Gifts

"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

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

From "Mythistorema" by George Seferis

Nameless

"...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

"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

"...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

"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

"...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

"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

"... 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

"...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

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

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

Slow posting again

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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

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

From "Finnish Opera" by Barbara Guest

Bardo

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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

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

From "Night Thoughts" by Carl Rakosi

Seen and unseen

"...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

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

"...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

"...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

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

From "Brought from Beyond" by Amy Clampitt

Neon phoneme

"...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

"... 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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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

"...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?

New metal

"As I sit looking out of a window of the building
I wish I did not have to write the instruction manual on the uses of a new metal.
I look down into the street and see people, each walking with an inner peace,
And envy them..."

From "The Instruction Manual" by John Ashbery

Loud star

"...The loud will take care of itself, and everyone will be able to say
What happened in that direction. But who is looking

The other way?..."

From "Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science" by Alberto Ríos