chatoyance

Borderlands

2012-01-08T17:30:00.002-06:00

"I have seen that it takes in every detail
I can manage concerning the garden wall and its borders."

From "On the Existence of the Soul" by Pattiann Rogers

Angel

2011-12-10T19:49:00.004-06:00

"She asks, Is there a map of these gates?

She asks, Is this one called Passages, or is that one to the west?"

From "Autobiography" by Michael Palmer

Mustard

2011-12-02T20:29:00.002-06:00

"This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?"

From "The Gate" by Marie Howe

Glaucous

2011-11-26T21:04:00.003-06:00

"A color merely, private, ethereal, collecting
Heft in the warp of time."

From "Ovid in America" by Averill Curdy

Insulator

2011-11-25T23:11:00.002-06:00

"...only
casting a slight shadow on my table.
Of course I act as though I

haven't seen a thing."

From "Keeping Track of My Genius" by Jack Stewart

Troy

2011-11-25T18:21:00.002-06:00

"I think I like this room.
The curtains and the furniture aren’t the same
Of course, but the light comes in the window as it used to..."

From "Picture of Little Letters" by John Koethe

***
I'm back (never really gone, just too busy)...
Hello!

South

2011-07-06T20:27:00.002-05:00

"...birds
clamber south, your car
kaputs in a blazing, dusty
nowhere, things happen, and constantly..."

From "Quickly Aging Here" by Denis Johnson

Blown

2011-07-04T08:51:00.002-05:00

"They entered the valley, and passed the roads that went
Trackless, the houses blown open..."

From "The Drought" by Gary Soto

Tensile

2011-07-03T10:19:00.002-05:00

"...tell me then, supernatural
One, exactly how

Many days I have left to wake into..."

From "When the Gods Go, Half-Gods Arrive" by Lucie Brock-Broido

Fuzzy

2011-05-30T16:59:00.002-05:00

"...all ideas settled
In a fuzz of dust under trees..."

From "The Other Tradition" by John Ashbery

***

A lovely long weekend for fuzzy thinking; hope you've been well since I last posted.

Chinked cedar

2011-04-23T11:19:00.002-05:00

"Yet what puzzles me the most
Is my unwavering taste
For these dim, weathery ghosts..."

From "After the Rain" by Anthony Hecht

The way through

2011-04-17T10:51:00.002-05:00

"...grass snakes like soft signs
in the Russian language disappear
into thickets."

From "To Go to Lvov" by Adam Zagajewski (opens PDF)

Translated by Renata Gorczynska

Captive

2011-04-03T09:30:00.005-05:00

"'I have been told that beneath the Throne is an angel in the form of a rooster, with talons of pearl and a breast of green chrysolite.'"

From a translation featured on David Larsen's Writing Gathering Field.

***

As ever, too much to do with work and school - I was up before the rooster crowed.
But I hope you are well, and happy.

Rattlebox

2011-03-20T15:00:00.003-05:00

"...seed strewn on the path

like medallions glimpsed the second we—
I mean all of us cold in the twilight—fly."

From "Explaining It" by William Johnson

***

There was a small breeze that day that blew a faint rattlebox from those seedpods.

Sienna bricks

2011-02-23T19:41:00.004-06:00

"...the powdery glow floating
the street with evening—saffron, rose, sienna

bricks, matte gold, to be the good steam
clanking pipes, that warm music glazing the panes,
each fugitive moment the heaven we choose to make."

From "Suite for Emily" by Lynda Hull

***

It's hard to find the time to stop and look at things, even in the middle of looking at things, especially in the middle of lots of looking at things.

But I did, there, in Sienna.

Ball Moss

2011-01-30T05:21:00.002-06:00

"Words entering almost the sense of touch
Ferreting themselves out of their dark hutch—
‘These things are not secrets but mysteries,’ ... "

From "Glanmore Sonnets" by Seamus Heaney

***

Heading far out of town today, back around February 9.

Have fun, stay warm, hug often!

A shard

2011-01-16T18:15:00.002-06:00

"I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer."

From "The Gift" by Li-Young Lee

***

It's been a few cold, wet days in a row here. Much ado at work, as ever. Had some friends in over the holidays, and had lots of fun and girl chat while driving around to places like this.

Although the Mur's still not feeling great, he's still able to tease me and the cats. Classes are about to start, and I'll be on the road for business in a couple of weeks. I've got a new lil' pocket camera I am learning to use in preparation for a trip, at the end of the biz trip, to go to the Uffizi and see this up close. I'll be staying with a good friend, who texted "This will be EPIC!"

(I hope it won't be this kind of epic.)

The pic above was taken with the new camera - I'm still getting the hang of it, but it's smaller than a deck of cards, so it'll be fine for travel.

Stay warm, and thanks for stopping by!

Gold and tin

2010-12-23T09:09:00.003-06:00

"Now the light will fade

to moonlit water. And in memory I work
to make this lingering accurate and sweet."

From "Ghost Supper" by David Wojahn

***

Long time away, but life (job, school, hubby) sometimes demands deep attention regardless of my hunger for more light, more pixels caught.

I hope all is well with you and yours, and that your days are "lingering...and sweet."

