a thesis of weaves and hallows

Beware of gnawing
the ideogram of nothingness:
Your teeth will crack. Swallow it whole, and you’ve a treasure
Beyond the hope of Buddha and the Mind. The east breeze
Fondles the horse’s ears:
how sweet the smell of plum.

Karasumaru-Mitsuhiro (1579-1638) 1

PINE

The first night at the monastery,
a moth lit on my sleeve by firelight,
long after the first frost.

A short stick of incense burns
thirty minutes, fresh thread of pine
rising through the old pine of the hours.

Summer is trapped under the thin
glass on the brook, making
the sound of an emptying bottle.

Before the long silence,
the monks make a long soft rustling,
adjusting their robes.

The deer are safe now. Their tracks
are made of snow. The wind has dragged
its branches over their history.

Chase Twichell

“Pine” by Chase Twichell from The Snow Watcher published by Ontario Review Press. © 1998 by Chase Twichell.

THIS LITTLE GLADE, REMEMBER

When lying beneath a ponderosa
pine, looking up through layers
of branches, mazes of leaf-spikes

and cones—contemplation grows
receptive to complexity,
the pleasant temptation of pine-
scented tangle. Sky as proposition
is willingly divided and spliced
into a thesis of weaves and hallows.

Name them something else
if you wish, but needled shadow
and substance are, in this hour,
an architecture of philosophy.

And a rising wind, called ”a rough
and bawdy wind“ by a rough and bawdy
voice, is that wind and that voice
transformed. The structure of words
sways and bends in the blow.

Looking away into the clear sky, expectation shifts. Vision becomes/ a welcome to guests
of crows in new/ dimensions who themselves become/ not only depth and horizon
in a circus/ of wings but old vision’s startling visitors.

Not soul alone, but soul consumed
by a single bee descending into the center
of a purple mountain lily is soul
to a soul suckled in sleep.

Earth and human together
form a unique being. A brief era
of immortality is lent to each
by the other. Move momentarily
now—with hovering granite cliff,
with sun-stripe flick of perhaps
vagrant shrew, with raised tack
of mightly larkspur—into this company.

Pattiann Rogers

“This Little Glade, Remember” from Generations.
Copyright © 2004 by Pattiann Rogers.

falling into spring

since i started paying attention, i've realized that museums and galleries repeat shows, and this fall at least two museums will do just that -- to the world's benefit.

in japan, at the new otani art museum, the show inspired by hokusai and hiroshige's '36 views' series, henri riviere's '36 views of the eiffel tower.'

i know this was seen in japan in 1996, but surely before that too, and in 2006 too.

dis- played with the riviere works, are other artists of the time, including works by georges auriol.

i found these images so evocative of so many other artists: zecchin, gauld, rhead, mathews....

that the shows should be coming now, as we in the northern hemisphere stride rapidly toward autumn, must be for the benefit of the southern hemisphere, where spring now looms. sadly, the 'california muse' exhibition of the work of arthur and lucia mathews closed at its last venue last week. now it goes back to the oakland museum where it will be packed away for the cold, damp winter.

david gauld and the other 'glasgow boys' are displayed at the kelvingrove gallery & museum. under the theme of 'impressionism & scotland,' the restored space will continue to promote the brilliant scottish artists.

and the other re- peating exhibition, last held in 1999, is at the hirschl & adler gallery in new york.

louis rhead and other american illustrators, contemporaries of his, travelled similar grounds; 'our women are all so lovely and cultured, and they like long flowered dresses.' or, to be said in another way, they all, costume-wise, anyway, were inspired by their newly discovered kimono.

and to bring this full circle, again,
henri riviere.

AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE THE POSITIVE

Gather 'round me, everybody
Gather 'round me while I preach some
Feel a sermon comin' on me
The topic will be sin
and that's what I'm ag'in'
Settle back and just sit tight

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between

You've got to spread joy
up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium's
Liable to walk upon the scene

To illustrate my last remark
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
What did they do
Just when everything looked so dark

Man, they said
we better
Accentuate
the positive
Eliminate
the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between
No, don't mess with Mister In-Between

please click arrow to listen....via

i found this yesterday and it made me so happy

i am the laziest girl in the world

BLUES

I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, 'til
my face is creased and swollen,
'til my lips are dry and hot. I
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch,
butter and sour cream
on my baked potato, foods that
slothful people eat, that turn
yellow and opaque beneath the skin.

Sometimes come
dinnertime Sunday
I am still in my nightgown,
the one
with the lace trim listing because
I have not mended it. Many days
I do not exercise, only
consider it, then rub my curdy
belly and lie down. Even
my poems are lazy. I use
syllabics instead of iambs,
prefer slant to the gong
of full rhyme,
write briefly while others go
for pages. And yesterday,
for example,
I did not work at all!

I got in my car and I drove
to factory outlet stores, purchased
stockings and panties and socks
with my father's money.

To think, in childhood I missed only
one day of school per year. I went
to ballet class four days a week
at four-forty-five and on
Saturdays, beginning always
with plie, ending with curtsy.

To think, I knew only industry,
the industry of my race
and of immigrants, the radio
tuned always to the station
that said, Line up your summer
job months in advance. Work hard
and do not shame your family,
who worked hard to give you
what you have.

