Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Analect 2.409x


30 December 2009. Foggy streets, up and down. Yellow disk of sun, veiled in gray...

Reading Shumway--his last word. Sarmiento, Rivadavia, Mariano Moreno--the heroes unravelled--brought low. An imagined communality--and yet another Yankee pronunciamiento. How things should be: José Artigas, Bartolomé Hidalgo. Thanks, Nick, but check it out--our Paris of the South, where a figure in heavy coat, standing at the narrow counter of Café Brasil, tips back a small sweet black espresso...

Bartolomé Mitre, winter light...

Friday, December 19, 2008

Analect 2.408x



19 December 2008. Rain water on porch, dark red in wavery amber light. Ying's face this morning, smile plus doubt. A river traveller's farewell...

Dance, foot turned back to steady the hip. La Argentinita. Encarnación López Julvez, de España, arms pulled high over her dark hair, a white flower tucked in behind, solid frame arched to the compás. Which is all.

White smoke over wet roof, drifts against gray sky...

Analect 2.407x



18 December 2008. Icy dawn, whoosh of Bart train on distant rail, earlier than early. Ice on all the east-west streets. A touch of Chicago comes to the East Bay.

Last night: the mathematicians. And Chizu Omori, a girl from Oceanside--from before the war. Now, her long gray-white hair, small frame, composed posture. All visible in just the way she occupies a chair. They were strawberry farmers, on leased land, "like a Japanese village."

Then: the Arizona camps, Rabbit in the Moon, dispersion. So she came to Berkeley--McCarthy period, loyalty oaths, Nixon. "Seems I spent my whole life voting against him..."

Chickens on Sixth Street, a feathery redemption.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Analect 2.406x




17 December 2008. Icy dawn, crinkly grass, glittery shards at edge of street. Pool bodies and shower mist, comraderie.

Last few days until they close--the Albany Pool--a monument, of sorts, gone...

The Szechenyi or the Rudas--baths of old, Buda and Pest, brought by the Turks, or the Romans before. The Gellért--green waters and marmol--four Hungarians of a certain age, submerged to the neck, gathered around a chessboard, or the Napi Gazdasag, financial news, held in two hands, eyeglasses perched on nose--calcium, magnesium, potassium--stocks dive and soar...

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Analect 2.405x



16 December 2008. Rain on the streets, luminous, slanting. Indoors: the green pool, veiled in fog...

A mysterious Hungarian bath, even from Roman times--Sylvia Plachy's world, reeds and sows, all white, carved wood, stark turns against the snow. A figure, bundled in furs, totem of the dark, leaping now, with curved horn--winter's dance...

Golden flames...

Monday, December 15, 2008

Analect 2.404x



15 December 2008. Rain at dawn, Nicola with paws high on living room door, hoping for a quick exit. Natasha, the slinky blimp, in back, hoping for same. Then Ying, her wide face, sleepy eyes, a pool girl in the half-light. Watching over the living.

Photo of a man clinging to wall of rock. Normal colors--as if everyday, but we're two days out and 2000 feet up--on the face of Half Dome--kodachrome notwithstanding. A party of three, one tenuous line snaking down from above--the Roof. Another heaven...

Or mallards, in the estuary--Martinez perhaps, a bit of wetland amidst the powerlines and petroleum. Faithful in the dark waters, forever...

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Analect 2.403x



11 December 2008. Sun. Lee's sharp laugh just outside. Then Lina in dark maroon sari, white five-gallon pail with thin layer of suds, pouring over curb. World needs a wash-up...

Nothing much to say, really. Driving home very late, curving street through a few redwoods, wash of headlights on Berkeley homes. Silent thoughts, here and there, one by one...

Lima beans with turmeric, peppered gold--a peasant king's repast...

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Analect 2.402x



10 December 2008. Even and clear, two crows--make that three, turning and diving, white chalk dash of jet trail low on the southern horizon...

"I felt a sense that this is an awakening of the people." The subcomandante, rumpled shirt, lime green wristband and pulsy macro-chronometer, in a guest appearance in Sonora--a pueblo in Río Yaquí. Dusty brown pickup, men in work clothes and desert hats, the Indian woman alongside, all reds and maroons, a pink skirt, set against the light blue cloth at her neck--colors of awareness, her high cheeks in shadow--midday light--hands folded, eyes full of inquiry...

"Yo tenía el sentido..."

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Analect 2.401x



9 December 2008. Cold night, bright dawn. Laura the pool guard, wrapped in headband, sweats and scarf...huddled on couch in between sets...