Late afternoon

2010-10-30T12:09:00.003-05:00

"...the heart goes out to the end of the rope
it has been throwing into abyss after abyss..."

From "Dragonflies Mating" by Robert Hass

***

A day full of laundry and errands, then collecting myself before our Great Big Company Conference starts. I'm glad you stopped by.

Cornered

2010-10-14T21:22:00.004-05:00

"...can you calculate the ratio between wire and window,

between tone and row, copula and carnival
and can you reassemble light from the future-past..."

From "Letter 7" by Michael Palmer

***

Sigh. Too much to do, and I am thinking about the nails I didn't notice at first popping up out of the wood panels.

***

Update Oct. 27. About five days from my company's user conference, and I am pelted with work, as if work were pea-sized hail and the skies were swirling with bruise-colored clouds. Fret not, I'll be back posting fresh pix. Now, where's my coffee...

Polyphemus

2010-10-12T19:57:00.004-05:00

"Now let's regret things for a while
That you can't read music
That I never learned Classical languages
That we never grew up, never learned to behave
But devoted ourselves to magic..."

From "The Slop Barrel: Slices of the Paideuma for All Sentient Beings" by Philip Whalen

Sunday in Comfort, Texas

2010-10-11T21:02:00.002-05:00

"Love passed me in a blue business suit
and fedora.
His glass cane, hollow and filled with
sharks and whales ...
He wore black
patent leather shoes..."

From "Blue Monday" by Diane Wakoski

***

Long time, no pix...working (as usual) too dang much, reading/writing for school all weekend. But I did get out and wander around on Sunday, so there are more pix to come!

That probably explains it

2010-09-07T21:03:00.003-05:00

Indwelling

A catheter, or the holy spirit—both
cannulas (whether fixed in body or soul)
a little reed, the syrinx that channels
something sacred: signs of our wet life,
breath of our unseen transformations.

We turn wine into water, play it out
through that pipe the same way spirit
turns our water to higher proof, distills us:
indwelling, a reverse osmosis of the soul.

***

It's been a busy and crud-filled week. A lousy nasty cold brought me down while I was enmeshed in Giovanni di Paolo's paintings of St. Catherine. (That probably explains the poem.)

Have a good week, all y'all.
I will, once I quit coughing.

Thinking about seeing

2010-08-29T21:50:00.002-05:00

Recursive

As in a medieval miniature where space is
tilted and skewed, anchored only by a thread
of ink, a thin rope swelling into snaking patterns
copied from Asiatic silk the color of crushed gems
and beaten gold, the flat screen in front of my hands
tilts and skews, and my thin rope—a thought, that
mayfly of consciousness—flits to pattern again.

The variable pitch and yaw of these buildings
in a Sienese predella panel, the civic landscape
that carries all points of view simultaneously
(the bird’s-eye, the eye-level, the scopic)—I see
myself seeing, wishing for such isometric perspectives
while consumed by my own vanishing points.

Sometimes a poem happens

2010-08-21T07:43:00.002-05:00

Inside out

It’s as if I could slip
my fingers through each isarithm
of softwood—cheap paneling
now a matte painting of the wall,
now its memory, now

And on the other side, what I
set in motion: the open field, the low hill,
a crease scored in bent blades of grass
where I forgot the wall stood,
my footsteps blurring as the
grass unbends.

***

Too much going on to wander with a camera, but sometimes a poem happens instead.

Have a lovely week, all y'all.

Vent

2010-08-13T21:20:00.003-05:00

"The answer is entropy—how smell works—
little bits of everything—always spinning
off from where they were..."

From "Sublimation Point" by Jason Schneiderman

***

Finished the history class, learned much about Nancy Spero and the paucity of images against war before the Thirty Year's War, and after that 47 page paper and the Ongoing Work Crush, am about to go nose-down on the keyboard.

Don't wake me up, all y'all, at least not until there's fresh coffee...
:-)

Entangled

2010-07-23T19:59:00.003-05:00

"...as we fled,
we unbraided our hair from the fan belt of the exhumed engine."

From "The Skyline of a Missing Tooth" by Sherwin Bitsui

***

This week, I finished a short paper on this person's memoirs, among other things.

And you -- how have you been?

Ventana de borrachos

2010-07-17T12:39:00.002-05:00

"...that flaw,
that deathward plunge that’s locked inside all form,
till what seems solid floats away, dissolves,
and these poor bastard things, no longer things,
drift back to pure idea."

From "What Light Destroys" by Andrew Hudgins

***

Keeping the energy up. Keeping the lights on. Keeping cool under a white-hot sky. Keeping the questions coming. Keeping one hand on the keyboard, another on a book. Keeping my ideas, day-dreams, options, wishes, and eyes open. Keeping my topic sentences active, and my coffee topped off. Keep well this week, all y'all.

Changing light at 8am

2010-07-09T19:44:00.003-05:00

"The lucky trees, to be able
to stand that close. If we talk
too much, we’ll surely miss it."

From "The Delta Parade" by Susan Stewart

***

Sometimes the memory of early morning light, that beaten-gold haze before the heat burns off the air's moisture, is enough to help me through a week.

