Friday, December 24, 2010

Analect 2.827x



24 December 2010. Mild sun, beads of water on car window...sparkling against dark.

Seamus Heaney--the human chain. Which is the more proper phrase, of course. An subtle rejoinder--not to Roth himself, perhaps, but to the diminished view. "A snag in the road..." A tree branch or trunk, sprawled across the macadam. You look it up, and what do you see: road and tree. That's why it doesn't stand to be too literal about these things.

"A man with his arms raised..." Kafka, Diaries, 1913. You see, he has us already--arms lifted first, the purpose to follow...

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Analect 2.826x (for Sergey Zadvorny)



22 December 2010. December days...

Word this morning from Tatiana--Sergey in a hospital, in Kharkov...

Our wishes and hopes...

Angela, too...

* * *

(Для Сережи--"Вы встабайте-ко, братцы...")

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Analect 2.825x



21 December 2010. Longest night, shortest days. Zimá...

Here, a chilly breeze crosses the street, mildly clear...

Claims of a song. Svetalana--chansons russes--the ones her father sang to her, with his guitar, when she was a girl. Songs from another world, another time... "Le Vieil Erable," The Old Maple. Stary Klën...two voices, rising and falling, intertwined. A hastened embrace, a feigned denial--her face, just inside the door, eyes bright--Is he waiting...?

Always...



* * *

Старый Клёч (Девчата, 1961)

* * *

Monday, December 20, 2010

Analect 2.824x



20 December 2010. Thunder, late afternoon downpour... This morning, sun and clouds...more rain...

Siberian visions. A fairy queen, land east of the Urals. Rivers almost without names, each one longer than the Volga...

Denisov and his partisan band. Petya's arrival, unannounced... A message from the general in a rain-soaked envelope... Trousers rolled up over his boots, wide face, lively eyes...

"Nash Platún..."

Friday, December 17, 2010

Analect 2.823x



17 December 2010. Bluster and gray--winds all over town... On the bay--steel-coloured water...

A brass bowl, tarnished at the edges--carried in two hands, sometimes one, or held by the rim, along one's side. "I need the words of an inspiring teacher." "No, you must work harder on your practice..."

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Analect 2.822x



16 December 2010. December sun--for the morning, at least. Cold, brilliant...warming...

A room filled with an unimaginable assortment of things--directions galore--paintings, photographs (a mysterious woman in a gypsy dress, focus unsure), objets (including Jeremy's tribal drum, dark African wood, once next to the fireplace in his old house in the hills...), the jouncy figures of animals by a man from Dominica--or was it the Dominican Republic--rabbit holes and by ways...

Imagining Joseph Spence, for a moment, seated by a limestone wall in Nassau--or on Andros Island... ("Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer...")

Pieces of stone, pastel, pink and coral, smaller crafted work on shelves by door. "People brought things. I couldn't say no..." And Ariel's theater puppets plopped in each of the show-case windows onto Solano. Like something out of the Commedia dell'Arte, or a canal street house in Amsterdam... (The Nieuwe Prinsengracht...)

Mythos--Paris and the Three Graces (we'll forget discord for the moment). More Aglaia and Thalia, and maybe Jaimie, their sophisticated younger sister from Los Angeles (with her mysterious Korean past)...

How does one know these things... Yes, how does one know...?

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Analect 2.821x



15 December 2010. Intermittent sun...

Steamy car windows from swim gear and rain...an imperfect gasket seal, that would be the technical description. But more like windows in New Orleans, on Decatur, somewhere near the river. Giant ship's wake in the night--invisible wave of black water, massive, welling up, sweeping the levee...

A bending branch, ocean winds...

Analect 2.820x



14 December 2010. Gray and rain, clearing for a while...

Older Chinese couple, with grandchild in stroller, knit caps all around, on a wet morning, the woman holding her arms down across her waist, hands clasped, their slow gait. Turning and looking now--middle distance. Something lost, something remembered...

A coot on the marshlands of Argentina--W.H. Hudson, Far Away and Long Ago... Provincia de Buenos Aires, somewhere in the southeast. The estancia of his family--those years...

Leonard, too...

Monday, December 13, 2010

Analect 2.819x



13 December 2010. Gray sky, pale yellow sun....

Yesterday's gathering, Songs and Places, with guests. Laura's mother, from Venezuela, her beautiful high cheekbones... Sara and friend tucked in against wall. David's violin--mysterious and wildly accomplished, a tango, translated from the Polish into his own Russian--and Greg's entry, stage right, clarinet in hand, proceeding through room to the tune of Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho. Four of us, wooden chairs, makeshift stage, following each other's notes... Michelle--voice of Billy Holiday in the snow, Amsterdam, winter 1969... Then and now...

Michael and Irene and Daniel--also of today...

For just a moment, Andrea and Viktor. He turns, smiling... And Colm with Catherine Rose--the Hank William's tune (I hear that lonesome whipporwill...) Chuck's banjo, at the outset. May the Circle Be Unbroken. Mauricio, Christie...

