge was destroyed in world war two, and has been rebuilt.