Subalpine Fir / Engelmann Spruce Skyline . . . [ click photo for next . . . ]

I like to call them Spire Fir & Fiddle-top Spruce after
their beautiful, unique forms and functions,
(Abies lasciocarpa and Picea engelmannii, respectively),
South Wallowas.

In my view, there's a kind of crisis of form in the Arts.
We have, on the one hand, unprecedented freedom to explore.
And, on the other, an equally unprecedented poverty of
thought and expression.

Is this not a paradox?

I would say no. Why? Because at no other point in Western
history have we been so estranged from the world of
natural form. (One manifestation of this is the fact that
we no longer know the names of even the most common plants
around us.) A life-long intimate association with natural
form is, in my view, a crucial aspect in the development
of an aesthetic sense of balance and proportion.

Form in Nature is not a thing. It is rather movement.

That is, form emerges out of movement as the outward
envelope of change. The flowforms generated by a simple
faucet are a clear example of this.

The poem below, PROCRASTINATION, plays with this idea.
Steps (or syllables) are patterned in a way related to
self-similar ratios and fractals. Then there's the bi-
lateral symmetry of the whole.

The challenge left being the reverse of right is that
of strict repetition, like a melody which repeats with
a different text each time round.

One thing to remember is that the written text is
but a very simple musical score for performance; it is
simple because it only tells you the sequence of steps,
as in a dance, and sound. So how it is performed, and
how we hear this flowform of sounds and meaning, are
what poetry is really all about.

On the road in the American Northwest.

PROCRASTINATION

How strange, this agonistic split between two conflicting voices; one, a relentless conductor, the other, a dreamer and somewhat lazy. One will have me write that letter (so long overdue), not allowing any holding back. The soft one, however, likes to wait, preferring to defer -- "Tomorrow will do just as well..." Sometimes I wonder which one is really me, or is 'me' something more like friction, an endless loop of "yes" and "no's" grinding round and around in runaway?

Day is the realm of the easy- going-put-off, while conductors come out at night to rehearse their "should-have-dones." "You didn't write today," he shouts, as I pretend to sleep, he keeps rolling me over and over, prodding me with his stick. Surely, time is in the turning, a loop tied into a knot which grows heavy with tomorrows... Sometimes I wonder if I could break the circle, or is that just more delaying, more contradictions between two voices, strict by night and put off by day?

Tweets by @theaterofthenew

Featured gallery, 100 MINIATURES, a set of 100 black & white photographs, with 100 metaphysical sayings in prose . . .

100 MINIATURES—online gallery

Each miniature is a kind of meditation on one idea & one image;
Each lasts 30 seconds; They play in random order;
The music is my BOREA Mix,
for hand-played ePecussion Orchestra.
[ mouse over for controls / lower right fro full-screen ]

All Photographs & texts by Cliff Crego © 1999 -2015 picture-poems.com
(created: VII.27.2008)