Week VIII:  Text-only version

"It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar limbs."    Wallace Stevens

Walking the World: On Art, the Artist and Balance
in Flowing Movement

(1) Perhaps the only thing we can know for sure about creativity is what
it is not, or what blocks it. Fear, greed, jealousy—as easy to spot as weeds
in the summer garden. But the source of the seed? One looks up to the heavens
and is brought down to earth, clear blue skies in all directions.


(2) In Art, the main criteria of what is good, right and beautiful are
not to be found primarily in what we think of as philosophy or aesthetics,
but more in a life devoted to the patient observation of both Nature and
observation itself. Once the architect or graphic designer can no longer
draw a perfect bud, leaf or flower, then his or her work may eventually
come to refer only to itself, or, at best, merely to other art. Such work denies
itself the guiding, nurturing and sustaining resonance with the symphony
of natural forms which surrounds us.


(3) Information?  We shape the world and the world shapes us.
The more sophisticated, spiritual and in tune with the natural world
a culture becomes, the fewer and fewer words will be needed
to say ever-more important things.


(4) A mistake is a mistake repeated. Even the best of performers can
make a habit of practicing—sometimes for years—the wrong notes.


(5) In the Arts, the intolerance of little mistakes in performance points
to too much tolerance of the far bigger mistake of repeating over and
over again the same pieces,— 'perfectly'.


(6) You know you're doing good work when even the waste
paper looks too beautiful to throw away.

More Leaves: This is the Time

This is the time the maple trees glow,
Their leaves are scarlet, the pumpkins know.

At night the geese look down in flight,
And see the candles I put out each night.

(echo) This is the time the maple trees glow,
Their leaves are scarlet, the pumpkins know.

I count the days the moon does shine,
Upon my house, and all of time,

This is the time the maple trees glow,
Their leaves are scarlet, the pumpkins know.

And count the nights I dream and sleep,
Before the snows are cold and deep.

This is the time the maple trees glow,
Their leaves are scarlet, the pumpkins know.
 Their leaves are scarlet, the pumpkins know.

(If you'd like to see more Pigweed Rhyming Poems,
go to Soybean Pie!: Text , or Soybean Pie!: Score )

On Paths IV

(0) Special Delivery

Every day, when I go out
to get the mail, I feel a secret
desire to find a letter which
will change my life.

It's time I wrote that letter
myself.



(1) The Spring

The cowherd pointed
on the map and said,

"If you can find it, you must
visit this spring. The water there
is very mysterious."

"Years ago, they wanted to sell it,
but it burst the bottles—

    every time."



(2) Of Mushrooms and Pines

Many years ago, trees
discovered mushrooms make
very good friends.

Or maybe mushrooms were just
looking for something better
to eat.

What ever brought them together,
thought makes hard work
of the question—

"Where does the Amanita end
and the Pitch Pine begin?"



(3) Inside/Outside

The shape of the Universe?
an inward turning doughnut, an
expanding acorn, an exploding,
convoluted, multiple helix...

No other question takes thought
more quickly to the boundaries
of itself.

One wonders...is there a thought
which is outside thought and therefore
sees the shape of consciousness as a whole?



(4) The Slip

Coming down a steep icy path,
a slip instantly corrected,
forgotten, moving on.

Why can't I live like that?



(5) Of Cars and Boots

My friends who own cars
tell me they can be in the high
country in but half a day.

No car, just a pair of old
boots, but I say, I stay—

   in the mountains.

Two Little Poems about Nothing


Zero

Zero,
such a shy performer,
at first hiding behind the no's "n",
it steps out onto the clear, open page;

                0,

inside your tight boundaries lies amazing space,
the mouth of a bottomless well dropping down into
the dark waters of unknown significance,
where absence is not naught and a mere
nothing adds more to the already full.

Cipher of silence, swollen round with fresh beginnings,
of curtains about to open, the choir's first breath... . . .

Origin of origins which comes forever before
the sound which can never be played.

No Reply

.....This waiting for that which does not come,
perhaps, will not come.....rings left in-
complete.....

The paper which remains blank after so
many years, turned yellow and dry, still
thirsty for rain;

The book left half-read, whole shelves full of
dust and desire;

The ardent letter which finds no reply, a hole
burnt open in nothing, countless seeds
sprouting on hard rock;

.....The song spreads its wings and waits for warm air,
and wait it must, for, in a room without echoes
we quickly stop our play.....

Moving Up into Mountain Time

Slowly moving up the mountain.

Hard work. Left-right. Mind - in - boots.

All this massiveness makes me small,
  pressing down on me,
but I feel the rhythm of my breathing
pulling the depths within
up into the lighter air.

Moving above the treeline,
time slows down
and lets more space flow in.

Opening up into pathless land,
rocks and summer growth
give way
to snow and ice,

two then three breaths
for every step.

Wind still --

that sudden
inrushing
of  a l l directions.

Tears freeze instantly
gazing out into all this
airy distance.

Rilke: "The last house..."

The last house of this village stands
as alone as if it were the last house in the world.

The road, that the little village cannot hold,
moves on slowly out into the night.

The little village is but a place of transition,
expectant and afraid, between two vast distances,
a passageway along houses instead of a bridge.

And those who leave the village may wander
a long time, and many may die perhaps
along the way.


Rainer Maria Rilke
from The Book of Hours
(tr. Cliff Crego)

(For more Rilke poems in translation, go to
The Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke )

Neon Graffiti: Two Thought-Poems

HUMAN GENOME PROJECT

It is true:

Changing but one note
in a Beethoven symphony
might destroy the whole,

but,

studying the same
note in isolation
will not show us
a single

   thing.

PATHETIC FALLACY

: when a machine is given the
attributes of life, or

   worse,

: when a living being is given
the attributes of a machine.

(To see more of these little tragic-comic thought-poems,
go to Neon Graffiti: Table of Contents.)

Two Little Poems about Everything

One Morning

One morning, the mountain farmer goes out
to milk his goats and never comes back;

A quiet stream leaps from the edge of a high
granite cliff and disappears into the late
summer air;

Sitting in an alpine meadow, more flowers
than grass, the sound of delicate bells
rings out,

   wave after wave,

from the metal which sleeps in rocks.



Stone Mountains

If one carries the mountain in one's heart, to
pick up the stone is to pick up the mountain.

But for us, a stone is just a stone and nothing
more, just so much dead weight,
like a pack which grows heavier
with each passing step.

Half way up, half broken, turning back...
and the sound of stone mountains
just is—

     with the wind.