Glyphs

2010-07-03T11:13:00.003-05:00

"How many years did I
beg it, implore it, not to break?
I knew each nick and scratch by heart..."

From "Crusoe in England" by Elizabeth Bishop

***

More readin' and ritin' to do on a holiday weekend.
The air is thick, still and humid -- Hurricane Alex's expiring breath moving up from South Texas.
Have a peaceful week, all y'all.

Almost

2010-06-25T20:38:00.003-05:00

"Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be

A deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern,
As in the division of grace..."

From "Paradoxes and Oxymorons" by John Ashbery

***

Almost:
Too tired to post.
Completely covered in cat fur.
Ready to head to bed -- must get some rest before BBQ for breakfast at Snow's!

Have a good week, everyone.
Here's hoping I find some nice rusty things for pix.

Drive-by

2010-06-18T21:10:00.002-05:00

"In the future, I imitate an imagined trumpet sound
Or the brilliant purple words of a man or woman I haven’t met yet..."

From "Very Strong February" by Bernadette Mayer

***

One big fat dream last night, of myself and a friend bobbing in the middle of the Pacific ocean, nothing to see except water and incredibly tall waves that never crested. We rode the waves up, then down into the troughs, and finally saw a tiny island, an atoll really, far off.

The waves pushed us there, and the island was not much bigger than a small room.
But the very few people on it were friendly.

I hope your week was a good one; I hope this week brings you lots of brilliant purple words and large, benign waves.

Behind Ginny's Little Longhorn

2010-06-11T21:16:00.004-05:00

"Wires and pipes, snapped off at the roots, quiver.

Well, that is what life does. I stare
A moment longer..."

From "An Urban Convalescence" by James Merrill

***

I feel a little like this truck. Or is it that I feel more like those clouds? Difficult to say, but I will say this about James Merrill.

A number of years ago, when I lived in New York City, I heard that James Merrill was going to read some of his poems someplace downtown, I can't recall where. Of course I was going -- there was no way I was NOT going.

I was waiting for the bus that would take me downtown when two young men came near. One of them began talking to me and handed me an invitation to a church. He urged me to go to their service that night. I told him I couldn't -- I needed to see and hear a poet read some poems, thank you very much. Besides, wasn't art a form of church?

He got a little huffy, and waved towards the crowd of rush-hour working folks crossing the street, an inimitably world-weary hustle and flow:
"Do those people look happy? They need God to be happy, not art!"

"Ah," I said, "their problem is that they have too little art -- if they only read more poetry and looked at more paintings, they'd all be much happier!"

My unnamed accoster snorted in scorn while his partner-in-proselytization could barely stifle his giggles. The bus pulled up, and I said, "Last chance -- I'll go to your church with you both tonight, but you have to go to the poetry reading with me now!"

I got on the bus; they stayed on the pavement.

Merrill was splendid, magical -- he arrived swathed in an elegant red-lined cape and read his beautiful, ormolu verse in a voice that made them seem the most natural things in the world to say.

And when I left...I was happy.

I hope you're happy. And if not, let's meet here and look for more art.

Low heaven

2010-06-04T22:06:00.004-05:00

"Extravagant
ailanthus, the courtyard’s poverty tree is spike
and wing, slate-blue..."

From "Ornithology" by Lynda Hull

***

Reading for work, then reading for class...from the changing interface of sales and marketing to the Prague Spring to thinking about Spero's helicopters.

Thank goodness there's a cat asleep next to me.

Have a good week, all y'all.

ei8ht

2010-05-31T19:10:00.004-05:00

"Certain words and images
or parts of images

have been chipped away..."

From "Disclosures" by Michael Palmer

***

Looking at much work now that the semester is starting up, so back to posting about once a week. But I was so happy to get out and snag some pixels!

Have a wonderful week, all y'all.

Flammable

2010-05-30T19:35:00.002-05:00

"I did it, I burned away every last trace, I left nothing, nothing
of any kind whatever."

From "In Order To" by Kenneth Patchen

Rosa rugosa

2010-05-28T21:44:00.003-05:00

"No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma."

From "Soneto XVII" by Pablo Neruda

***

It's summer in Central Texas. Slant cumulus clouds and supercells.

Off to the farmer's market tomorrow; maybe fresh eggs and hopefully wandering with a camera Sunday.

As for the rest, petting cats and teasing The Mur, and of course reading for school.

Cab / clouds

2010-05-27T22:16:00.002-05:00

"...she asks him to tell her about that place.
She sits facing him.
Waiting for the first vocalic, non-stops,
the push of air from his lips.
He tells her of the place where clouds are formed."

From "The Place Where Clouds Are Formed" by Ofelia Zepeda

Nubby

2010-05-25T20:47:00.002-05:00

"The wrought planes and hinges of things
Strange, held-off symmetry, axis of waterline
rubbed, smeared, edge-shifted
What is real then made more so..."

From "Winter Journal: Fish Rises, Dark Brown Muscle Turns Over" by Emily Wilson

There it was

2010-05-24T21:17:00.002-05:00

"...a bearded comet moved across the room
breeding no omens, tearing no major kingdoms
into small provinces, but there it was..."

