Monday, April 15, 2013

Spring was moving in the air....








I think, Dear Ones, that The Wind in the Willows might be the perfect book.  In what way, you ask?

It has poetry, of course, in shovelfuls, and rhyme and song, too;  it is a joy to hear and read aloud:  it has a non-western philosophical tone, morals based on the nature of growing things, and attention to what Wodehouse's Jeeves would call the psychology of the individual.  It speaks of great spiritual questions, and of what it takes to carry on in the face of adversity, or worse yet, ennui.  It puts all its faith into relationships; it puts all hardship and sorrows into them, too. 

It is filled with imagery and description that carry the love of looking, of regarding.  It has zany high jinx, swashbuckling adventures, quiet introspection, and mythic mysteries.  It's life.

If you were reading only one book in a lifetime, this one might suffice.  Today, on a Spring morning, I contemplate transcribing each word to better feel each word's perfection, to hear it even more fully.
I think; That might be a worthy homage.




PS  If you can't bear anthropomorphizing (more's the pity), then read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek instead, O callous realist.  It is near perfect in similar ways.




Wanna fris a little more....?


Try her beautiful found poems, as in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel

Try "Transitory Life", in the top right-hand corner

Have it read aloud  to you, while you multitask your way through the new millennium.

 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

 
 
 
 
 
What have we here?
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
an Aunt's jewelry box?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
and what's this inside of it?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The missing meteor fragment?!?
 
 
 
 


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Myrtle-sippers, all:






 
a song of the feathers
 
 

 
 
another song 





If you feel like a little more scrolling, here is a poem by Pablo Neruda, an ode to the picaflor, or peck-flower, another lovely Spanish word for hummingbird.

Oda al picaflor

Al colibrí
volante
chispa de agua,
incandescente gota
de fuego
americano,
resumen
encendido
de la selva,
arco iris
de precisión
celeste:
al picaflor
un arco,
un hilo
de oro,
¡una fogota
verde!

Oh
mínimo
relámpago
viviente,
cuando
se sostiene
en el aire
tu
estructura
de polen,
pluma
o brasa,
te pregunto,
¿qué cosa eres,
en dónde
te originas?
Tal vez en la edad ciega
del diluvio
en el lodo
de la fertilidad,
cuando
la rosa
se congeló en un puño de antracita
y se matricularon los metales,
cada uno en
su secreta
galería,
tal vez entonces
de reptil
herido
rodó un fragmento,
un átomo
de oro,
la última
escama cósmica, una
gota
del incendio terrestre
y voló
suspendiendo tu hermosura,
tu iridiscente
y rápido zafiro.

Duermes
en una nuez,
cabes en una minúscula corola,
flecha,
designio,
escudo,
vibración
de la miel, rayo del polen,
eres tan valeroso
que el halcón
con su negra emplumadura
no te amendrenta:
giras
como luz en la luz,
aire en el aire,
y entras
volando
en el estuche húmedo
de una flor temblorosa
sin miedo
de que su miel nupcial te decapite.

Del escarlata al oro espolvoreado, al amarillo que arde,
a la rara
esmeralda cenicienta,
al terciopelo anaranjado y negro
de tu tornasolado corselete,
hasta el dibujo
que como
espina de ámbar
te comienza,
pequeño ser supremo,
eres milagro,
y ardes
desde
California caliente
hasta el silbido
del viento amargo de la Patagonia.
Semilla del sol
eres,
fuego
emplumado,
minúscula
bandera
voladora,
pétalo de los pueblos que callaron,
sílaba
de la sangre enterrada,
penacho
del antiguo
corazón
sumergido.


Ode to the hummingbird

The hummingbird
in flight
is a water-spark,
an incandescent drop
of American
fire,
the jungle's
flaming résumé,
a heavenly,
precise
rainbow:
the hummingbird is
an arc,
a golden
thread,
a green
bonfire!

Oh
tiny
living
lightning,
when
you hover
in the air,
you are
a body of pollen,
a feather
or hot coal,
I ask you:
What is your substance?
And from where do you originate?
Perhaps during the blind age
of the Deluge,
within fertility's
mud,
when the rose
crystallized
in an anthracite fist,
and metals matriculated,
each one in
a secret gallery
perhaps then
from a wounded reptile
some fragment rolled,
a golden atom,
the last cosmic scale,
a drop of terrestrial fire
took flight,
suspending your splendor,
your iridescent,
swift sapphire.

You doze
on a nut,
fit into a diminutive blossom;
you are an arrow,
a pattern,
a coat-of-arms,
honey's vibrato, pollen's ray;
you are so stouthearted —
the falcon
with his black plumage
does not daunt you:
you pirouette,
a light within the light,
air within the air.
Wrapped in your wings,
you penetrate the sheath
of a quivering flower,
not fearing
that her nuptial honey
may take off your head!

From scarlet to dusty gold,
to yellow flames,
to the rare
ashen emerald,
to the orange and black velvet
of your girdle gilded by sunflowers,
to the sketch
like
amber thorns,
your Epiphany,
little supreme being,
you are a miracle,
shimmering
from torrid California
to Patagonia's whistling,
bitter wind.
You are a sun-seed,
plumed
fire,
a miniature
flag
in flight,
a petal of
silenced nations,
a syllable
of buried blood,
a feather
of an ancient heart,
submerged.

Translated by Maria Jacketti
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