Journey

Tags

2018, 8*, birds, blue, breeze, Buddha, city, clouds, day, death, departure, eclipse, evening, fire, flame, form, Ganges, gold, grass, green, hills, horizon, India, Kusinagara, life, looking, morning, night, salvation, sleep, sound, speech, stage, step, stone, stream, teaching, time, town, trees, Vaisali, valley, voices, walking, wandering, wondering

                        the evening before when at length he’d departed,
                Vaiśālī no longer glowed
        like some future city –

                        recent stones of monument
                seemed already unaligned,
        boroughs swallowed by evening hills;

                        we walked wide by the trees across the Gangetic plain,
                robes flupped with each step,
        we lost form as we wandered

                        and we wondered ‘born but to die’,
                still wanting any intoxication
        before the execution;

                        but he looked, always bittersweet,
                to the next horizon – this
        vast and empty stage;

                        in the morning he’d said
                ‘always bite and heat your gold’ and ‘never
        hold the sword by the blade’;

                        ‘I shall lay between those two trees’
                he said in the evening – forks
        around which the whole of time tuned;

                        I prepared grasses about
– I never usually made particular preparations for the night, he would end the day sitting by some copse or stone, away from where we slept glowing like embers,
        as we turned through the night –

                        but he pillowed his head on his hand
                that night, the grasses
        preened green and blue

                        the birds stopped
                as if there were eclipse, the trees ignored
        the breeze,

                        and with shaking headdresses
                dignitaries came to visit from the town
        supplicating –

                        but he spoke with a voice like a cloud, both proximate
and spanning valleys, yearning and teaching to lay down this dried and splintered weight, ‘salvation does not come from the mere sight of me’,
        ‘control the mind’ –

                        and the flames of the fires were low
                as they returned to Kuśinagara
        as if against the stream

                                

Postface Overduction: end of life of the Buddha; narrated by Ananda, close attendant; itinerant life teaching from town to town, area of a few hundred kilometers around central Ganges; left Vaiśālī last, stopped just outside Kuśinagara, town dignitaries came to honour him, had known him before; ‘two trees’ are ‘sal trees‘ tall trunk, no branches until the canopy, northern India, 6th-5th centuries BCE (although there is dispute about this);

        

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

birds wormhole: threshold to behold
blue & city & horizon & morning & time wormhole: under the blue and blue sky
breeze & clouds & valley wormhole: here today and …
Buddha wormhole: eyes like petals
death & speech wormhole: travel // when I die
evening wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
grass & life & trees wormhole: sweet chestnut
green wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’
hills & sleep wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
looking wormhole: looking hard enough
night & sound & stone & walking wormhole: meanwhile
teaching wormhole: c’mon – keep up
voices wormhole: travelling / back

        

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Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896

Tags

'scape, 1896, 2018, 5*, bridge, buildings, desire, industry, lives, Pissarro, river, rooftops, Rouen, sky, smoke, storey, streets

                                   Great Bridge,          Rouen, 1896

                                                   to span       the river

                                   is to ride the banks            with quarter and delve inland

with vascular street and hood-eyed blocks         of storey looking down

            under receding ateliers of desire          under oblivious

                                                      plumes      of sky

 

spanning the reach of the Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896 by Camille Pissarro, the eternal dialectic between nature and industry

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

bridge wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902
buildings wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
river wormhole: Sujātā
rooftops wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
sky wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
smoke wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
streets wormhole: {reading right to left}

 

writening

Tags

2018, 4*, blogging, discovery, doing, happening, identity, legacy, metaphor, page, poetry, publishing, thinking, writing

                writening

                I like to find what I think
                in kinaesthetic metaphor
                and surprise myself;

                nothing more, not trying
                to be the best, or visionary
                or even to write poetry –

                it just happens; I have
                taken to sharing it – nice
                of you – but, also,

                attached to how it is received –
                not nice, a little ugly;
                I should just do it naturally –

                wash ‘n’ go, shake ‘n’ vac –
                just discover, let it fall
                and spill all over the page,

                not to write the Body
                of Work to blithely leave
                to posterity …

 

the penultimate of my 2018 pieces of work … and they’ve not been coming thick and fast during 2019 either … well’s drying up!