Anthony, his own songs, and one by John Prine...Christmas in Prison. Anthony kinds of lines. Later, Cryin' Time, more Ray Charles than pure Buck... The last phrase needs a pause... But that's okay. We come together on an old sailors' song--The Greenland Whale Fisheries, and then Shenandoah. A capella style, free rhythm, letting the notes resound. David singing bass...

Yahya's mom, and cousin and sis--side by side, smiling, singing, especially when he comes up for Beulah Land--and--shoulders rolling--a good-spirited homespun version of everyone's favorite, Day-O. Family standing by picture wall, looking with care...

Christie, Sarah and Lindsay--a step dance in back of room. Sarah's voice, too... Wine and food (Anca's Romanian spinach pie--I'm making up the Romanian part)--and soda bread from you know who... Many many good things. Terry, smiling, with tray of something dark and sweet and downhome...

Swing low, sweet chariot... swing low...

Friday, December 10, 2010

Anaalect 2.818x



10 December 2010. Woman in the rain, Solano...dark coat, open hair... Yesterday evening, Sarah, in sandals, fine white laces high around her ankles... Each generation...

Songs and stories, not necessarily in that order. One launches in--the flow, the continuities...

Memory of George Oppen. Severity and a sailor's grace...

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Analect 2.817x



8 December 2010. Berkeley rain, steady gray mist. Mo alone at counter, 7-eleven, looking to the side, out window onto wet street--scene from a film...

A drawing and a dance--elements follow, in balance. Or at least that's the hope--one dives in, Jacob and the angel--a struggle over the meaning of the divine (is that it?)--each time renewed. One line after the next, parts clamor for first place--now it's Samson and the lion--but that's much too grand. More Bonnard--a touch of light on a balustrade at a certain time of day. A bowl of peaches on a white table cloth, late afternoon...

These kinds of things...

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Analect 2.816x



7 December 2010. November sun--but wait, it's December...

Whisp of pale white dry cleaner's smoke over dark roofline of 7-eleven. "V'nekotorym rodzhe..." In a certain--or uncertain--manner... Gogol's slyly interruptive assertions, from another world...

The characters on the ranchos. Estates, as it were. Manilov, Sobakeivich, Mme Korobochka... Plyushkin's garden...

Or, a theater hall in St. Petersburg. Klub Vostok (the name also from another time). Two facing lines of Russian young folks--recorded music from the Emerald Isle. Enthusiam rampant as they make their way though the dance...

A man reading, learning, they say. Words for this...

* * *

Клуб Восток

* * *

Monday, December 06, 2010

Analect 2.815x



6 December 2010. The sixth night. Turns and wrappings, dark-stained leather, parchment and opaque black ink, written with square-edged pen in tiny strokes, minute flourishes--the crowns--rising above, like prayers, or whisps, from an untrimmed beard--the Kurdish brow, Metropolitan, all rough and raggled, wandering above deep-set eyes...

Not quite memories, more stories. One's own, or gathered--Brooklyn, even... "The Gemara brings down a machloches about whether the correct brachah over lentils is she'ha-kol or mezonos..." uttered by blank-faced cartoon characters in a current YouTube (see under Vort)--but where can one go with this? A nod, a smile, an inner sense of...

The candles, one by one...

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Analect 2.814x



4 December 2010. Misty rain late in the evening...

The Irish line dance, Christie's dark wood flute, Moemi on Korean drum... The rest of us, in two facing lines, swinging through long diagonals, Sarah's encouragement, all smiles...

And a fragment from a Korean epic song--Anne, her precise explanations, incantatory voice. Henry, drum held close, aire of the definite... Opening into another world...

And the channukah menorah, second night--again, a bit of foil, candles held in place with drops of wax. And the old, old blessings--a joining of times past and times now--as with so many things--a memory, lived...

And of course--just after they've been lighted--our special channukah song...

"I ride an old paint, I lead an old dam, I'm goin' to Montan' for to throw the houlihan...

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Analect 2.813x



2 December 2010. Gray clouds moving in, mid-morning... Red sky at dawn...

Aleksandr Galich... To remember...

Channukah, first night... A bit of alumnum foil, wrapped over 3 oz. paper cup, bottom up, with skirt of foil extending on table to the left. Another scrap added to make it a bit longer. First candle set in place, Jaimie's Marilyn lighter at the ready...

Gray book cover from 1991. Imagined Memories, my letter to Robert... A young woman's expressive face as she asks me about Warszawa...

Voyages... New Orleans, the Paraná. Rivers and lakes--each one our own...

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Analect 2.812x



1 December 2010. Almost 2011, a good number to write--the up-and-down ones, one after the next...

Photos in turbans. Ray's idea--cloths of different sorts--as are the faces. Only non-Muslims, though. That would be important. So we tried our own--a handful of paper towels from the counter, and a gray morning wall--chiaroscuro, the lights and darks--so that the leading edge shows against neutral ground...

Neutral ground. Yes, a valuable commodity. House finch and dove--a container of seeds (semilla) in early light--each grain seen (shared) through fabric's weave...