Whoops! How do you spell that anyway? The exclamation, I mean, not Bozeman. I just looked up Bozeman and found out that Mr. Bozeman named it after himself; and why not, I say?? I put this photo up earlier to test how it looked and didn't mean it to be THE one for tonight. But it is. We were driving along minding our business and now I guess I understand the song about the "lemon-colored sky." There it was, truly lemony, below that incredible shape of cloud, with just a little city skyline to anchor it. And darkness coming on all around. . .and the road leading into it. The road.
Remind you of Iceland? I thought not. But poets overcome small obstacles like time and place.
Here is some more from Bill Holm's Playing the Black Piano, Milkweed Editions, 2004, page 5.
Here is some more from Bill Holm's Playing the Black Piano, Milkweed Editions, 2004, page 5.
THE GHOST OF WANG WEI LOOKS AT SKAGAFJORD
How the old Chinese poets would have admired Iceland!
Everything appears one at a time, at great distance:
one yellow wildflower. one brown bird, one white horse,
one old ramshackle farm, looking small and far away
with its polka-dot sheep and that ten-mile-long
black mountain lowering behind it. One farmer
the size of a matchstick walks out of his thimble barn
to his postage-stamp hayfield while
over his head a river falls half a mile
off a cliff,a silver knitting needle
that disappears for the length of a finger.
Still you can see the farmer, even from this distance,
his tiny black boots, his brown coat, his blue hat,
his moustache, his slightly bloodshot eye
in which you can just make out the reflection
of the Atlantic Ocean and the whole sky.
---------- Bill Holm
Wang Wei, was the 8th Century Chinese Poet, whose works are still held in high regard,
I love the way familiar domestic items are used as references to size in this poem. After a name like Skagafjord! And the way the whole poem is leading you toward the broad expanses of the Atlantic. Iceland must be truly beautiful, if cold. There are pictures of Iceland on Flickr that are truly glorious! Imagine yourself there! Maybe I can dream about it!
one yellow wildflower. one brown bird, one white horse,
one old ramshackle farm, looking small and far away
with its polka-dot sheep and that ten-mile-long
black mountain lowering behind it. One farmer
the size of a matchstick walks out of his thimble barn
to his postage-stamp hayfield while
over his head a river falls half a mile
off a cliff,a silver knitting needle
that disappears for the length of a finger.
Still you can see the farmer, even from this distance,
his tiny black boots, his brown coat, his blue hat,
his moustache, his slightly bloodshot eye
in which you can just make out the reflection
of the Atlantic Ocean and the whole sky.
---------- Bill Holm
Wang Wei, was the 8th Century Chinese Poet, whose works are still held in high regard,
I love the way familiar domestic items are used as references to size in this poem. After a name like Skagafjord! And the way the whole poem is leading you toward the broad expanses of the Atlantic. Iceland must be truly beautiful, if cold. There are pictures of Iceland on Flickr that are truly glorious! Imagine yourself there! Maybe I can dream about it!
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