From "The Stars and the Moon" by Grace Schulman

Marquee

2010-05-23T09:34:00.003-05:00

"...the heat inside the small towns
of their bodies,
for which they have no words;
obedient to the voice inside which tells them,
'Now. Steal Pleasure.'"

From "Summer in a Small Town" by Tony Hoagland

¡Vamanos!

2010-05-22T21:07:00.002-05:00

"...knowing I had everything I wanted,
but like Midas was silent and stiff with the gold I had touched,
felt always as if I had been buried under a ton of diamonds,
still feel the dust of them glinting on me as I drive across country..."

From "The Hitchhikers" by Diane Wakoski

Bamboozled

2010-05-08T16:05:00.002-05:00

"...hooked themselves—bamboo diviner
Bent their way
Vigorously nodding
Encouragement..."

From "The Pier: Under Pisces" by James Merrill

***

Hi, everyone!
Slept almost all day.
One more road trip (this week, to Kalamazoo) and then a less intense schedule, or so I hope.

Tiny Hubble

2010-05-04T08:02:00.002-05:00

"...causing great sections
of his nervous system—distant galaxies hitherto unsuspected (now
added to International Galactic Catalog)—to LIGHT UP."

From "The Preface" by Philip Whalen

(un)bound

2010-05-03T17:48:00.002-05:00

"...she loved worms,
blackening the moon of her nails
with mud and slugs,
root gnawing grubs,
and the wing case of beetles."

From "The Woman Who Loved Worms" by Colette Inez

***

The. Semester. Is. Over.
Am off in San Jose at a trade show, the Mur abides, the cats need more petting.
But beauty is walking in the world...

Dreaming

2010-04-04T20:41:00.002-05:00

"For such a man, art is an act of faith:
Prayer the study of it, as Blake says,
And praise the practice; nor does he divide
Making from teaching, or from theory.
The three are one, and in his hours of art
There shines a happiness through darkest themes,
As though spirit and sense were not at odds."

From "The Painter Dreaming in the Scholar’s House" by Howard Nemerov

***

The cat naps, but I can't yet.

Finished (for now) with Preziosi, up to my eyeballs in Poussin's Seven Sacraments, leaving for a business trip tomorrow at 5am, and traveling to work conferences about every other week through late May.

I have until the end of April to write my final research paper, and digest/recall canonical works of art from the Renaissance on until the present moment.

I then have a scholarly conference in May, and need to get that presentation into shape.

So through until at least the beginning of June, my weekends and weeknights are spent studying/looking at paintings and trying to think, and then trying to write; my weekdays and weeknights are spent wrangling business doings.

I miss my playtime, I look forward to time to dream.

Interstitial

2010-02-14T15:17:00.002-06:00

"...snow

melts midair
to rain.
Abbreviated..."

From "The Months" by Linda Pastan

***

Well.
I'm slightly back, and I definitely need more play time.
I decided to grab five minutes just outside our front porch to catch the small trees, and I need hours more like that.

School? The professor seemed to think my historiography journal redo was sufficient, as was my last journal entry, although I have no confidence that will continue to be the case. So I continue to split the logs of others' thinking with my dull axe and write/chop cordage as best I can. Michel Foucault has been reduced to firewood; Craig Owens is in progress.

Work? Well, here's a synopsis of March:
Go to Atlanta to work an industry trade show.
The next week go to London and manage a conference for my company.
And somehow get caught up on work and schoolwork when, the week after, I go to Corpus Christi to present a paper on Donatello's Penitent Magdalen.

The Mur is still not quite back to feeling right, but "the Dude abides".
And he is making pot roast for Valentine's Day, that sweetheart.

Okay, time to get back at that pile of logs I need to chop...

The wind died down

2010-01-16T17:02:00.006-06:00

"...we stroked to her bones a cadenced droning,
and took back from her absence, our
amber, half-literal method of sight."

From "Windows" by Linda Bierds

***

Distractions from my pixel-catcher include:
1. Work (lots, oh my)
2. Schoolwork (a massive pile o' reading and writing; but my first essay is done, set sailing into my professor's inbox)
3. The Mur (non-trivial surgery again, later this week)

All reasonable distractions, but I'm not feeling very reasonable.
Go and have some fun for me, would you?

***

A brief update, for all y'all (and apologies for the lolcat fiesta, but sometimes lolcats happen):
1. Lather, rinse, repeat.
2. After spending every weekend since I got the course syllabus working on my first essay, upon my first meeting with my professor I was told "no, that's not what I assigned". Surprise! :-( I asked for permission to do it over, which was given, and validated what (I hope) my professor wants. I spent the last week sweating through Kant, Hegel et al again (lather, drink from the firehose, repeat), hopefully to serve up what will be accepted. And, after burning every spare minute I could find on the task, I lobbed my fresh 40+ pages of reading-the-assigned-text-with-my-comments into the professor's inbox tonight -- wish me luck.
3. The Mur is on the mend, but not quite spunky yet.

Opaque

2010-01-09T20:35:00.005-06:00

"Late in the cold night wakened, and heard wind,
And lay with eyes closed and silent, knowing
These words how bodiless they are..."

