Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Tonight's Contrail; near sunset



When we first went outside for the Daily Walk, I was trying to get a picture of this contrail, which of course didn't fit in the frame (or, the Short Form.) I wasn't thinking about combining until I took the sunset panoramas when we were almost home. So then I did this in Autostitch, a great and easy-to-use photo app for the iPhone. I am considering the odd shapes it makes (unless you crop it) as a feature, not a bug. I often like them, like an odd frame. John Marin used to make or paint weird frames for his paintings; it's a model.

Tonight we watched that American Experience on Jimi Hendrix, whose life also was a sort of short form, not even extending until age 30.

On the way home the sunset looked like this. This is a kind of slender panorama that the iPhone takes with the new iOS7. I'm not sure how it does it, but it is very simple. This is an open field across the street from the subdivision on which the owner grows alfalfa. It's the sort of place that won't last, but I enjoy it while it is here, because it opens out my heart. Sometimes a great flock of Canada Geese comes down in this field; once while it was snowing!

Remembering that my brother liked the poems of A. R. Ammons, I picked up The Selected Poems; an expanded edition, W.W. Norton, 1986, today. On page 56 is a short form from the same poet who wrote the book-long poem, Garbage.

Loss


When the sun
falls behind the sumac
thicket the 
wild
yellow daisies
in diffuse evening shade
lose their 
rigorous attention
and
half-wild with loss
turn
any way the wind does
and lift their
petals up
to float
off their stems
and go
               ---A. R. Ammons

Note the energy the short and very-short lines give this poem. The energy of "wild" and "turn" on lines of their own is balanced by rhythmic and poetic lines like "in diffuse evening shade" and "anyway the the wind does" and the lack of punctuation allows the petals to just "go." There is a companion poem on the facing page that will be here tomorrow. Good night.

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