Musette

And inhale

Well, that was refreshing. Nice to be back. After the big write-a-thon in December, I took off the whole month of January. I'm still digesting February, it turns out, and I enjoyed the break from writing this month. Missed the daily-ness of it, though. The habit of looking at poetry, noticing what's inspiring, clings. It's an interesting practice, daily writing and small reflections. It seems to make life better. I'm not a meditator, but writing--that seems to be my way.

I'm reading Shahid Ali's ghazals, from his final book "Call Me Ishmael Tonight." We are on a first-name basis by now, Shahid and I. Here are some of the dazzling couplets from "Of Fire":

In a mansion once of love I lit a chandelier of fire ...
I stood on a stair of water, I stood on a stair of fire.
...
I keep losing this letter to the gods of abandon.
Won't you tell me how you found it--in what hemisphere of fire?

Someone stirs, after decades, in a glass mountain's ruins.
Is Death a cry from an age that was a frozen year of fire?

When the Husband of Water touched his Concubine of Snow,
he hardened to melt in their private affair of fire.

and it goes on, surprisingly, beautifully, making the refrain new in every couplet.

Emily

I'm back to Emily Dickinson. I remember reading her in college, my own lexicon in hand, and watching universes open out from those lines. Flipping through the Complete Poems today I'm struck by the experimental feel of the poems, many of them new to me. I'm looking at #547, which begins:

 

    My first well Day--since many ill--
    I asked to go abroad,
    And take the Sunshine in my hands,
    And see the things in Pod--

    A'blossom just when I went in
    To take my Chance with pain--
    Uncertain if myself, or He,
    Should prove the strongest One

The leap in time between the pod and blossom, the sense of the cost of those  days of illness, and the  "take my chance with pain"  are rolling around my brain.

It happens that Agha Shahid Ali makes Dickinson's 1463 an epigram for a section of "A Nostalgist's Map of America." That poem begins: "A Route of Evanescence/With a revolving Wheel--"...

I'm not far into "Nostalgist's Map," but paging through, I'm thinking, quite pragmatically, that some of his first lines, or bits of them, are wonderful writing prompts. Which means that just one line or phrase in, they've turned on my imagination.

      When the desert refused my history...
      Students of mist..
      It was a year of brilliant water...
      Listen to my account as the world vanishes...

I'm saving string this month, may not write a lot. But my couple of poem-a-day experiments reinforced how much I need to stop to look around. Look around every day, of course, but also spend a *bit* more time processing, and gathering. I like that expression "wool gathering" --which reminds me of Psyche's second task, gathering wool from the dangerous rams, which she accomplished by waiting.

Notes on the day: The fish tanks are sparkling. One is much more about plants than fish.

In praise of...

Agha Shahid Ali. I wasn't carrying a notebook today, so I asked David to pick one from the shelf and bring it to me. I'd written on a few pages in 2002, and stuffed a couple of printed out poems in to mark my place. One was Ali's "Farewell," which I still find absolutely stunning. It's here, if you scroll down, below a couple of other beautiful pieces. A reminder of the power of art to address the real, the ruinous, the worst--and transcend it, look through it and see the possible.

Here's a bit of "Farewell":

   

"At a certain point I lost track of you.
    You needed me. You needed to perfect me.
    In your absence you polished me into the Enemy.
    Your history gets in the way of my memory.
    I am everything you lost. You can't forgive me.
    I am everything you lost. Your perfect Enemy.
    Your memory gets in the way of my memory:

    I am being rowed through Paradise in a river of Hell:
    Exquisite ghost, it is night.

    The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves.

    It is still night. The paddle is a lotus.

    I am rowed — as it withers — toward the breeze which is soft as
    if it had pity on me.

    If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldn't
    have happened in the world?"

Ali died young at the end of 2001. Seeing this poem again makes me want to look at his ghazals.

In praise of...

Ann Hamilton. I continue to look through "Ann Hamilton: An Inventory of Objects," which collects the objects created for various performances and installations. For instance: Awaken, a blanket "Embroidered with the words of Susan Stewart's poem 'Awaken.'" (It's apparently for sale, I see, as I scroll around. Many details about the piece are here.

I happened on conceptual art for the first time as a high school kid in Colorado, hanging out with a slight, outcast boy who was a Yoko Ono fan. He gave me a book showing--or maybe just describing--her work. Lights went on. Soon after I found Charles Simic in the library. They're related in my mind, and at the heart of what I love about poetry (and art). The familiar world made strange, and thus brought closer.

And I am very excited to have just found this: an inventory list from the Medical History Museum. There's an incredible world here. For instance:

                                                      

MHM00083

Compass                                      Marked on lid "POCKET COMPASS; MADE IN ENGLAND", "ESL"

Brief Description Compass with yellow face and brass rim, housed in black bakelite circular container with relief printing on surface. Has screw top lid. History of Object Included in contents of Dr. James Jamieson's medical bag (registration number 74), who practiced in Warnambool and Melbourne, later lecturing in Obstetrics at Melbourne University. He died in 1916. Materials and Finishes Brass, metal (painted), paper (printed) and bakelite.

And I meant to add...

More falling stars, more sparkling lights.

Another beauty from Astronomy picture of the day.

Earth at Night
Credit: C. Mayhew & R. Simmon (NASA/GSFC), NOAA/NGDC, DMSP Digital Archive 

Signs

Walking to work I pass a small pickup truck stopped at the light. I don't look at first but at the edge of my field of vision I get a hit of color that makes me turn my head. The truckbed is filled with oranges and pineapples--no containers, just a heap of fruit headed for a juice bar, maybe. I'd have said it was windfall fruit. Except for those pineapples...

On the way back from lunch we notice a sign attached to the wall of the brutal aesthetic statement that is the Caltrans Building. The sign, or is it a motto, reads: Do not climb.

The friend waiting for important news goes to the racetrack. In the first race he sees a horse that has to be named for a song he loves. He bets it and it wins.

What's the omen that means: You are going to Hong Kong?

Fabulous

Not that this project, housed as it is, at the New York Times, needs publicity, but it's really wonderful--Maira Kaiman's blog "The Principles of Uncertainty," poetic, story-booky and just what I would do if I had those visual skills. It's on the pay side of the site, but worth it....
     First entry in "The Impossibility of February": "A man dances on salt."

Can't help myself

I find the photos from the Astronomy Pictures of the Day just stunning, and someday, these visions of celestial bodies will appear in a poem.

This one is of Jupiter's moon Io, and it points up a bluish plume that rises from what's likely a huge volcano beneath. (See the site for the more scientific scoop.)

Io: The Prometheus Plume
Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA

A little bit of perspective

Reading jokes in bed

We took this up many jokes books ago and the ritual goes like this: One of us (OK, the other guy) reads the jokes, one of us falls asleep, recalling practically nothing but a horrific and terribly funny bit about a pig with a wooden leg, which is too appalling to repeat. However, it's been impossible to sleep through our latest selection, not jokes at all but the sort of wild imaginings familiar to anyone who authoritatively explained the workings of the world to a younger brother--and could answer any question he asked. We have found at least one wildly funny bit every night. John Hodgman--we finally know what the fuss was about (tho somehow his website leaves me sad).