From "Night Images" by Robert Fitzgerald

***

I dreamt there was a tornado coming, one so large I couldn't see it except for its effects -- the beautiful spectrum-laced cloud top, ice-crystal cloud tails making arcs in the stratosphere. My family was visiting, and of course I could not find, and then could not start, my car.

Mini-mes

2010-01-01T09:01:00.003-06:00

"I am imagining this world but I’m inviting you in
So I can join you."

From "Museums" by Dan Beachy-Quick

***

It was windy, cold day when I saw that wreath on the storefront. And it is a windy, cold day today.

I'm going out to get gingerbread pancakes -- then back to trying to braid Kant, Hegel, Preziosi, tiny images of enormous Assyrian figures, and Peter Greenaway (among others) into a net within which I can catch my thoughts.

There's much going on, too much to type up here.
But I am glad you stopped by, glad for the invisible company -- I hope you have a wonderful, happy New Year.

Gifts

2009-12-25T09:30:00.003-06:00

"I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give."

From "I Am Offering this Poem" by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Back-roads Christmas

2009-12-19T08:40:00.002-06:00

"A small pine tree in the red soil
is all the company I have."

From "Mythistorema" by George Seferis

Nameless

2009-12-13T13:52:00.003-06:00

"...these are rotten — I ask their pardon —
And we've the sun on rock and garden..."

From "Queens" by J. M. Synge

***

Starting into the next semester's reading.

In the first two weeks, I'm time-traveling from 30,000 BCE to 337 CE while digesting Winckelmann, Kant, Baxandall and Hegel among others.

*burp!*

Let's just call it "the turducken semester" -- hope I have enough Tums on hand.

Cinderblocked

2009-12-12T12:45:00.003-06:00

"It seems like nothing
could change its color although
we couldn’t tell what color it was..."

From "He Said Turn Here" by Dean Young

Patched

2009-12-10T21:00:00.002-06:00

"...times I can taste the iron in the air, the gray wash like exhaust, smell the burn-off,
my eyes begin to tear..."

From "The Foundry Garden" by Stanley Plumly

Leftovers

2009-12-05T09:46:00.004-06:00

"I looked around, I thought of the lower wisdom,
spirit held by matter..."

From "Little Furnace" by Brenda Hillman

***

I have a few more tasty pixels left over from the Thanksgiving weekend to share, like the one above. Again, time-crunched until next weekend -- am heading out to work another conference tomorrow. But next weekend...ah, maybe more wandering.

I did meet with my next Directed Study professor, and am anticipating a groaning board of tasty art-related readings and much writing next semester.

Roped in

2009-11-29T08:34:00.003-06:00

"...it is too easy to get lost in abstraction,
as if smoke, and dream, and quantum ersatz-states
are our proper environment..."

From "Stomackes" by Albert Goldbarth

***

Back to making more fruitcakes today (how could I have run out of butter?) and the regular chores and stuff.

No more wandering for pixels until next weekend -- I need to keep an edge on that appetite.

Master lock

2009-11-28T09:54:00.002-06:00

"A lock of hair from a famous seventeenth-century poet.
The disintegrating bible wishing it was another book."

From "Adult" by Ray Gonzalez

Hill Country enso

2009-11-27T17:21:00.002-06:00

"... It’s not that the angle
of reflection equals the angle of incidence,
but there’s exultation, pleasure, distress, death, love. ..."

From "Streamers" by Arthur Sze

***

And how to translate a few hours spent wandering here, picking up some goodness to take home after sitting elbow-to-elbow with happy, red-cheeked strangers at a shrine to smoked and honored meat?

No real way to do so, except to share a little of what I saw: above, and to come.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T15:55:00.003-06:00

"...Leon Battista Alberti says,
Some lights are from stars, some from the sun
And moon, and other lights are from fires.
The light from the stars makes the shadow equal to the body. ..."

From "A Short History of the Shadow" by Charles Wright

***

Hey, all y'all! I'm back, sort of!
Happy Thanksgiving for those who are celebrating.
I have a lot to be thankful for, including you.

Here's what I've been doing:
* Too much work-work -- multiple conferences with significant time commitments and more work after.
* In all my spare time, school-work -- I'm now saturated with Nicholas Hilliard and the circle of poets around Sir Philip Sidney; I am in the finishing/polishing stages on the big paper, and made what I think is a pretty interesting case. However, others will be the judge of that.
* Lining up the next independent study -- am hopeful it will be on art historiography (try to say that three times fast!)

Had to give up Italian lessons for now. Just not enough time to study as much as I'd need amid plumbing mishaps, a random virus or two, and the Press of Commerce.

And so, finally, happily, I got out with my camera today. Snagged eight images and then the !@#$%! battery ran down, and my spare was devoid of juice. I took it as metaphor: Nature's way of telling me to go home, nap some more, and get teased by the hubbie for not checking my gear before I went.

More to come...

Was here

2009-10-02T18:42:00.003-05:00

"...fold
and turn the paper,
guiding the scissors with care..."

