Where is the music coming from, the energy? The day was meant for what ineffable creature we must have missed?

...the fiery event
   of every day in endless
   endless assent...

Elizabeth Bishop, Poet Laureate, 1949-50

Anaphora

Each day with so much ceremony
begins, with birds, with bells,
with whistles from a factory;
such white-gold skies our eyes
first open on, such brilliant walls
that for a moment we wonder
"Where is the music coming from, the energy?
The day was meant for what ineffable creature
we must have missed?" Oh promptly he
appears and takes his earthly nature
   instantly, instantly falls
   victim of long intrigue,
   assuming memory and mortal
   mortal fatigue.

More slowly falling into sight
and showering into stippled faces,
darkening, condensing all his light;
in spite of all the dreaming
squandered upon him with that look,
suffers our uses and abuses,
sinks through the drift of bodies,
sinks through the drift of classes
to evening to the beggar in the park
who, weary, without lamp or book
   prepares stupendous studies:
   the fiery event
   of every day in endless
   endless assent.

I felt at being's rim all being fail...

George Russell Drysdale

Léonie Adams, Poet Laureate, 1948-1949

Thought's End

I'd watched the hills drink the last colour of light,
All shapes grow bright and wane on the pale air,
Till down the traitorous east there came the night
And swept the circle of my seeing bare;
Its intimate beauty like a wanton's veil
Tore from the void as from an empty face.
I felt at being's rim all being fail,
And my one body pitted against space.
O heart more frightened than a wild bird's wings
Beating at green, now is no fiery mark
Left on the quiet nothingness of things.
Be self no more against the flooding dark;
There thousandwise, sown in that cloudy blot,
Stars that are worlds look out and see you not.

Robert Lowell, Poet Laureate, 1947-1948 [I had a hard time finding something by this guy that I could ABIDE; and they talk about the confessionalism of Plath and Sexton!]

Children of Light

Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones
And fenced their gardens with the Redmen's bones;
Embarking from the Nether Land of Holland,
Pilgrims unhouseled by Geneva's night,
They planted here the Serpent's seeds of light;
And here the pivoting searchlights probe to shock
The riotous glass houses built on rock,
And candles gutter by an empty altar,
And light is where the landless blood of Cain
Is burning, burning the unburied grain.

Welcoming the White Tiger

In the Chinese tradition, the autumn season is associated with the color white, the sound of weeping, the emotions of both courage and sadness, the lung organ, the metal element, and a white tiger. Autumn is also connected in Chinese thought with the direction west, considered to be the direction of dreams and visions.

So to celebrate the autumn equinox as the Chinese philosophers did, you might …

Stand facing west, considered the direction of autumn in ancient Chinese philosophy. Just stand for a few moments and honor the ‘westness’ of autumn. Consider your dreams and visions, and the path on which you’re moving forward through your life.

Light white candles against the growing darkness of the season. Or place white flowers on your table. White is the color of autumn in the Chinese tradition.

Allow yourself to weep for things you have lost. Weeping is the sound of this season, according to Chinese philosophy.

Find the courage to face what’s ahead.

"She is here because he is blind."

From the opening of the National Arts Centre until his retirement on June 1st, 1999, the NAC’s piano tuner was Henry Hoglund.  Mr. Hoglund is a native of Grand Prairie, Alberta and has been blind since the age of nine months.
He graduated from the Ontario School for the Blind in Brantford, Ontario, in 1949, and practiced his profession for 55 years.  Henry was ably assisted by his devoted wife Irene who accompanied him throughout his career.

Karl Shapiro, Poet Laureate, 1946-1947

 The Piano Tuner’s Wife

That note comes clear, like water running clear,
Then the next higher note, and up and up
And more and more, with now and then a chord,
The highest notes like tapping a tile with a hammer,
Now and again an arpeggio, a theme
As if the keyboard spoke to the one key,
Saying, No interval is exactly true,
And the note whines slightly and then truly sings.

