Another Chance

I got another chance at a photo session with the Red-Bellied Woodpecker today. 

See how he uses his tail to brace himself while he dines on the special suet de jour!

And this is another chance to play catch-up on the blog project.

We took Cassie for a short ride to the store and 

saw the End of the Rainbow on the way home. 

That's all there was, just the end.

And that's all there is to this post.

More tomorrow.

Horizons; a catch-up post

Late afternoon light over Little Traverse Bay from Room 256 of Northern Michigan Hospital 

in Petoskey. The bay waters meet the cloudy sky at a well-defined horizon. 

I was here to begin a multitude of tests of all my systems for a pain in my chest and delighted to have been put in a room with a view, after hanging out all day on a gurney in the frost-bitten underground emergency room. This was the first night I was in, and I didn't forget to take pictures, but I did completely forget about this blog. Never came into my mind that I know how to post from my phone; being hospitalized I had no other responsibilities. Distractions! I drifted off to sleep on the narrow bed with its scratchy sheets and inadequate pillows, The irritating beep-beep-beep of the nurse summons chime sang me to sleep. A young fellow woke me in the middle of the night to take my blood. I think they choose the most sensible nice persons to do things like this, because you really cannot get mad at them, they say such gentle, apologetic things!

S and I are in a Joan Didion period, since he listened to The White Album on Audible recently, inspiring me to get some of her older things on Kindle. These essays hold up quite well for current reading. This is only partly, I think, because I lived through the Sixties myself. Her observations are consistently interesting, her judgements usually sound and her prose is just so fine! I saved this little piece for myself the day before I went to the hospital. I am sharing it here; it relates to photography as well as to art. I forgot to save the exact source and can tell you only now that Joan Didion wrote this.

She was talking about moving to New York. Think about this. Do you agree??

The other thing I missed was horizons. I missed that on the West Coast, too, if we weren’t living at the beach, but I noticed at some point that practically every painting or lithograph I bought had a horizon in it. Because it’s very soothing.

Joan Didion

Gift of Autumn

This gorgeous plant, one of my husband's favorites ,

put on a late flush of bloom in the bed on the west side of the house last week.

Tonight's poem is also about a flower, from another one of the wonderful books brought into print by the dedicated labors of Sam Hamill at Copper Canyon Press. I've been searching these out.

This poem is not quite two thousand years old, and is brought you you on the Internet in 2014!

The Pool is Full of Autumn Sky,

Rippled by Gentle Breezes

The pool is full of autumn sky, rippled by gentle breezes.

Strange misty skiff mounts on that sky,

and with the dew I pluck the lotus,

gift of autumn; on my heart,

the very flower marked with tears.

When you snap the lotus stalk,

the threads hang on.

Break the blossom off, stretch out the threads;

draw out your heart.

As I sail home, I'll turn my glance

from lotus-flowered margin of the waves:

from the shore, someone gazes.

Ou-Yang Hsiu (1007-1072)

from Love and Time; the poems of Ou-Yang Hsiu;

edited and translated by J. P. Seaton, 

Copper Canyon Press, 1989. Page 37.

It is interesting to think about how capital letters are used in the titles of books and of poems; and also at the beginning of the lines of a poem. In this case, the translator has capitalized the beginning of sentences only. In the title, he used the form of capitalization for titles I was taught in grade school: only the beginning word and the important words are capitalized. Since I have been using this form almost all of my life, I am quite comfortable with it, but I can see that, in many ways. it doesn't make much sense. To me it just looks pretty. What forms pf capitalization do you prefer in your poems??

Suddenly so present

The careless abandon of a dachshund sleeping in our bed.

And here is a moon poem from Hayden Carruth:

Moonset

The dark will come, I said,

soon now at moonset.

And I looked and looked to see

our night-lady

so grave and magnanimous

go away

over our hill, smiling

a moment, no more, through pointed

spruces; and the dark came,

the snow turned gray.

Yet then slowly the gray

was silver, the snow-clad

spruces began to sparkle

and even the frost of the air

was illumined, a low

mazy

dance of light-specks. I

looked overhead

to the stars, suddenly

so present, so much a part

of the night. The night,

I said, is all grave

and all a dance and never

dark. And on my slow

snowshoes I danced and skipped

gravely down the meadow.

Hayden Carruth, Collected Shorter Poems; 1946-1991, 

Copper Canyon Press, 1992, pages 245-246.

What I notice about this is the beautiful dance of the varied short lines down the poem. Good night!

And this is from the winter we spent here: 2010-2011.

Ah, we must dance, dance like children

Here he is again! It is a male; one can just see the red end on the streak under his chin--

females don't have red there. I love the fierce evenly-round yellow ring of his eye! 
And those claws must be quite useful. He's a messy eater--see the suet crumbs on his beak? 
I am thankful for the chance I have here to see the creatures of the earth and air!

It has been raining all day. And raining and raining. And raining.

Two nights ago, I posted a short poem in two translations by Miyazawa Kenji, (1896-1933) Japanese modernist poet, agricultural scientist, vegetarian and devout Buddhist, whose life was cut short by that common plague, tuberculosis. Tonight's poem is longer. It draws on his work as he tried to help his compatriots grow better rice, or any rice at all. He came from the Iwate region where crops were uncertain. There had been famines there approximately every 16 years, whenever the ocean current that warms that section of Honshu is disrupted. To the end of his life, he prepared crop plans without charge for those who asked for his help. His knowledge of improved agricultural practices is apparent in this poem, as is his deep understanding of the natural qualities of his region.

THE BREEZE COMES FILLING THE VALLEY

Ah

from the south, and from the southwest,

the breeze comes filling the valley,

dries my shirt soaked with sweat,

cools my hot forehead and eyelids.

Stirring the field of rice stalks that have risen,

shaking the dark raindrops from each blade,

the breeze comes filling the valley.

As a result of all kinds of hardship,

the July rice, bifurcating,

foretold a fruitful autumn,

but by mid-August

twelve red daybreaks

and six days of ninety percent humidity

made the stalks weak and long,

and though they put on ears and flowers

the fierce rain yesterday

felled them one after another.

Here, in the driving sheets of rain,

a fog, cold as if mourning,

covered the fallen rice.

Having suffered all of the bad conditions,

few of which we thought we'd have,

they showed the worse result we expected,

but then,

when we thought all the odds were against their rising,

because of the slight differences in seedling preparation

and in the use of superphosphate

all the stalks are up today.

And I had expected this,

and to tell you of this early recovery

I looked for you,

but you avoided me.

The rain grew harder

until it flooded the ground.

There was no sign of clearing.

Finally, like a crazy man

I ran out in the rain,

telephoned the weather bureau,

went from village to village, asking for you,

until, hoarse,

in the terrible lightning,

I went home late at night.

But in the end I did not sleep.

And, look,

this morning, the east, the golden rose, opens,

the clouds, the beacons, rise one after another,

the high-voltage wires roar,

the stagnant fog runs in the distance.

The rice stalks have risen at last.

They are living things,

precision machines.

All stand erect.

At their tips, which waited patiently in the rain,

tiny white flowers glisten

and above the amber puddles reflecting the sun

red dragonflies glide.

Ah, we must dance, dance like children,

and that's not enough.

If they fall again,

they will decidedly rise again.

If, as they have,

they can stand humidity like this,

every village is certain to get

five bushels a quarter acre.

From the horizon buried beneath a forest,

from the row of dead volcanoes shining blue,

the wind comes across the rice paddies,

makes the chestnut leaves glitter.

Now, the fresh evaporation,

the transparent movement of sap.

Ah, in the middle of this plain,

in the middle of these rice paddies rustling as powerfully 

as if they were reeds,

we must dance, clapping our hands, like the innocent gods of

the past,

and that is not enough.

                                         7/14/1927

Miyazawa Kenji; Selections, trans. by Hiroaki Sato, Univ. of California Press, 2007 

      

The things I would like to study in this poem as translated are the varying line lengths, the unashamed rejoicing, the specificity of weathers, the knowledge of the agronomy and natural history of the region and the unashamed rejoicing.

Between storms, just before dark tonight, a glimpse of blue sky!

Deer in the Rain

What I noticed most about the deer browsing in the light rain today was 

the repeated flick, flick, flick of their tails as if to shed the droplets of water. 

I thought the rainy light would spoil the pictures, but I like the way they came out; 

the light is so even. It also darkened their coats and gave their backs a sheen. 

The spots on the fawns are almost completely gone now.

A Letter in October

Dawn comes later and later now,
and I, who only a month ago
could sit with coffee every morning
watching the light walk down the hill
to the edge of the pond and place
a doe there, shyly drinking,
then see the light step out upon
the water, sowing reflections
to either side—a garden
of trees that grew as if by magic—
now see no more than my face,
mirrored by darkness, pale and odd,
startled by time. While I slept,
night in its thick winter jacket
bridled the doe with a twist
of wet leaves and led her away,
then brought its black horse with harness
that creaked like a cricket, and turned
the water garden under. I woke,
and at the waiting window found
the curtains open to my open face;
beyond me, darkness. And I,
who only wished to keep looking out,
must now keep looking in.

Ted Kooser.

from Weather Central, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994 [Kindle edition]

Translations

You've seen this bird before; he's eating suet. But the photo has been altered using one of those iPhone apps. One sees different things about a black and white photo, and its color source. I think the expression of the woodpecker shows better in this one. 

I am reading today a book of translations of the poems of Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933) The translations were done by a translator whose work I much admire, for the haiku and other Japanese classics that Hiroaki Sato has brought to us in English versions. Most of the translations in the books are his, but he has also included some translations by others. Here are two translations of what I think is the same poem in Japanese.

DISTANT LABOR

Beyond the pampas-grass flowers

     and the dark grove

a new sort of wind is blowing

---through dazzling wrinkly cloud fretwork

                     and spring sun

with a shiver of strange odors.

And from the hill behind the empty creek

and the barely rising black smoke

of the tile works

a big cheerful racket.

---listening in the farmers fields

it seems pleasant enough work all right

But every night Chuchi

comes home from there exhausted

                             and bad-tempered.

(translated by Gary Snyder)

DISTANT WORK

Beyond the miscanthus flowers and the dark woods

some different specimen of wind is ringing.

In the lattice of glistering kinky clouds and blue light

the wind, with a mysterious fragrance, is trembling.

Reflecting the sky the river's empty

and a brick factory raises a bit of smoke.

From the table behind it

the echo comes clear, again.

Listening to it here, in the vegetable patch,

it sounds like a pleasant, bright sort of work.

But at night Chuichi returns from there,

tired, furious.

                        9/10/1926

From Spring and Asura by Miyazawa Kenji

in Miyazawa Kenji: Selections, 

edited and with an introduction by Hiroaki Sato, Univ. of California Press, 2007. Pages 155-156.

One thing I can take from this, particularly for my own work, is that a radical reworking of a poem I am writing is certainly possible without damaging the spirit of the poem. Think about translating some thing you are working on using different plants, colors, weather or diction. Steal a word or two from John Clare maybe; not too many!

I hope to blog more about Miyazawa, (Wikipedia: Buddhist, vegetarian and social activist) after I finish reading the 60 pages of introduction. But I am interested already because of the Pre-World War II time frame in Japanese literature.