From "Four and a Half Dancing Men" by Anne Stevenson

Slow posting again

2009-09-26T12:41:00.003-05:00

The Excuses for No New Pix:

1. The Business Trip -- Two and one-half full days in San Mateo; productive, but not of art.
2. The Plumbing Excitement -- Just before The Business Trip, my bare feet told me our carpeting was wet. Fortunately, the good new plumbers we found helped quickly, but still.
3. The Press of Commerce -- Work work work work work.
4. The Academic Path -- Writing, researching and getting prepped for presentations at TEMA and Kalamazoo (woo-hoo!!!)
5. The Italian lessons -- troppo studio.
6. And so, no time out for wandering.

Ajar

2009-09-18T19:00:00.003-05:00

"...The late afternoon tugs
At a gold thread you can hear fraying
When you close your eyes..."

From "Angels Grieving over the Dead Christ" by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

***

Random bits: First, still getting energy back post-surgery, but recovery has been fine and on track, as are my Italian lessons. Last, thanks for stopping by.

Burn ban

2009-09-11T18:44:00.002-05:00

"...those hitchhikers,
burning by the side of the road,
burning
like the berries of the beautiful mountain ash..."

From "The Hitchhikers" by Diane Wakoski

Vault

2009-09-06T19:24:00.002-05:00

"...And at the still center
of summer it starts; cowboys ride out out
of another life, old cars get up
from the dead and dance
like cripples hired out for a tent meeting. ..."

From "The Delta Parade" by Susan Stewart

Frostie

2009-09-05T11:04:00.003-05:00

"...All night I wander alone, searching in vain for the irretrievable.

In the night I will drink from a cup of ashes and yellow paint. ..."

From "Nights on Planet Earth" by Campbell McGrath

***

First full week back at the office (whew), and now need to get caught up on schoolwork. Oh yes, also reaching out for Italian tutoring, among other bits of trouble-making.

If I'm not too punk tomorrow, will wander some with a camera in hand. (Yay! Fresh pixels!)

Worn ol' sun

2009-08-25T09:23:00.002-05:00

"All our stones like as much sun as possible.
Along their joints run both solar access and decline
In equal splendor..."

From "Forecast" by Josephine Miles

Behind the shed

2009-08-21T17:57:00.003-05:00

"...The opera of. Hummingbirds. MOVE,
an optimum crow and spider sparkle newly. ..."

From "Many Colored Squares" by Philip Whalen

***

Move? A little slow and difficult post-surgery, but we do what we can. Hope all y'all like the free stuff I found.

Dreams with bees

2009-08-15T11:58:00.003-05:00

"...The last memory I have
Is of a flower that cannot be touched,

Through the bloom of which, all day,
Fly crazed, missing bees. ..."

From "Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock" by Galway Kinnell

***

I have had at least two recent dreams with bees in them.
I'm going in for some surgery Tuesday, and will come back and post as soon as I can. Stay well and happy, and thanks for stopping by!

Flower ladder

2009-08-08T14:50:00.002-05:00

"...Nor do I like the mathematicians who tell me
I cannot say, 'The zinnias are counting on their
fingers'..."

From "My Dog Practices Geometry" by Cathryn Essinger

Mid-summer

2009-08-06T22:38:00.003-05:00

"...isn’t it so
we’re merely vessels given in grace, in mystery,
just a little while, our fleet streaked moments?..."

From "Rivers into Seas" by Lynda Hull

Support

2009-08-02T13:22:00.003-05:00

"...Somewhere in Oceania they added mermaid elves."

From "Finnish Opera" by Barbara Guest

Bardo

2009-08-01T13:08:00.004-05:00

Artwork by Max Gimblett
Australia by Moonlight, 2004
22 x 30"
Pencil, acrylic polymer, Swiss gold leaf / Arches watercolor paper

***

Resorted to someone else's creative energy since I am flat out of fresh pix and running on fumes.

In this in-between-seeing-and-catching time, here's what's on my preoccupied mind:
Hubbie's post-surgical recovery.
The subject of my Fall schoolwork.
Tattoos, and tattoos that aren't tattoos.
Work work, and being behind thereof.
Hopefully visiting a New York friend who has a song by these guys for a ring-tone.
My upcoming surgery.

If all is well at Chez Witzel today, I may go wander tomorrow. Meanwhile, we're all going back down for naps.

P.S.: A shout-out to those krazy kids who've posted Birthday Greetings on my seldom-seen Facebook Wall. You all made me smile!

Framing

2009-07-26T10:05:00.003-05:00

"...its shell as rusty
as a camp dish,
as fragile as a pagoda
on a stone..."

From "Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound" by Anne Sexton

***

Back from the biz trip, and foo -- caught a summer cold. Lost my voice during Day Two of the trade show (or rather, gained a weirdly squeaky croak.) Still feeling punk, although drinking ginger tea and petting the cats helps.

I'm glad you stopped by, but don't get too close -- I might sneeze, and I'd hate for you to catch what I have.

Here and there

2009-07-19T18:52:00.003-05:00

"...The map in the shopping center has an X
signed 'you are here.' A dream is like that. ..."

From "A Happy Childhood" by William Matthews

***

It hasn't rained, but I did have a splendid Saturday involving a long-time friend, some ancho-blackberry jam, and BBQ at this place.

