Magic Skylight

I say one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet makes himself a seer by an immense, long, deliberate derangement of all the senses.

-- Arthur Rimbaud, Letter to Paul Demeny [May 15, 1871]

This is my magic skylight, sharing its own odd perspective on the world through its frame of thawing ice. When you look up through it, it toys with your orientation in space. I like that dizzy sensation, the momentary vision of the world as a new and thrilling place. In one of its earlier incarnations, fully covered with layers of ice, the skylight allowed enough light through to become a three-dimensional Mark Rothko painting. This morning its frame has melted and cracked, leaving the naked trees looming like crackled varnish, patterns backlit by February sun. I praise its kaleidoscope eye.

The photograph was taken 2/6/11.

Dream Horses

For man, as for flower and beast and bird,
the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive.

-- D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse

The photo was taken late this afternoon, on my way back from upstate NY. The horses caught my eye as I drove past; I immediately had to find a place to turn around so I could come back, tiptoe through a snowbank, and simply watch them. They were so beautifully still, so dreamlike, so part of the wintry world.

YES (Again)!

Here we all are, at the last night of 2010. I have already been out for a sunny walk and late lunch with a friend and am waiting to go to a New Year's Eve / birthday party at another friend's house. It feels good to celebrate the changing year on the calendar, the changing year in my life. Tomorrow will be a fresh start.

Back in October, my poet friend Guy Reed described his wife Beth Humphrey's wonderful idea for each incoming year. "My wife, Beth, likes to pick a word for the year. Last year it was savor and we did. This year it is nest and we are doing that. It's amazing how well it has worked in our lives to pick an 'organizing' principle to shape the year." I love this idea! Looking ahead to 2011, two simple possibilities fluttered into my mind: yes and love. Another word came up at late lunch: open. Since love should always be the overlord of the days anyway, I select the word YES to carry me through 2011. To remind me to place yes before no, to be positive and compassionate -- and, yes, open to new ideas, friendships, adventures and possibilities. What's your word for the new year? Let me know, if you feel inspired to share. Happy New Year!

Thanks to Beth and Guy for giving me permission to mention Beth's idea and to quote Guy. The photo was taken this past summer at my cousin Laura's graduation party. Thanks for the festive lights, a perfect celebratory touch for this New Year's Eve as well!

Almost Winter

Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours ...

-- Thomas Campion

The photo was taken this evening in Rhinebeck, New York. Click on image to enlarge.

Shadows Over Rilke

I love these shadows, cast by a glass over the cover of a collection of Rilke's poetry. The patterns on the glass fell with beautiful, matching grace across the spiraling design of the book on my table. A November gift: found art. Rilke is one of my favorite poets. His words, so perfect for today:

... But, listen: a rake at work this early.
Above, alone, in the vineyard,
a man is already talking with the earth.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Essential Rilke, Selected and Translated by Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann

The photo was taken 11/7/10. Just click on image to enlarge.

Watched

On a walk just a short while ago, I had fun setting up this photo. Perfect for tomorrow's holiday and the wheeling season. Happy Almost-Halloween!

For an eerie experience, click on Her Kind on The Academy of American Poets site to listen to Anne Sexton read her famous witch poem. Here's the first stanza of "Her Kind" to get you started:

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind ....

-- Anne Sexton

Continue reading and listening to "Her Kind" by following the link above. For more about the troll, visit this earlier 2008 post, "Troll, Raku, Orkney Islands."

Click on photo to enlarge image.

Interstices

Thank you, Charles Wright, for the following beautiful lines from "Poem Almost Wholly in My Own Manner" in Black Zodiac:

Interstices. We live in the cracks.
Under Ezekiel and his prophesies,
under the wheel.

Poetry's what's left between the lines --
a strange speech and a hard language,
It's all in the unwritten, it's all in the unsaid ...

-- Charles Wright, Black Zodiac (1997)
(Please forgive the formatting.)

The photo of lichens was taken 10/22/10 at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River, New York. Click on image to enlarge.