WHITE OAK, LIFE WITHOUT POETRY & THE LITERAL MAN

There's a little occasional poem that I did at the
request of an Italian friend of mine, Paolo, some
years ago. It's a long story, but we were out hunting
for chamois in the Italian Alps, very close to the great
Cervino, the south or Italian side of the Matterhorn.

It was Fall. There was quite a bit of snow. It was just
beginning to get light. We had met up with two hunting
buddies of his on a rock outcrop. And suddenly, a golden
eagle flew by, with a crow on its tail. Only a few feet above
our heads. Paolo stood up, and in his wonderful English
exclaimed, "You shall write a poem about this!" So I did.
First in Italian, with a bit of his help. And then in English.

Per un Amico e una Cornacchia

per Paolo

Tarda mattina, seduto sulla
neve fresca con un vecchio amico.

Un aquila vola con una cornacchia
alla coda.

Sopra e basso -- due cose, inizia
cosi il movimento del nostro mondo.

For a Friend and a Crow

for Paolo

Mid-morning, sitting in new
snow with an old friend.

An eagle flies by with a crow
on its tail.

Above, below -- with two begins
the movement of our world.

Yes. With two begins the movement of our world. I believe
it is true. In Music as well. One of my basic musical forms
is the duo. Two instruments in dialogue. The above
CHELTENHAM DUOS for two violins, were composed in
this spirit, with the talented young performer in mind.

LIFE WITHOUT POETRY . . .

“There’s no money in poetry,
but then there’s no poetry
in money, either.”
Robert Graves

Imagine a world without shadow.

The end of photography.

Imagine a world without echo.

The end of music.

Imagine a world without the rhyming of meaning that
is metaphor.

The end of poetry.

Worlds in which nothing is hidden, nothing implied,
and nothing resonates beyond its own boundaries.
Dry, harsh, lifeless worlds in which the human spirit only
with great difficulty can survive.

This is the world ruled by the literal man. For the literal man,
everything means exactly what it says. It is a world reduced
to shards, bits, broken pieces that are perceived as the hard,
necessary, unavoidable facts of daily life.

No more, no less. Life without poetry.

As the apple falls, so too does the moon?

Pure science.

Moral compass?

Pure poetry.

Where these end, we enter an unknown,
pathless land.

Pure religion.

Always more, never less.

Life with poetry.

THE LITERAL MAN

Stretched between the most distant of
stars and the
sparks which fly from the
candle’s match
is the silver string of
young intelligence,
a vibrant face among the flowers,
resonant with the music of all

springs.

Still close
to the ground

where perception begins, before
thought’s cells grow thick and woody walls,
and where meanings still
flow and freely merge,
where triangles and squares become
rounded in rhyme, and where the moon
is an apple on the
tree which has its roots in the sky.

Break the string
and the apple falls
into the lap of an unhappy

grown-up, eyes dull with
years of TV,
the life of one channel only
which does not change, which does not change;
where sense stays at home, alone, afraid

to venture out,
and becomes
precisely, neatly, bounded in

time.

Break the string
and the stars
at night will fail to cohere and

start to fall,
no longer turning
around their centers,

no longer,
threaded together,
in song.

Featured gallery, mountain water . . . .

Please visit my Mountain Water Gallery—some of
the best of my flowform photography w/ a selection of the highest quality
prints & frames . . . [ mouse over for controls / lower right fro full-screen ]