She sits on the sofa reading a book she has brought,
A ray of sunlight on her white hair.
She is here because he is blind. She drives.
It is almost a platitude to say
That she leads him from piano to piano.
And this continues for about an hour,
Building bridges from both sides of the void,
Coasting the chasms of the harmonies.

And in conclusion,
When there is no more audible dissent,
He plays his comprehensive keyboard song,
The loud proud paradigm,
The one work of art without content.

"this more fragile boundary"

Louise Bogan, Poet Laureate, 1945-1946

Last Hill in a Vista

Come, let us tell the weeds in ditches

How we are poor, who once had riches,

And lie out in the sparse and sodden

Pastures that the cows have trodden,

The while an autumn night seals down

The comforts of the wooden town.

Come, let us counsel some cold stranger

How we sought safety, but loved danger.

So, with stiff walls about us, we

Chose this more fragile boundary:

Hills, where light poplars, the firm oak,

Loosen into a little smoke.

"neither Time nor error"

Robert Penn Warren, Poet Laureate, 1944-1945

Evening Hawk

From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding
The last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
The hawk comes.
               His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion 
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
The crashless fall of stalks of Time.

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.

Look!  Look!  he is climbing the last light
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.

          Long now,
The last thrush is still, the last bat
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics.  His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense.  The star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
The earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

A String of Pearls, Larry Welo, artist

Allen Tate, Poet Laureate, 1943-1944

We shall say only the leaves whispering
In the improbable mist of nightfall
That flies on multiple wing:
Night is the beginning and the end
And in between the ends of distraction
Waits mute speculation, the patient curse
That stones the eyes, or like the jaguar leaps
For his own image in a jungle pool, his victim.

What shall we say who have knowledge 
Carried to the heart?  Shall we take the act
To the grave?  Shall we, more hopeful, set up the grave
In the house?  The ravenous grave?

                                   Leave now
The shut gate and the decomposing wall:
The gentle serpent, green in the mulberry bush, 
Riots with his tongue through the hush--
Sentinel of the grave who counts us all!

Excerpt from Ode to the Confederate Dead

Delmore Schwartz

Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn. 

from Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day

Joseph Auslander, Poet Laureate, 1937-1941

Home Bound

The moon is a wavering rim where one fish slips,
The water makes a quietness of sound;
Night is an anchoring of many ships
Home-bound.

There are strange tunnelers in the dark, and whirs
Of wings that die, and hairy spiders spin
The silence into nets, and tenanters
Move softly in.

I step on shadows riding through the grass,
And feel the night lean cool against my face;
And challenged by the sentinel of space,
I pass.

Who I Am When I'm at Home....

Tilda Swinton

Jentina this is not a dream...

THIS IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE YOU BITCH!

wanna wanna wanna b wanna b wat eva

what the f**k?
You was born in a caravan,
That don't make you ghetto
I seen more ghetto in posh spice's stelleto
You chat like a blonde but i swear your a brunette
When's your carrer endin'?
Tell me as soon as
'cause ur fuckin' annoyin' ma ears
with your bullshit walk and
bullshit talk and
crack head dances!
and you didnt get crap advances
Your record labels dumb
for signing a fitch
who can tracks her bum
whos still askin her mum "whats cum?"
your fake and you look k-cut
try wearing less make-up
you got a quiff like elvis
how can you sell this
escalade, st tropez
What escalade!?
i saw you drivin a Nissan Sunny down Peckham way.