Voice of the governor, his thick a's and o's--that östereicher touch, radio days. "There will be cuts," gash on side of leg--as with Stefan, the swim team coach, hiking up his cuff as his workmate winces. Her round face, all this way and that--dismay as cure...

Antonio Gramsci--the hegemony of culture. Words from a harsher--and clearer--time. La lucha, the struggle... Letters from prison, the one to his mother...

"La vita è così, molto dura, e figli qualche volta devono dare dei grandi dolori alle loro mamme, se vogliono conservare il loro dignità di uomini..."

Monday, December 08, 2008

Analect 2.400x



8 December 2008. Jumbled gray shelf of cloud. Colder, then warmer, then colder again...

Question of pirates--Somalia, this time, not the Caribbean. A Johnny Depp with a purpose--forget Vanessa Paradis in her two-tone pumps--here hunched barefoot, speeding across a choppy sea, perched on the prow of a heavy white fiberglass launch. No Hollywood bandana, but an assault rifle, grenades--something to write home about, seen vaguely from the brige of the ship, five miles off, a blip on the radar--trawler, most likely-- tuna, jackfish, silvertip shark...

Friday, December 05, 2008

Analect2.399x



5 December 2009. Sun in December, no complaints. Wind from the hills, palm fronds.

Bonnard. His impressive smudges, nudged along a vector of patience and true belief. Belief, yes, but in what? Quiet, perhaps, and the play of warm and cool--a moment's sunlight on a southern balustrade, spot of warm white and yellow gold illuminating the rose-violet shadows. Who can say--words are nice, but the essential pathways of the optic nerve will out. Was he joshing--the techno-speak, as with Thomas Eakins, the opthamologist--seen by chance, scored prism in his hands...

Learners take note, the horizon beyond...

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Analect 2.398x



4 December 2008. Sun through scarves of mist, tracing the hills.

Yesterday--the ancestors. Faces of all ages--kindly and benevolent, peering down from the brightly lit walls, forging a connection through sense of touch. A dignified man with browned face, strong but rounded shoulders, hands tucked in pockets, standing in front of the landscape of Michoacan. A pueblo--Jaime has to check un papelito to recall the name, a place where "the houses still looked impoverished and broken. Despite this, the weather is beautiful and the people are as well..."

Later, gentle room with warm white walls--sitting side by side, la musica, beginning we know not where...

As well...

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Analect2.397x.jpg



3 December 2008. Fog again, bridges veiled... Freighters hidden in the mist, their mournful horns...

Odetta, no more. Her wall of sound--entirely from within, stately and at home... a manger after the harvest, pouring forth...

We bow again, the distance--lost...

Friends.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Analect 2.396x



2 December 2008. Nice gloomy clouds with patches of blue... lifting through into tender sky...

An ancient encounter in the cafeteria line, amidst a sea of youth--all milling about, with paper pails of rice and meat, piles of toasted bread... Both in the footwear of the literati class--flip-flops, that is. One-time wanderers on a lonely road. The lost distance--a recognition and a bow...

Monday, December 01, 2008

Analect 2.395x



1 December 2008. Gray fog holding the dawn, yellow street lamps, muted, gone.

Delta roads--rutted and worn--a farm track into valley air. Flooded fields--alfalfa, rice, corn--now standing empty. The Mokolumne, winding low, mournful calls from above--our sandhill cranes, banking in a wide V, calling out to those below. Hidden in ochre against brown fields--pairs, in furrows, gathered.

A dance, wings held high, all awkward leg, but still...their grace...

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Analect 2.394x



26 November 2008. Fish-tail skies, gray November afternoons, a deeper dusk towards evening...

C. Romaní, in the Confitería Jockey Club, Buenos Aires...holding forth. His central European presence, verging on Bucharest, hair parted down the middle, Brecht-like but convivial. A dark shirt and tie, wire-rimmed glasses, of middle years, delighted to be singing for us, as he takes his place in front of the applique flagstone hearth, sports tv, and all the other paraphernalia of a more modern age...

Charming, his finger in the air to emphasize the meaning and cadence of a phrase. Sense of theater--always--but smiling in a personal way--again, his delight. An art, a craft, a souvenir...

Agitando pañuelos te vi...

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Analect 2.393x



25 November 2008. Rose-madder clouds over eastern hills. Autumn light.

The poet José Pedroni--sencillo, humano, accesible por su claridad fraterna, religioso en la intimidad o en el hogar, compañero de la naturaleza, cantor primitivo, honesto, revelador de un vitalismo de su propio mundo cotidiano... La gota de agua (Buenos Aires, 1923), Diez mujeres, romances Buenos Aires 1941 y 1945)...

La luna verdadera está en la carcel;
la luna buena no ha nacido.
En la carcel están con fulgor blanco,
luna, paloma y trigo...

Monday, November 24, 2008

Analect 2.392x



24 November 2008. Sliver of moon in dawn sky, autumn mists veiling the hills. Chinese fields of long ago... Hand-picked rows of rice, the amber stubble on gray-green earth, each plant tended. Surcos...

A scarf dance, green and exuberant--a kitchen towel, really, held high--to the rhythms of Prokofiev, or Borodin. Called forth from the same fields, the same roiled earth... In story, in song...

The years come round...

Friday, November 21, 2008

Analect 2.391x



21 November 2008. Sparkle of sun, luminous sky over rooftops again, yellower and whiter below.

Jimmy Schuyler in New York--the Chelsea Hotel, his final port of call. Morning arrives on West 23rd Street, inimitably, in glimpses...

Or an early French anarchist-- Èmile Armand--described as "un del activistes libertaris més coneguts i populars de la seva època, especialment en els cercles àcrates iligats a l'eclecticisme, el naturisme, el vegetarianisme i les opcions comunitàries de vida." Not even sure just which laguage this comes through in--maybe Catalán--or Langdoc, the old tongue, voices of the south, born in stone...

Cezanne...

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Analect 2.390x



20 November 2008. Heavy gray morning cloud shelf--darker now towards run of roof--sudden jets of white cleaners' smoke, dancing against thy sky.

"Life, friends, is boring..." John Berryman, following the events of the day. Or the Russians, perhaps. "Skuchno na etom stvetye, gospoda," a phrase remembered from harder times--Gogol', that is-- "It's a dreary world, gentlemen." My stock-holders--note the possessive--wagging the dog of the tail. Entering into trouble--theirs as well our own.

The meaning of all feelings--on the table, as it were. As they should be. A place setting, silver, polished crystal, faceted glass. The accoutrements of another life. Professor Sinigaglia--Marcello Mastroianni to us--sent to organize the factory workers of Torino in a late 19th century winter. I Compagni...

Hannibal. Aeneas. Baudelaire...

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Analect 2,289x



19 November 2008. Gray shelf of sky, Chicago of the stratosphere...

Figure of Carl, large and homey--but homey with a purpose, making his way up to the podium. Room prepared with kinte cloth tables, large borrowed plant in corner, lights low, the rows of chairs, packed and anticipatory, brimming, buzzing--musicians up front, string bass, drums, arch-top jazz guitar, making their relaxed and experimental way through all the changes. All the changes--yes, and what we're up against. The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race. What it might mean to call each other brother--to call each other sister--to reach out, to join, to see...

(for Carl Anthony)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Analect 2.388x



18 November 2008. Blue-gray dawn, backlighting the hills. Stream of jet, drawn upwards--a single narrow path...

Northern Italian winter, December light in the Dolomiti, over the Brenner pass in a broken-down car, muddy wipers working away, straight arrow of the Öesterreichs Autobahnen giving way to total latinate curves... Bressanone, Chiusa, Bolzano--even the names...

A climber's foothold, in the vowells, undeterred. Mastroianni, in wire-rimmed glasses (i Compagni), whispy beard--a prophet, a teacher...

Il futuro (the spark)...

Monday, November 17, 2008

Analect 2.387x



17 November 2008. Gray dawn, trickle down sun, still.

Bail out or no, let my Impalas go. Our times, rancho. A mobile home park, nestled in the foothills, space number 283. "I had near up to 1500 feet in there," wall of flames...

Bakunin: "The more vividly the future is visualized, the more poweful the force of destruction..." The interactive intervention of human beings in the realization of their destiny...

Whose side, whose side are you on...

Friday, November 14, 2008

Analect 2.386x



14 November 2008. Attentive autumn sun. Young Paul--the neighbor's son, his short pants and school satchel, miniature confident stride. Spotting me up the driveway: "Is your name morning...?" An original question. Asopposed to Santa Barbara college girl, seeking radio words to describe a Santa Ana fire: "It was like super super smokey..."

Or maybe all speech...

Theatricality and sincerity. Anthony's note: A Dylan poseur on a London stage...

And yet Gauguin, his ageless young women, side by side, breast to breast, their shoulders melding... The musical figures in Titian's Fete Champetre--each one turned to the other's light...

Renoir: "Wait for me, Gabrielle..."

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Analect 2.385x



13 November 2008. Dark cornice--aluminum against blue, sun.

Words. More so and more so--crusader castles on a Levantine shore--each stone labeled and numbered--reconstructable, according to plan... A small Roman cursive "r", or an "l"...the loopy wandering of forms, each one bent to signification. Civilization's tool, from the get-go. Counting sheep with knotted twine--another knot, another month's reward. Sustenance, an absolute...

And yet...

Edward Krasinski--lone figure on stubbly hill, narrow, carved against the light--an arc of crooked wire--dangling spools, or cups, or cans--some small thing, mankind's impediments--chains of meaning, marking the impossible, yes, but there it is--as in a sentence, or a song...

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Analect 2.384x



12 November 2008. Sun hidden within hillside mist, gray terciopelo, softly...

Europa and beyond. A stiff pose, borrowed from some unknown queen, pretending in turn--Velasquez, Goya, Chardin--turning away from furrowed fields in a spate of pride--to rule--her unholy tiara, all stolen jewels...

A Mataiea princess--Fatata te Miti--by a quartz blue sea, the rolling breakers, arriving, leaving...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Analect 2.384x



12 November 2008. Gray morning with pearly fringes. (Can a morning have fringes?) Isolate crow, minding his own affairs on school yard black-top just across the way...

Agitando Pañuelos, echt Argentino. The image of Carlos Romaní, holding forth in the Confitería Jockey Club, Martinez, Buenos Aires. Both theatrical and sincere in the very same breath. Here transposed to a veranda in Palermo ... Could be anywhere, really, the combination of languid air, burgeoning plants... Hands held at one's side--or in a pocket--evidence of a confident command--leisure and purpose... a touch more the former...

Cantando esta zamba repiqueteadita...

Monday, November 10, 2008

Analect 2.383x



10 November 2008. Sun at dawn, clouds moving in. Yesterday: a solitary crow hopping from curb to street--morning light. Or Lila and her husband, sitting together side by side on low Nepalese bench (its legs still wrapped in shipping paper) positioned at the very front of their doorway...backs to the sun, drinking tea...

Warszawa, 1968, appearing miraculously under the name Hanna Ptaszkowska. The Galeria Foksal, with Henryk Stazewski propped on the floor, holding forth to a gathering of young people. That's Hanna herself, just behind, and Prorok (Prophet), the leader of a group (the only group?) of Polish hippies, his rabbit pelt vest--an investment in the era. Unknown girl to his right, too tall for Gabryela. Likewise the gaunt type leaning on edge of door. Myself, with pipe, tip of rapidograph pen, drawing...

Spotkanie...

Friday, November 07, 2008

Analect 2.382x



7 November 2008. Pitch-perfect cerulean sky, deepening...

Voices and stories, a need to tell. Metapixels and carburators--where is the best deal? Or the cows, along a road, rumbo al pozo...

Making their way towards the well...

--Alondra de mi nido...
--Regocijo de mis días...
--Se le conserve el Señor...
--Es de besar sus huellas...

Mi corazon...

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Analect 2.381x



6 November 2008. Autumn sun, golden blue sky. Sounds of the avenue, the humming machines, aready.

Yesterday's waves--of smiles, of tears. A thousand young people charging up and down nighttime streets. "I just had to go outside... A big crowd came round the corner--hundreds of students, everyone running--and I said to myself, well why not...?"

Meg, downstairs, early yesterday morning: Yes it IS a beautiful day... Ehren, too, once a marine, weeping...

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Analect 2.380x



5 November 2008. Cold night, sun-filled dawn. Faces across the globe, tears of possibility...

Always the balances, the kermess fairs--midnight songs, tables spread wide in late afternoon light--David Teniers has them gathered, from all surrounding villages, dancing...

Balances. Nadezhda Mandelstam: hope against hope. A home, the train, the wind. A century lived, in the bone. A future, too, but in the telling...

Miraglos...

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Analect 2.379x



4 November 2008. A clear dawn after heavy rain--sun and wet birch leaves, glistening...moments of hope...

Her dark hair, falling, falling, a mountain, falling over tables and chairs, present and past--evaporating even the most absolute... Grand-sized sheets of black paper with tiny bits of white attached--spread everywhere--crummy napkin traces, touches of greenish ink--a residue of the world known--the world adamant and still. A mountain, stop in the Tahachapis, also dawn--franchise chain--tables hard and unrewarding, but there, as in THERE, as in THERE...

Moments of hope...

Monday, November 03, 2008

Analect 2.378x



3 November 2008. Yellow-gray clouds at dawn, their scalloped edges, a Liverpool barmaid's lace, fluffy and ill-drawn, anything but clumsy though, this a.m. swirl, all cheek and hope...

We count the days, the lowering light, as autumn sets in. All Hallow's Eve--remnant now in vacant lots--pumpkin shadows, a ghostly figure in black, on a wire, as if in flight...

Brown leaf on windshield glass, tucked under worn rubber wiper...

Change...

Friday, October 31, 2008

Analect 2.377x



31 October 2008. Morning rain, dark, wet steps, brown leaves.

A Basque family in the Chaco, women with long blouses, white aprons, patterned scarves with a single tie. Two men, just behind, their black berets, very horizontal. All standing in front of wide living room window, warm-colored curtain drawn in one tie, light pouring in from behind. Their faces obscured, smiling...

One woman with frizzy hair, maybe a little older, on tip-toe, leaning in over their shoulders, her forehead raised, questioning...

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Analect 2.376x



30 October 2008. Dark house, impending rain. Three small candles on blue plate, late night note. Yellow flashlight, wavery sentinal beam...

"I don't like explaining my work." Just that. Or Tango Mío, from Tani Zarja, a la Gardel, muy porteño--make that porteña--make that porteño. An urban confusion, with full intention--where the sprightlyness of a well-cut suit perfectly fits the wearer. Rosas de Otoño... Bearings, knotted cravatte--a Spaniard in the Argentine...both present and lost to time...

"How are you doing?"

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Analect 2.375x



29 October 2008. Nice morning fog, yellow street lamp light sometime before dawn, meandering through camphor branches. Satyr and nymph, in overcoats, no doubt--or at the very least, heavy bathrobes. Too chilly for the open fields. As with Matisse, Flanders, and the smell of beets on cobbled streets--industrial crop, gathered and mashed, dark wooden wagons with high sides, lumbering...

An early still life with muscular paint--urgent plunge and spread, brushed on with adamant touch. Escape route of the senses--a re-invention, in the face of kermess fairs and gray--heavy ladles, bowls of beer, the worn faces, wily and persevering...

Instead: calme et volupté...

Analect 2.374x



28 October 2008. November, morning mist... A team of oxen, oaken yoke. Farmer in battered boots, climbing over narrow furrows. Water in the ditches...

Or a pickup, in three tones--white and two grays, amalgamate. Parts yard. Polypropylene rope looped over welded rack, welted silver tool chest...

Two red tail lights, gleaming...

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Analect 2.373x



27 October 2008. Fog wafts over Emeryville, evening air. Whoosh of cars, red lights ringing the bay, I-80, so to speak. Domestic huddle of commerce--the emblems side by side, a show of familiarity, all close in the night. Then, November dawn, a few days early. Albany hill still hidden in gray, brave show of shorebirds, patrolling. School lot empty, single figure swings out of non-descript car--a teacher, early...

Beet fields of Flanders, run of wars. Boys play at soldier, at knight. Every rock has drawn blood. Fierceness of defeat, in the foggy fields. Exhausted, famished, covered in earth--the French soldiers, 1871. Greeted by the townspeople, who wait with lanterns. Shelter, care...

Monday, October 27, 2008

Analect 2.372x



27 October 2008. Fog wafts over Emeryville, evening air. Whoosh of cars, red lights ringing the bay, I-80, so to speak. Domestic huddle of commerce--the emblems side by side, a show of familiarity, all close in the night. Then, November dawn, a few days early. Albany hill still hidden in gray, brave show of shorebirds, patrolling. School lot empty, single figure swings out of non-descript car--a teacher, early...

Beet fields of Flanders, run of wars. Boys play at soldier, at knight. Every rock has drawn blood. Fierceness of defeat, in the foggy fields. Exhausted, famished, covered in earth--the French soldiers, 1871. Greeted by the townspeople, who wait with lanterns. Shelter, care...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Analect 2.372x



23 October 2008. Autumn dawn. Whoosh of Bart train somewhere far off in the distance, gold light in the sky, pouring down Solano now from the east. Clunky beepy bus chugging up the hill, followed by flash of white van. Morning conversations-- "Hello Mo-mmm-y...," shared presences. As with Natasha, dark dumpling on round white table--the impervious cloth--arching her plump back in anticipation...

Letters of recommendation. "I first met the applicant..." No, that won't do. "I noticed her face..." Slightly better. More like the essence of something--trust, in part, affection, goodwill...

