On the Lake II

Wang Wei is one of the major poets of the Tang dynasty (618-907), the period of greatest poetic flowering in China.  I thought of this poem when I read Stanley Kunitz's The Long Boat (see below), and I wondered if Stanley Kunitz was "seeing" Wang Wei's poem alongside his own while he worked.

Lake Yi

Blowing flutes cross to the distant shore.

At day's dusk I bid farewell to you.

On the lake with one turn of the head:

Mountain green rolls into white clouds.

This poem is translated by Pauline Yu, from a terrific book she wrote (1980), The Poetry of Wang Wei. 

On the Lake

"In the Slop of His Cradle"

Elise Archer made this beautiful painting, which I reproduced from the cover of The Collected Poems, by Stanley Kunitz, her husband.  The painting's title is also the 17th line of a poem by Stanley Kunitz.  Here is the poem:

THE LONG BOAT

When his boat snapped loose

from its mooring, under

the screaking of the gulls,

he tried at first to wave

to his dear ones on shore,

but in the rolling fog

they had already lost their faces.

Too tired even to choose

between jumping and calling,

somehow he felt absolved and free

of his burdens, those mottoes

stamped on his name-tag:

conscience, ambition, and all

that caring.

He was content to lie down

with the family ghosts

in the slop of his cradle,

buffeted by the storm,

endlessly drifting.

Peace!  Peace!

To be rocked by the Infinite!

As if it didn't matter

which way was home;

as if he didn't know

he loved the earth so much

he wanted to stay forever.

David

Dove, here, there

E.E. Cummings wrote this for Paul Rosenfeld.  M included it in a talk he gave Friday in San Francisco, and he dedicated the talk to David.  David Kent Hendrickson, whom we love(d) so.

o

the round

little man we

loved so isn’t

no!w

a gay of a

brave and

a true of a

who have

r

olle

d i

nt

o

n

o

w(he)re                                    

Millie and Aaron also gave talks, wonderfully.  We all could see, more, how very lively is E.E. Cummings' poetry, how very not-dead is w(he)re.

Lake of the earth

The lake is a window into the earth.  
Ohmygosh: these words-become-image take my breath away.
Here is the entire poem from where these words come, The Half-Finished Heaven, by Tomas Transtromer, translated by Robin Fulton:

THE HALF-FINISHED HEAVEN


Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.


The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a drink.


And our paintings see daylight,
our red beasts of the ice-age studios.


Everything begins to look around.
We walk in the sun in hundreds.


Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.


The endless ground under us.


The water is shining among the trees.


The lake is a window into the earth.

Lake Michigan, oil/gessoed board

Spring wild

We are having wild growth and color, every day anew.  You too?

Easter, faith

M sent me this poem by Edward Hirsch, who often writes with faith as a theme. I suppose faith is also a part of the life of poets; can you write poetry without faith?  M gets a "poem-a-day" each day of April (which is poetry month in the U.S.), and this poem appeared yesterday.  You can go to the poem-a-day site here:  poem-a-day    (you need to sign-up in the small box at the right of the link's page).

Green Figs 

I want to live like that little fig tree
    that sprouted up at the beach last spring
        and spread its leaves over the sandy rock.

All summer its stubborn green fruit
    (tiny flowers covered with a soft skin)
        ripened and grew in the bright salt spray.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good
    and Evil was a fig tree, or so it is said,
        but this wild figure was a wanton stray.

I need to live like that crooked tree—
    solitary, bittersweet, and utterly free—
        that knelt down in the hardest winds

but could not be blasted away.
    It kept its eye on the far horizon
        and brought honey out of the rock.

Spring, Easter 2012

crabapple tree at the church yard

I think of Easter, the day when loss becomes new life, as the start of spring.  Here is a poem by E.E. Cummings, spring!may--.  The poem reads a lot like a song, don't you think?

spring!may--
everywhere's here
(with a low high low
and the bird on the bough)
how?why
--we never we know
(so kiss me)shy sweet eagerly my
most dear


(die!live)
the new is the true
and to lose is to have
--we never we know--
brave!brave
(the earth and the sky
are one today)my very so gay
young love


why?how--
we never we know
(with a high low high
in the may in the spring)
live!die
(forever is now)
and dance you suddenly blossoming tree
--i'll sing

Robins again

Robin

Robins are members of the thrush family.  You can see thrush-like spots on young robins, their shapes are similar to thrush's.  Robins have a way of holding their head high that is distinctive; they may be trying to hear worms this way.  Our robins have been around for at least two weeks, which makes their spring return quite early this year.

This is a small painting, mostly pigment and glue-water, charcoal, and graphite.  Last year's returned robin, quite similar in pose, is posted on the 31st of March, two weeks later!

Stillness

Here is a poem by Tomas Transtromer, entitled From March '79.  The translator is John F. Deane.


Tired of all who come with words, words but no language
I went to the snow-covered island.
The wild does not have words.
The unwritten pages spread themselves out in all directions!
I come across the marks of roe-deer's hooves in the snow.
Language but no words.


Today is our leap year day.  Tomorrow is March.  Yesterday was an election day in our state; therefore, we were getting many phone calls and many phone messages with machine voices asking us to vote for Mitt or for Rick.  Phone calls that were not phone calls, words that were not words, machine voices using our first names.  Today the telephone was quiet.  And I came across the poem here, above.
The drawing below is quite large.  This is a detail:  maybe a bit of wildness there.

bluebirds

Yesterday I told Sally about my day in the studio and she said, "Oh, I love your birds."  So I'll post them here for her and you:  two bluebirds: one is a sketch, and one more detailed and more plumped up from the cold and wind.  It is still winter after all.  Yet we have glimpses of spring, including a few returning bluebirds.
At  Ai-jane.blogspot.com/search/label/bluebird  I have a previous pair of bluebirds: one sketchy and one plumped!

charcoal in winter

Junco

Snowing by the tracks

sketch for "Snowing"

Charcoal is made from burning wood--charring it--until the wood is velvety soft-hard.  Juncos' heads and napes look charcoal-black.  And the branches they alight upon are charcoal, pre-fired!  So I tried this Junco drawing almost entirely with charcoal.  The winter snow sketch has charcoal under it, almost as a skeleton. (In the sketch you can see the skeletal structure.)  In my studio I have a large can of charcoal powder, but I do not use it much.  The charcoal sticks, though, I love to use.  Strong enough to be crayon-like and to evoke structures (of trees, of railroad yards and such); still, the sticks can stroke paper with that velvety sheen, slight shimmer.

Evening coming

Leonard Cohen just released a new album of songs, Old Ideas.  Joan Didion has a new book, released a few months ago:  Blue Nights.  The album and the book are about mortality, about life aware of death.  Cohen and Didion are, after all, now old.

Their voices are quite different.  Leonard Cohen sounds like gravel.  Almost disintegrating, his very low voice has just enough enunciation to form words and some tune.  Joan Didion's prose is remarkably clear, precise, and detached, like ice when ice is smooth, translucent, and illuminating all contained in it:  but not here.  Her voice has cracked.  Uncomfortable repetitions and occasional confused oldness is in the writing (and still, the book is masterful).

Art with oldness has distinction.  I keep hearing the voices of Leonard Cohen and Joan Didion when they are not in the room.  Here is the refrain of the first song on Old Ideas.  The song is entitled "Going Home."


Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it is better
than before
Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
that I wore