frogs sing, roosters sing

.蛙鳴き鶏なき東しらみけり
kawazu naki tori naki higashi shirami keri

frogs sing, roosters sing
the east
turns light

issa

as van gogh wrote to his brother, 'i think the drawing of the blade of glass and the carnation and the hokusai in *bing's reproductions are admirable... isn't it almost a true religion which these simple japanese teach us, who live in nature as though they themselves were flowers.'

what van gogh probably didn't know was that in japan 'precise rules had been laid down governing the drawing of animals and plants.' through a combination of historical documents and close observation, the artists were required to produce drawings that were 'accurate enough to satisfy a zoologist,' and in doing so revealed their closeness to nature, unlike the europeans who seemed to survey it from afar. 1

the japanese portrayal of animals and plants were true to life but not naturalistic. one found in them a deeper significance, a symbolic element beyond the artistic intent. as a part of historical religions in the area every living thing was both itself, and a representation of the essence it embodied.

in japan, the cock symbolized high esteem. it is also suggested that the bird acquired a religious significance as a representative of peace and the coming of dawn.

the tale of the rooster who made the sun come up is legend; the one with which i am most familiar is the story of chanticleer and the fox, which began with chaucer if not before. two rival inflated egos at the job of trickstering each other, to both the success and the failure of each.

to my eyes, the cock's greatest conceit is his beauty. how graphically dramatic is that bright red against the black or white of the rest of the bird. even in the more multi-colored birds the comb, the tail, and the attitude delight us, and make us laugh with bit of awe.

Is that a
rooster? He
thrashes in the snow
for a grain. Finds
it. Rips
it into
flames. Flaps. Crows.
Flames
bursting out of his brow.

How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren’t, after all, made
from that bird that flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames, our one work

is
to open ourselves, to be
the flames?

Galway Kinnell

from Another Night in the Ruins from Three Books. Copyright © 2002 by Galway Kinnell. All rights reserved.

* Artistic Japan

sawade's tiger

the mills brothers

from ANIMALS ARE MY LIFE

A terrible event was soon to be the subject of another cable. In his big carnivores group Richard Sawade had a young tiger which he had brought up from infancy. It was called Nik and was his great pet. It used to go round with him like a big sheep-dog. But one evening none other than this tiger attacked him and ripped up his shoulder and upper arm.

Fortunately, Sawade was able to grip a bar of the cage with the other hand, and, being a man of athletic strength beyond the ordinary, he succeeded in preventing the animal getting at his neck. His fearless assistant, Rudolf Matthies, came running up and as close as possible fired blank cartridges into the tiger's jaws, and the wooden cap of the cartridge, at that short range, hit the animal.

Indeed, some splinters also wounded Sawade in the back, but the necessary result was achieved the tiger at once began to gnaw at its own wounds, and with his wooden pole Matthies could drive the animal away.

We all held our breath. Slowly, Sawade loosened his hold on the bar. Everybody expected him to fall. But, his face contorted with pain, he now went back into the ring, drove all his animals out of the central cage, bowed rather curtly, and only then, streaming with blood, collapsed in the paddock.

Thank Heaven, medical aid was immediately at hand. The surgeons of the German hospital saved his life. For weeks he lay, terribly hurt, struggling against the blood poisoning which is so frequently a complication of carnivorous animal wounds. A lung inflammation hindered the recovery, which this brave man -- later general manager of our travelling circus -- owed solely to iron will and an iron constitution.

A carnivorous animal always remains a carnivorous animal. Whether caught fully grown or brought up from infancy on the bottle makes no difference whatsoever. Gratitude and faithfulness are virtues in our human ambit of emotions, and not to be imagined unconditionally into animals, which are in the power of other instincts.

After this accident, Rudolf Matthies took over Sawade's animal group, from which of course I removed the attacker. Matthies not only did his outstanding teacher every honour, but himself became a first-class tiger trainer, the only one, indeed, later to be awarded the German Animal Protection Medal.

-- Lorenz Hagenbeck, 1955 *

turning

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season
(turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season
(turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything (turn, turn, turn)

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season
(turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear its not too late

The Byrds

Words adapted from the Bible,
Book of Ecclesiastes

Music by Pete Seeger

it was all going on all at once

"We [poster artists] were young and swimming in the same socio-political milieu that produced the rock bands, the drug culture & the sexual revolution. All this was going on in a very small part of the world, and it was all going on all at once."

so continues david goines: "The most important poster event of the ‘60s, was a 1965 show of Jugendstil posters at the University of California Art Museum, organized and curated by Herschel Chipp.