Too much for my friend and I to talk about, to stand under the white-hot sky and look for things my camera would like to snack on. (Sometimes things are for the looking and not the catching.)

Another business trip this week and more family health matters to wrangle, but there's jam in the fridge reminding me of happy things.

Ice cream later

2009-07-11T10:40:00.002-05:00

"...The fourth child wonders: What makes poems poems?
The fifth one asks: Which of them is your favorite?
The sixth one asks me: Is there ice cream later?
The seventh child asks: Is a poem dreaming?..."

From "Reading to the Children" by Herbert Morris

Rx: More light

2009-07-03T08:33:00.003-05:00

"...As when the meteor passed
In the early morning, and, fading, threw
A sudden glaring into my room like a flash from a hunter’s firepan. ..."

From "The Heavenly Doctor" by T.R. Hummer

Divided

2009-06-27T16:46:00.002-05:00

"...all I really do besides write these poems
is allow my mind to wander while I drive.
There it goes, down the arroyo,
through manzanita and Mormon tea. ..."

From "Cruising 99" by Garrett Hongo

Run away

2009-06-18T20:43:00.003-05:00

"At night we will set our poems
adrift in ginger ale bottles
each with a clamshell rudder
each with a piggyback spider..."

From "Running Away Together" by Maxine W. Kumin

***

It's hot. About 101 degrees in heat-stroked Austin, Texas.

And I am underwater on the "things to do and things to handle" list.

But, as ever, I'm glad you stopped by.

It smelled like rain

2009-06-05T19:22:00.004-05:00

"...Home where I walk out on the thin page
of night, without waving or giving myself away,
and return with my words burning like fire in the grate."

From "Home Fire" by Linda Parsons Marion

***

Am off to work a trade show, then back to work in Austin and back to present for my art history class, then off to work a different trade show, then back to work in Austin and on to finish my art history course. (The class ends June 30.)

I long for time to do nothing but drive around with a camera next to me...but it won't happen for at least two or three more weeks.

I hope all is well with you and yours, and I'll catch you ASAP.

Whichever one

2009-05-28T20:23:00.002-05:00

"...the evening reverses itself, we’ll push out
onto the pond,
or onto the reflection of the pond,
whichever one is eternal"

From "Time Problem" by Brenda Hillman

Before a storm

2009-05-24T13:20:00.004-05:00

"...just after supper,
Unseasonable hail in huddles across the porch,
The dogs whimpering,
thunder and lightning eddying off toward the east..."

From "Looking Around" by Charles Wright

***

And so it did.

Slept most of the day, entangled in dreams of Hunan-flavored Moon Pies.

Off to join some friends for fajitas -- and if you're in the US, have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Snagged

2009-05-23T15:40:00.003-05:00

"...The inward gates of a bird are always open.
It does not know how to shut them.
That is the secret of its song..."

From "On a Raised Beach" by Hugh MacDiarmid

***

I almost forgot what being outside looked like.

But some grit in my shoes and vegetative snags later, I found sunlight filigreed by a mockingbird's song.

Window sill

2009-05-18T20:49:00.003-05:00

"...Neither inside nor out,
neither lost nor home, no longer
a shape or a name, I’d pass through

all the broken windows of the world. ..."

From "Hunger for Something" by Chase Twichell

***

What a wild roller-coaster ride, whip-sawed from the land of commerce into a world overrun with medievalists and back again in time to start another class.

I slept most of the weekend, and am just beginning to remember my name.

More to come, I'm sure of it.

Baling wire

2009-05-04T20:48:00.002-05:00

"...I ain't confessing nothing.
On mornings when I hope you forget my name,
I walk through the high wet weeds
that don't have names either. ..."

From "Selected Recent and New Errors" by Dean Young

***

Holding the runny minutes together with baling wire and bubble-gum, until I get time for fewer words and more pixels. See you as soon as I can.

Gone out

2009-04-18T19:38:00.003-05:00

"...replaced by a
rabbit skittering across a yard,
a void you yourself fall into.

You could make this beautiful,
but you don’t need to..."

From "Over and Over Tune" by Ioanna Carlsen

***

Work. Schoolwork. Other stuff.

Get in a lather, rinse, repeat.

Today I got out for a quick drive for BBQ and pixels -- the first time in too dang long.
Glad to see you stopped by!
More to come, as I can.

Slow posting, slant brickwork

2009-03-29T18:59:00.003-05:00

"...This light is brittle,
old pale hair kept in a letter. ..."

From "Louisiana Line" by Betty Adcock

***

More business conferences pressing, more research paper work to do, more art history paper refurbishment ahead, and so ever-slower posting.

When I posted daily, I'd spend four or five hours wandering with a camera both weekend days, and some weeks a lunch time or three thrown in -- that's what it took to get fresh goodness for the sharing.

Now that I'm working through lunches and spending my weekends with schoolwork (or, this year, spending more time on misadventures than normal)...ah well.

That's all a long way of saying this too shall pass, but right now posting will be at a slow-poke pace until it isn't. And for those folks who wander by -- thanks. I'll surface again with pixels to share in a few.

Yellow tube

2009-03-21T12:43:00.002-05:00

"...My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral
where china clocks tick in the cold shells..."