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

doing wormhole: Renunciation
identity wormhole : The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
poetry wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XXII by William Carlos Williams
publishing wormhole: scintillating to mind’s content
thinking & writing wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams

 

Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902

Tags

1902, 2018, 6*, afternoon, autumn, branches, bridge, grey, Paris, rain, red, river, sky, speech, statue, steps, umbrella, woman

                the afternoon autumn skies
                had red taint in their greys

                from sodden divested branches
                grown warped and wet

                before the river – turn away,
                don’t look at me like this – but

                the iron rider on horse had
                none of it atop graceful steps,

                ‘pah’ said the old woman
                as she shook out her umbrella

 

de l’avantaged de Pont Neuf, Paris, 1892 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

afternoon wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
autumn & grey wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
branches wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
bridge wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
Paris wormhole: looking / ridiculous
rain wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
red wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
river & sky wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890
speech & woman wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890

Tags

1890, 2018, 6*, light, Pissarro, river, Rouen, shadow, sky, spire, stone, sun, time, trees, wood

                Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890

                they’ll grip the bank
                and grow for forty years

                while barges hardly move
                the sun will turn to wood,

                but they’ll be gone, the
                shadow they keep cannot hold,

                the light flattens all save
                the scars of the stone spires

 

grown from the banks of Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

light wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
river & sky wormhole: in turgid reflection
shadow wormhole: alabaster balustrade
stone wormhole: St. Erasmus in Bishop Islip’s Chapels, 1796
sun wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
time wormhole: threshold to behold
trees wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
wood wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees

 

A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

Tags

1877, 2018, 7*, being, bench, book, change, distance, garden, ground, growth, meaning, Pissarro, quiet, seasons, shrub, sister, sky, speech, trees, words, world

                there are words in the book
                look, they match things

                in the world, the little sister
                was unconvinced and

                leaned on the bench
                to keep it on the ground,

                she knew the tree behind
                grew slowly in more

                than one direction,
                the tall shrubs all shushed

                in the distance, but the
                sky had already turned season

 

slyly, from the corner of A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & garden & meaning & sky & trees wormhole: threshold to behold
bench wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
change wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
quiet wormhole: horizon
speech wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
words wormhole: my uncomfortable life
world wormhole: Batman: Oddysey

 

Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877

Tags

1877, 2018, 5*, blue, clothes, clouds, hill, house, Pissarro, Pontoise, portrait, red, roof, trees, walking, woman

                she walked from the
                red-tiled house and the

                ruddy hill behind, in her
                dark blue finery, upright

                as the trees which reached
                high to the squally clouds

 

stepping out from the Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

blue wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
clouds wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
house wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
red wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
roof wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
trees wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
walking wormhole: the old man;
woman wormhole: Female Peasant Carding, 1875

 

Female Peasant Carding, 1875

Tags

1875, 2018, 6*, air, concentration, floor, inside, light, outside, Pissarro, portrait, shade, walls, windows, woman, wool

                she carded wool
                to her light’s content

                so that the shade
                became her floor and uprights

                and the air
                became her windows

 

Female Peasant Carding, 1875 by Camille Pissarro en plein ombre

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air wormhole: waiting to be heard
light wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
walls wormhole: the reach turned to love
windows wormhole: the old man;
woman wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams

 

Landscape, Pontoise, 1875

Tags

1875, 2018, 6*, clouds, fields, garden, growth, horizon, houses, life, lifetimes, passing, Pissarro, Pontoise, progress, sitting, standing, trees

                Landscape, Pontoise, 1875

                they sit and stand bent
                in the fields,

                in the gardens, while trees grow
                past the stories of

                house and only
                passing clouds behind the low

                horizon show
                the rapid progress of growth

 

about three storeys at right-angles into the Landscape, Pontoise, 1875, by Camille Pissarro … and oh, I’ve not been able to find a copy of the painting to paste here:

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & passing & sky wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
clouds & horizon wormhole: horizon
garden wormhole: {reading right to left}
life & trees wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
lifetimes wormhole: waiting to be heard
passing wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
sitting wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych

 

Vue de Pontoise, 1873

Tags

1873, 2018, 6*, church, clatter, evening, hill, life, morning, passing, people, Pissarro, Pontoise, rooftops, silence, silhouette, sound, sun, talking, town, trees, work

                the chatter of rooftops
                scattered under low sun
                about the hill

                the single sustained note
                of the church – the
                passing clatter of

                silhouetting trees
                can’t hear all that is said
                while weary people

                approach the town
                and quit the town
                evening and morning

                silent under sometimes
                bright head-ware

 

approaching and leaving Vue de Pontoise, 1873 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

church wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
evening & life wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
morning wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
passing & sound wormhole: Batman: Oddysey
people wormhole: {reading right to left}
rooftops wormhole: Dulwich College, London, 1871
silence wormhole: there will be ovations
silhouette wormhole: ‘streetsigns …’
sun wormhole: horizon
talking wormhole: travelling / back
trees wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
work wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay