Picture/Poems by Cliff Crego In every picture,   there's a poem; In every poem,     a picture. Chinese Proverb

An exhibition of 72 photographs made in the heart of the European Alps, with accompanying poems and texts. The images are displayed in four weekly octets, each with a guest signature poem

Week I                                                        

The temple bell stops— but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers. Basho (tr. Robert Bly) (click on image to go to the Basho poem, or click here for PicturePage Week I ) Week I: Text only Purchase P/P Photos online View Slideshow: [400 + imnages] The Alps-- portrait of a mountain community

I (1) Walking the World: On Water in Flowing Movement I (2) Leys of Love Do you not know this light and quick movement of energy? I (3) On the Wayside  What's a weed but the unwanted noise of another man's music? (also: Street Dogs; African Drummer; Spina Christi; A Gathering Place; The Dance of Chance; A Woman Alone; The Literal Man; musical score  for On the Wayside) I (4) The Farming Life  If you want to be a poet, call yourself a farmer... (also: Every Valley Remembers; Making Hay; Cutting Time; Common Names; Knowing; Sitting) I (5) Timberline (1) and (2)  ...measured by the width of a whisper. I (6) Mountain Path   As two learn to walk together as one... I (7)  Neon Graffiti: Y2K ...oh, oh, o h , that Strangelovian Rag....." I (8) The High Moor...   Deep, fluffy snowshoe snow, covering color, rocks, small trees...

Week II                                                        

"I see and approve of the better way, but follow the worse." Ovid (click on image to go to the Ovid saying, or click here for PicturePage Week II ) Watershed map of the area of the European Alps where the photos were made. (click on map) Week II: Text only

II (1) Walking the World: As the River Runs Reflecting upon this tragedy of the destruction of the Rhine... (also: from WOODCUTS; DAM and essay on natural limits  called, The Devil Stands on the other Side ) II (2) The Little Clavier Each poem is a miniature makeshift piano... (also: see the essay The Little Clavier and the Idea of Sympathetic Resonance) II (3) The Botanical Gardens After a while, you read the signs first... II (4) Knowing Summer mountain, magic meadow... _________________________________ II (5) Here On the way, many beautiful camps offer themselves for the night... (also: Part I of a cycle of 80 short high country poems called On Paths: I ; see also ListeningPage: On Paths) II (6) Rilke: Evening Slowly the evening changes into the clothes, held for it by a row of ancient trees... (also: The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke: New Translations by Cliff Crego)    II (7) The Sound of XTC    Two big speakers, ridin'/  drive, drive, drive...    (also: musical score  of XTC) II (8) Winter Solstice That time of year when thoughts of the past turn to face the stars of the North...

Week III                                                       

The great sea has sent me adrift... Uvavnuk an Igulik Eskimo woman, 19thc. (click on image to go to the Uvavnuk poem, or click here for PicturePage Week III ) Week III: Text only Calendar of festivals of the Solar Year (click on image)

III (1) Walking the World Making the Image Whole Every mechanically reproduced image of a natural world must be recomposed by the viewer in order to bring it back to life. (also: see an essay called, Backpack Pilgrim; Listen to Cliff Crego read at the ListeningPage: Backpack Pilgrim) III (2) Leaves   Perhaps leaves fall simply to carry away all that we thought we needed to say. III (3) Centers What we think of as empty space is alive,   has structure, just as wood has a grain. (also: The Rhythms of the Solar Year: A Calendar ) III (4) The Revolving Door   ...and the revolving door, now empty, swings round its middle, as faces turn and eyes meet, once more. __________________________________ __________________________________ III (5) A Gathering Place In a far / corner, glass opaque and crusty with old manure... III (6) For a Friend and a Crow Mid-morning, sitting in new snow with an old friend.     III (7) Waystations      Empty, there's no one here...(also: Part II of a cycle     of 80 short high country poems called On Paths: II ) III (8) November Snow To the side of a cascade of little waterfalls, the yellow-golden leaves of a mountain birch drop one by one into the clear pool where the water gathers itself together and rests a while.

Week IV                                                       

The miracle      is not to fly in the air,          or to walk on water,    but to walk on the Earth.             Chinese Proverb (click on image to go to the Chinese poem, or click here for PicturePage Week IV ) To see and hear the musical scores for Stone Pine Mountain and Wanderer, go to The Circle in the Square a new music/poetry performance project by Cliff Crego Week IV: Text only

IV (1) Walking the World Stone Pine Mountain The Earth is not everywhere old. Hidden away wherever we look are these little places where life is just beginning anew. IV (2) Six Metaphysical Miniatures The spring gives freely of its water, but only in freedom can we drink. (also: On Simplicity, Complexity and Human Design ; Archive of Miniatures ) IV (3) Without A world without light or sound is thinkable, but... (also: Fireweed Poems: Songs of Love and Loss: Part I  and Fireweed Poems: Songs of Love and Loss: Part II IV (4) Crabgrass How the violets and yellow flowers of spring wish to return, sure signs that someone has given up all the fighting.. IV (5) Wanderer     ... these necessary crossings      of arbitrary borders ... IV (6) Rilke: Autumn Day Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Let thine shadows upon the sundails fall... (also: The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke: New Translations by Cliff Crego)     IV (7) Every Valley Has Two Sides      A cluster of stone huts, huddled      together like sheep in a storm. IV (8) Sometimes a poem wanders about the world... (coda  and signature piece for exhibition)