From "Night Thoughts" by Carl Rakosi

Seen and unseen

2009-03-14T19:34:00.003-05:00

"...My mind’s eye opens before
my body is ready..."

From "Adding It Up" by Philip Booth

***

My last two trips took me to places where you'd be sharing in some of the oxidative delights I saw, had I chosen to pack a camera.

Hot Springs, Arkansas, poised damply on a haunch of the Zigzag Mountains; New Orleans, Louisiana, pentimento'd on the alluvial exhalation of the Mississippi River.

But some things are for the seeing, not the catching -- and I knew a camera in hand would pull my attention away from other demands.

Home, at last, trying to shake a nasty respiratory virus, looking forward to those next things seen and unseen.

Thanks for coming back by.

Slivers of time, with bonus update

2009-03-09T05:20:00.004-05:00

Not much time for much in the way of a post, as I'm now en route here.

That said, here are some of the people I met, and the treats they shared, there:

My co-panelist, whose witty, pithy presentation was a very tough act to follow.
A passel of art history professors, not all shared here, who made this newbie feel immeasurably welcome.
Some treats -- feasts for the eye and mind.

(Oh, turn the sound down when clicking on that last link -- it's a bit loud.)

Now, off to the airport...

***

Addendum from the road (mostly for Marly):

* The paper was very well received -- had a great Q&A session which will further strengthen it before Kalamazoo; one gent said the part about Boccaccio blew him away. (Wow!)

* And I now have a reload of the cold/fever/virus thingie that bit me a little while ago. Less than fun to work a trade show with such, but we're on track to meet business goals despite it.

Picture: window

2009-03-03T20:11:00.003-06:00

"...A window to the east will serve as well
As window to the west..."

From "Part for the Whole" by Robert Francis

***

I'm on the road again -- first here to present a paper, then there for business.

And so not much new in this pixelated place for a week or so.

Dang.

Well, thanks for coming back by -- and I will, too.

After Smitty's, a walk

2009-02-27T20:38:00.003-06:00

"...each type of thread-and-piecework
named double engagement ring, log cabin, or broken dishes
all built on the same geometric figures—
precise interception of angle and line..."

From "courthouse steps" by D.A. Powell

***

For all us creative souls -- something worth a few minutes.
Found courtesy of Marja-Leena's post here.

But I didn't go in

2009-02-24T22:14:00.003-06:00

"...to propagate
the faith, to find the metal, unearth it,
hoard it up..."

From "Brought from Beyond" by Amy Clampitt

Neon phoneme

2009-02-22T08:33:00.004-06:00

"...sky
dark as the inside of a movie theater
at three in the afternoon and getting bigger all the time..."

From "Once, Driving West of Billings, Montana" by Susan Mitchell

2:10 pm

2009-02-21T15:46:00.004-06:00

"... the spirits
congregate, fleet histories yearning into shape.

Close my eyes and I’m a vessel. ..."

From "Rivers into Seas" by Lynda Hull

***

I taught a session on the midrash tradition and Anita Diamant's The Red Tent this past Thursday night.

I was (and still am) worn out from the previous week's excitement, but teaching the class was great fun.

I even found and shared a witty midrash about Krusty the Clown written by Noah Gradofsky.

Instructions

2009-02-18T19:33:00.003-06:00

"...there are takers
even at this late date
still to be
found
as the fire sings
through the
trees."

From "Trollius and trellises" by Charles Bukowski

***

Fire still singing through my trees; feverish still, but back to work, etc. The Mur is doing fine; now, off for more broth and tea.

Where I'd like to be

2009-02-13T16:41:00.004-06:00

"...trees trace the backyard
Ditch sop that their shadows drop off into..."

From "Vessel" by Tom Sleigh

***

Update 2/17/09: All the excitement must have worn me down -- I've gotten sick. Fever and yuckiness putting a crimp in looking at the wide world. Will post more once this too has passed, likely this weekend.

What it's all about

2009-02-08T12:46:00.004-06:00

"...perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working in the background. ..."

From "Questions About Angels" by Billy Collins

***

A quick update 2/12, with a few excessively cute linkages -- Murry and I are back home, all is better although we are both worn out.

Thank you for sending wishes for courage, whether public or private, our way.

It was much appreciated.

Saxophone parking

2009-02-07T17:36:00.002-06:00

"...I'm the student who still believes

in the bad taste of the beautiful..."

From "Obbligato" by Bruce Smith

***

Back from the trade show, gathering energy for The Mur's surgery.

He'll have it this Wednesday, so between that, school, and job, "scant" will still be the operative condition. But thank you for the grace of your presence. It matters, and it helps.

Scant

2009-01-29T06:01:00.002-06:00

"...the first whit of alpha, the first
jot of bearing, beneath the riling
sun the first nourishing of self."

From "Address: the Archaeans, One Cell Creatures" by Pattiann Rogers

***

Scant time to find and catch pixels to share.
Scant time to post.
Scant time for a respite -- husband is going in for some medical tests today.
Scant time afterwards -- work and schoolwork piling up, plus a business trip next week.

S'can't go on at this pace, but it do, don't it?