"This exhibition was seen by all of the people in San Francisco who were doing posters for the rock ‘n’ roll events of the time, and the very next posters were all but direct imitations of those of the Jugendstil, particularly reflecting the lettering of Ferdinand Andrei (President of the Vienna Secession 1905), and Leopold Forstner of the Wiener Werkstätte, which you will recall as letters all made to fit into a square, or some other shape, and almost illegible."

every one of the earlier posters shown here (and most of them here) were at that exhibition.

more from david goines: "Some of the poster producers were: Berkeley Buonaparte, The Print Mint, The Family Dog, The Food, and Bill Graham. Important designers of that time were: Stanley Mouse and Kelly, of Mouse Studios, Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, David Singer, Rick Griffin and Bob Fried.

"More than anything else, the psychedelic poster era, brief as it was, created an audience for posters that had not existed since the turn of the century. The psychedelic and rock poster was not an art reproduction of a poster about a far away event, as was the then-ubiquitous Spanish bullfight poster. They were real advertisements for real events of immediate interest. The posters had a commemorative value as well as being something neat to put on the wall.

"The general acceptance and enthusiasm that greeted the poster designers of the late 60s and early 70s can be attributed to the Fillmore and Avalon posters that preceded them."

when seen in context with what had been going on around the world, the mucha exhibition in london in 1963 and the beardsley in 1966, the influence became vast and intoxicating.

perhaps direct correspondences are harder to find here than in a previous post, but the worm in the bottle is obvious; with squiggley lines, and blowing hair, and the mad swirls of toorop and the decorative elements, the liberties taken with reality, and the general breaking up of our very air, the artists of the secession were in much the same milieu as the stoners 50 years later.

once vision is al- tered, can it ever return?

reference: jugendstil & expressionism in german posters, 1965, herschel b chipp and brenda richardson; regents of the university of california.

from the hut of the phantom dwelling

An eminent monk of Mount Kora in Tsukushi, the son of a certain Kai of the Kamo Shrine, recently journeyed to Kyoto, and I got someone to ask him if he would write a plaque for me. He readily agreed, dipped his brush, and wrote the three characters Gen-ju-an. He sent me the plaque, and I keep it as a memorial of my grass hut.

Mountain home, traveler's rest -- call it what you will, it's hardly the kind of place where you need any great store of belongings. A cypress bark hat from Kiso, a sedge rain cape from Koshi-that's all that hang on the post above my pillow.

In the daytime, I'm once in a while diverted by people who stop to visit. The old man who takes care of the shrine or the men from the village come and tell me about the wild boar who's been eating the rice plants, the rabbits that are getting at the bean patches, tales of farm matters that are all quite new to me.

And when the sun has begun to sink behind the rim of the hills, I sit quietly in the evening waiting for the moon so I may have my shadow for company, or light a lamp and discuss right and wrong with my silhouette.

But when all has been said, I'm not really the kind who is so completely enamored of solitude that he must hide every trace of himself away in the mountains and wilds. It's just that, troubled by frequent illness and weary of dealing with people, I've come to dislike society.

Again and again I think of the mistakes I've made in my clumsiness over the course of the years. There was a time when I envied those who had government offices or impressive domains, and on another occasion I considered entering the precincts of the Buddha and the teaching rooms of the patriarchs.

Instead, I've worn out my body in journeys that are as aimless as the winds and clouds, and expended my feelings on flowers and birds. But somehow I've been able to make a living this way, and so in the end, unskilled and talentless as I am, I give myself wholly to this one concern, poetry.

Bo Juyi worked so hard at it that he almost ruined his five vital organs, and Du Fu grew lean and emaciated because of it. As far as intelligence or the quality of our writings go, I can never compare to such men. And yet we all in the end live, do we not, in a phantom dwelling? But enough of that -- I'm off to bed.

Bashô 1

every day i will give you a color

COLORS PASSING THROUGH US

Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed
and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise
and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions
by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus
stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors’ buttons.
Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow,
as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle
on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other’s arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like
strings of fire.

Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy, “Colors passing through us” from Colors Passing Through Us (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). First appeared in The Southern California Anthology 16 (Fall 1999). Copyright © 1999, 2003 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc.