Anyway, I'm gearing up for the fall but have gotten a sneak peak of it while in London which is a great city but has had some of the wackest weather this side of France. The people are groovy though and I've had a bunch o'fun undercover here doing research on performance and philosophy.
The more I study the less I know I know. Here's a poem for ya:
?
by Randall Mann
is only something on which to hang
your long overcoat; the slender snake asleep
in the grass; the umbrella by the door;
the black swan guarding the pond.
This ? has trouble in mind: do not ask
why the wind broods, why the light is so unclean.
It is summer, the rhetoric of the field,
its yellow grasses, something unanswerable.
The dead armadillo by the roadside, indecent.
Who cares now to recall that frost once encrusted
the field? The question mark—cousin to the 2,
half of a heart—already has begun its underhanded inquiry.
From Complaint in the Garden (Zoo Press, 2004). Copyright © 2004 by Randall Mann. Pretty much sums up my state of mind. Thanks to Poets.org, as usual, for the link.
This has been the summer of the reaper. Lots of people dying whose melodious phrasing has touched me: Max Roach, Sekou Sundiata, Jon Lucien, Grace Paley, Elizabeth Murray, and I'm not trying to be funny but, Merv Griffin. I liked his show and Jeopardy is one of those shows (he produced it) that unequivocally celebrates people being smart. We don't have enough thinking affirmed these days (including critical thinking). There are many other luminaries too and am I being extra sensitive or does it seem that the arts have been hit especially hard these last couple months?
Well, I have no words of my own for this but found a piece from my fellow Geminian poet (yet another to whom I cannot hope to hold a candle), Walt Whitman (from the usual place):
A Clear Midnight
by Walt Whitman
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
"Night, sleep, death and the stars"... we wait for dawn.
I hope the fall begins a new page for you in activity, levity and hope. May your discoveries take you farther as we walk paths giants have paved.
(from the Adinkira Designs website: "SESA WO SUBAN" "Change or transform your character "symbol of life transformation.)
On the news front, I have a new track (as a *singer* if you can believe it) on Elliott Sharp's band Terraplane's Secret Life. Just came out, so you can check it if you like.
Forward ever and ever,
Tracie
No comments:
Post a Comment