There is no sin but sloth. Burn
to a wick and keep moving.

I avoided sleep for years,
up at night replaying
evening news stories about
nearby jailbreaks, fat people
who ate fried chicken and woke up
dead. In sleep I am looking
for poems in the shape of open
V's of birds flying in formation,
or open arms saying, I forgive you, all.

Elizabeth Alexander

From Body of Life by Elizabeth Alexander, published by Tia Chucha Press. Copyright © 1996 by Elizabeth Alexander.

all of this by way of saying that i need to start exercising again, and i've run into a wall before i've even begun. i've exercised a lot, intermittently, in the past: running, working out at a gym, lots of walking, even working out with exerciseTV. right now i am simply not motivated at all.

except for the fact that my mother started developing alzheimer's when she was not much older than i am now, and already you'll never know when i'll just forget how to use something, like my answering machine, that i've used a million times before, and plus they say that really the only thing that slows or even stops it is exercise, and it works really well. 1

can you help? please share with me any ideas, suggestions, thoughts, whatever you have that can help me get moving again, and i thank you from my heart. and my brain cells.

by any other name

william merritt chase called them 'japanese umbrellas'; his tenth-street studio was known to always have some around.

kent seavey, of the heritage society of pacific grove, calls them that too. 1

in fact, pretty much everyone called them that, and most of them painted them too.

(the grandma of them all may be friseke's garden umbrella.)

everyone, that is, but the japanese.

in japan, the umbrellas were only minimally decorated. if at all. (except maybe in versions by westerners.)

they might be colored, but they were otherwise plain.

friseke painted them several more times, often, like this one, painted in giverny.

"Careful examination of the choices the artist Frederick Frieseke made when depicting women as subjects reveals information about the artist, these women and attitudes toward women during the early 20th century. Consider the women in Frieseke's painting as both subjects and symbols.

Why do you think Frederick Frieseke chose this setting for his painting? The work depicts his wife, Sarah O'Bryan, and a companion enjoying a bit of leisure time in the Frieseke's garden. Frieseke often painted his wife set within the confines of her lush garden or intimate bedroom. In these feminine spaces, Frieseke was able to concentrate on the decorative qualities of nature, as well as the human figure.

How did the artist convey a feminine feeling, beyond setting his female figures in a garden? Frieseke's repetition of rounded forms, such as the chair backs and umbrella, echoes the soft forms of the female figures. Additionally, the repeated use of patterns in the Asian designs on the umbrella and the background flowers, the female subject and the natural setting suggest Frieseke was aware of 19th-century Japanese prints, which bear many of the same characteristics and were very popular among French and American art collectors at the time." 2

and he clearly wasn't the only one. consider this beauty from jean's blog. i loved this piece so went off on research, and found a very interesting thing.

miller's was first, and is much better. i think jean found his best.

there are others, but i think i'll leave it at that. for now. in recreating a bit of this wondrous new east they instead created an illusion.

they may have been created in the east, but they were make for the west alone.

becoming lily pond

NIGHT

I have minded me
Of the noon-day brightness,
And the crickets' drowsy
Singing in the sunshine...

I have minded me
Of the slim marsh-grasses
That the winds at twilight,
Dying, scarcely ripple...

And I cannot sleep.

I have minded me
Of a lily-pond,
Where the waters sway
All the moonlit leaves
And the curled long stems...

And I cannot sleep.

Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914)

people change their names for many reasons: for luck, to hide, to reveal...

For Thais, names are loaded with significance and having the wrong one can bring untold misfortune. Over the past 10 years, the trend for changing one's name has grown alarmingly. Last year in Bangkok alone more than 50,000 people registered new names. And they weren't just changing their first names. Thais can also change their surnames whenever they like, as long as they choose an entirely unique name.

Unlike the West, where parents often choose a name for their child well before it's born, Thais name their children when they know the exact date and time of birth, consulting books, monks and astrologers. Some dates are particularly auspicious - such as the King's and Queen's birthdays. Those lucky enough to give birth on those dates can apply to the Palace for a name. If you're not willing to trust to luck, doctors are more than happy to book you in for a Cesarean in advance.

--Sarah Strickland 1

many jews changed their names when they first arrived at ellis island. or had them changed. then after the second world war, many first generation American-born jews went into an all-too-understandable hiding, and names were changed so success may be pursued.

but for me, it was instead a revelation. since i was 14, tigerlily had been my secret name. maybe i got it from peter pan. it just felt more like my real name than the one i had been given (which, not coincidentally, had been yelled so often i wanted never to hear it again). nine years pass, and i am a hippy in san francisco. i've left the haight behind and now live in the castro near a wonderful health food store named agapé.

i needed to be free of some people i had gotten involved with, so i moved, left no forwarding address, and changed my name. since i had a friend staying with me at the time whose name was now fern blossom, i decided now was the moment to take my 'real name.' i needed a last name too, so i became lily pond.

it was 1973. it was around this time of year so why not?: today marks the official 35-year anniversary of my name. but wait -- i said something about revelation. isn't this just as much about hiding too? it was at first. but the name took root, and the symbol became increasingly important to me. i went to kyoto to tour lily ponds. i built one.

my name was revealed to me, and, thankfully, i listened.