'Caus your fuckin' annoyin' my ears
Wid your bullshit walk 'n' bullshit talk and crack head dances
And you didn't get crak head 'vances
Your record label's dumb
For signin for a (?)
(?)
You're fake and you look caker (?)
Try wearin less make up
You got a quiff like elvis
How can u sell this?
(escalate and St. Tropez) wat escalate hahaha
swear you drive down his house sunny day back and wave (wtf?!)
(chorus)

wanna wanna wanna b wanna b
sad arse strippah in a messed-up way
Get out da car 'n' drop ya hair sprays
wanna wanna wanna wanna b wanna b
sad arse stripper in a meseed-up way, how da fuck did you get airplay?
fuckin' fake Fuckin' fake, fuckin' fake fuckin' fake

Jenny from da block more like jenny from a flock of pidgeons
What class A drug did they put in it?
Chicken- all spazin out in the video like you're trippin'
Incase your mum gave birth while she was strippin'
Shuka Shake, shake the brake your hips and fall out of your caravan right into a ditch, bitch!

(chorus)
wanna wanna wanna b wanna b
fu**kin fake fu**kin fake x2

wanna wanna wanna b wanna b
sad arse srtipper in a messed-up way
get out ya car n drop ya hair sprays
wanna wanna wanna wanna b wanna b

sad arse stripper in a messed-up way
How da f**k did ya get airplay?
fu**kin fake fuckin fake x2

I have come to fuck up your carerra
Bitch- dont fuck around wid dis titch, yeah!
I, have cum 2 really take da piss
And, you, will take dis lyrical dis'!
(happy birthday!)

(repeat chorus)

Ah, yeah!
You been chattin' bout ya gucci thongs
but how many weeks, bitch have u had it on (eurgh!)
I can tell by your dances-
dat it's sum wear stuck up her bum (eurgh!)

(repeat cHorus)

burberry... St. Tropez.. when are ya' gunna learn to speak properly?!
Who gives a shit anyway?
Just some dirty ol' men in cell block H

Fuckin' fake, Fuckin' fake, Fuckin' fake, Fuckin' fake

IX XI

O wearisome condition of humanity!

Born under one law, to another bound;

Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,

Created sick, commanded to be sound.

What meaneth nature by these diverse laws?

Passion and reason self-division cause.

Fulke Greville (1554–1628), British poet. Mustapha (l. 43–46). . . 

THE BUTCHER'S SON

Mr Pierce the butcher
Got news his son was missing
About a month before
The closing of the war.
A bald man, tall and careful,
He stood in his shop and found
No bottom to his sadness,
Nowhere for it to stop.
When my aunt came through the door
Delivering the milk,
He spoke, with his quiet air
Of a considerate teacher,
But words weren't up to it,
He turned back to the meat.
The message was in error.
Later that humid summer
At a local high school fete,
I saw, returned, the son
Still in his uniform.
Mr Pierce was not there
But was as if implied
In the son who looked like him
Except he had red hair.
For I recall him well
Encircled by his friends,
Beaming a life charged now
Doubly because restored,
And recall also how
Within his hearty smile
His lips contained his father's
Like a light within the light
That he turned everywhere.

-- Thom Gunn

André Gide said....

• "Fish die belly-upward and rise to the surface; it is their way of falling"
• "One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time"
• "It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not"
• "Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it."

Nobel Prize Winner, 1947

Thai Lue: A Thai ethnic group living in southern Yunnan Province of China and Laos.

Isamu Noguchi near places I've worked

666 Fifth Avenue waterfall wall
1957
New York City

I worked in this building 1983-1985.

Landscape of Time
1975
5 granite elements
 Federal Office Building
Seattle, Washington

I worked next door to this landscape 1994-2002.

Finish the Day

Another oil rig accident in the Gulf -- really?

John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in Queens, New York) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. ~~Happy Birthday,John!

"My mom told me that when you go to heaven, God gives you all the balloons you lost when you were alive." **Chloe

So Stephen got his balloon, lost the windy day he returned from having his tonsils removed. I can see him trudging up the sidewalk to the house and mother running through all the neighbors' yards, trying to catch it, not quite able to keep up with the wind. (Stephen's been on my mind today, and my heart is waterlogged with tears.)

...unhook the stars and take them down...