Tiny white shapes on a torn black field, inflected here and there, definite and tentative, just like the world...

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Analect2.371x



22 October 2008. Warm morning in the dark air. Nicola's calico stretch, her paws up high on living room door, total exit mode. Natasha more demure, a puffy redolence of tortoise-shell, grays, tiny pink tongue half exposed, zaftig feline madonna...

The dance, as in Club Italia, Buenos Aires--la Union Vasca. National purposes--costumes and songs--an arm around a waiting shoulder, the squeeeze of a hand...two or three subtle steps, an ebony bandoneon...

Young people's lives--presence of song...la cocina, sonriendo, feliz...

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Analect 2.370x



21 October 2008. Orange and gold against dark dark blue. Dawn sky--pacing figure across the way, inside, illuminated 7-eleven room. Javed's spot, unfulfilled, gulls have departed too...

A village, somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan...

Or singer and song... A Porteño viejo in a café in the Arrabal. Wool suit, a la Inglesa, cantando... quizás cantando...

Monday, October 20, 2008

Analect 2.369x



20 October 2008. Dark shape on a darkened fence--the agile racoon--scout and decoy, spotted from succah lookout, lemon branch and moon... A cup of wine, stories, October night...

While his brother--the one with the robbers's mask, does a kitchen job on the sly --Alyosha's bisquits, pale dough, hardened in the shape of bone--scattered now on ancient linoleum by an small and unseen hand. After washing, no doubt--cat's bowl, in the local manner...

Oscar, somewhere in Byelorussia, 1904. A young boy, balancing on the railing of a bridge--over the Pripyat'--Mozyir. The beginning of the meaning of names...

Friday, October 17, 2008

Analect 2.338x



17 October 2008. Dented moon, takes a hit. Fender bender of the up above--royal blue stilton, her greenish-grays on cream--stark and awesome, a matter of days...

Our miss lonely hearts... Or, a handful of Basque dancers in an Argentine square--los cuatro vascos, animate, separate...

Fleeting...



(for Loren)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Analect 2.367x



16 October 2008. Dawn light over dark hills--one solo pine, dry-point and aquatint--Pissarro's hand.

A celebration of failure, that's what I told them. Manifestoes of ambiguity--where every known mark is questioned in turn--true meanings held topsy-turvy--all smudges and hints. The clarity of a shopping mall, those strange geometries over shining Latin faces--sudor de la bici, así es, no te puedes llegar sin estar bañado... But these explanations, they pass, along with reasons of all sorts...

And what's left, gentle blues, touches of white, warm impasto grays...

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Analect 2.366x



15 October 2008. Dawn sky over 7-eleven, illuminated within...

Y divisé tu rancho
a orillas del camino
adonde los jazmines
tejieron un altar

Al pie del Calicanto
la luna cuando pasa
peinó mi serenata
la cresta del sauzal...


(Chango Rodriguez, Luna Cautiva)

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Analect 2.365x



14 October 2008. First evening in the succah. Full moon peaking through eucalyptus leaves, night time sky. Seven small candles on a tin-foil plate, blazing...

Thoughts of Po Chü-i, his mountain home, same moon, same stars...

*

"Un patio tan ancho como la la luna llena..." Don Ricardo, amigo viejo, Riojano...

Friday, October 10, 2008

Analect 2.363x



10 October 2008. Dark red car in black of night, slowing briefly to launch a NY Times, all wrapped in blue... Our latest curves, down, down, down...

Vachel Lindsay, where is he when we need him--positioned at the back of the last Pullman car, eyes steady on the plains... The flower-fed buffalo of spring...

O los pagos de Chasquivil, al norte del Tucumán...

Viene clareando...

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Analect 2.362x



8 October 2008. Dawn light push over filigree ridge--barely the tops of alders and pines, tiny against the sky... Distinct, as in shape--a woman's arms, held close to her side--radius and ulna--lovely by extension.

Dust motes in stage lights, worn wooden floor, dancers in gray--white handkerchiefs held high...

Panuelos blancos...

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Analect 2.361x



7 October 2008. Whisps of gray fog, appearing quietly out of the east. Veiled 7-eleven facade, flourescent hum. Blocky Smirnoff Ice truck lumbering slowly out into the corporate gloom...

Au hasard Balthazar, Robert Bresson, recast in the New World. Piedra y yuyo. Yuyos agrestes--wild grasses. And three dark brown burros--their taut backsides, impervious to ruin.

A los cerros Tucumanos...