Friday, November 27, 2009

Analect 2.619x



27 November 2009. Rain on the streets, rolling clouds, gray...

Yesterday: Delta roads, filtered sun. Field of sheep, their gray shapes, grazing. Coyote running along furrows of yellow husks, stopping, looking back, then running again... Sandhill cranes in Mokolumne backwaters--flooded fields of Staten Island. Their projected voices from afar, at first unseen--two sharper sounds, then a rumbly gobble. Same from high above... "They come all the way from Siberia..." I remain skeptical--half way round the globe? "The Bering Sea..." Home waters in Delta fields, winter light...

The killdeer and a piebald grebe...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Analect 2.618x



25 November 2009. Pale sky over dark hills, early. Swimmers in yellow-lit pool, flip turns and splash... Woman's form alongside, breathing, jumping in feet first...

Water bird and ling cod, eel grass in dark green sea. "Rocky, marine sub-tidal areas--in crevices and overhangs..." 

The shape of the guitar--imagined again for its ins and outs--a viguela, tauter at the waist, with six sets of double strings. De los tiempos de la corte de Carlos V...

Trovadores--cormorant and dove...

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Analect 2.617x



24 November 2009. Slanting sunlight, east wind from over the hills. Water bird, high above, wings churning...

Borges, in a field of trees. Eyes with a touch of white below each pupil--sanpaku--a question of sight. Into a certain distance, that is--his world of English nouns and Elohist plurals--alternative names for visions of the Divine--distinctions gathered from arcane traditions, rewoven "bajo la luz del Sur..." Also--an impatience with sentiment--with the exception of what might be deemed a determined starkness--as if the world could be summed up in telling bas relief...

Buscando lo criollo...

Monday, November 23, 2009

Analect 2.616x



23 November 2009. Crisp sun, chilly gold ripples on blue pool. Swimmers with arms held in close to their sides, scurrying for the warm showers...

Or, a beach in Santa Monica, 1963. Fred Price (violin) and Roscoe Holcomb, his banjoe at the ready, angular face, perpetual upright stance... Southern mountain hat and stiff gaberdines. Here for their appearance with Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson at the Ashgrove, on Melrose. The old days. Tradition and bohemia in gentle collision, by the edge of an unknown sea...

Friday, November 20, 2009

Analect 2.615x



20 November 2009. Clear to east, high storm cloud wall coming in from the west...

Cold November mornings, closely trimmed head of Eritrean man behind counter in 7-eleven--shades of brown and gray. An immigrant's smile. School kids piling off city bus--arriving from who knows where...

A backyard garden--personal victories of a sort. Rutabega and chard, millet, a few Idaho potatoes. Miniscule harvest in the blowing rain...

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Analect 2.614x



14 November 2009. Late fall, red leaves--colors of the earth, worn round the arm... Adam, adamah...

A truth in sadness--the bending bow. Judgments and conclusions of human kind--with all reasons invented after the fact. The world as plan. But no...becoming instead one grand river of delight--moments of challenge, love, tenderness--the feel of a cheek, a mother's breath. Two young birds, side by side, beginning anew...

Ongoing...

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Analect 2.613x



18 November 2009. Awakening to clear skies, after yesterday's drizzly rain. A few cold nights in the woods--manzanita and madrone, white pine, fir. Home fires in a black cast iron stove, meandering flame through tempered glass. "Water is more beautiful than fire..." An assertion, even as we sit transfixed by the warmth, the snakey light... Outside--the Leonids, sparse... The Pleiades...

En route--a market in Cloverdale, hidden away on a frontage road. Spanish surname over the door, tall man with awkward teeth standing just in front, conversing with a friend. Their postures--from afar. Music inside--corridos--and a young girl at rotating counter, her shoulders bare, bright eyes...

Leaving for home: wild turkey in brush at side of cabin road--a mother and two offspring--their careful one-after-the-other steps, backward glances, disappearing in the gray rain...

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Analect2.612x



12 November 2009. Clear with bright sun. Emery high on his stand, black balaclava pulled snug--an ageing terrorist of the lifeguard line.

Gaucho indumentaria. A history of clothing--but, of course, it's more than that. The tellingness of gesture--la chinita, for instance--homespun skirt at once graceful and plain, wrapped around her strong waist--opposite of stage-attire elegance. Long to the ankles, feet turned out with a hint of charming uncertainty. Flat on the ground--cloth alpargatas--hard to draw in just their plainness. Two braids and maybe a flower...

For the chango--as with the birds. The male plumage. What's downhome here is the hair--more front-to-back than up and down. A kind of connected solidity that belies the fanciness. Also something slightly rumpled as to the hat--worn true.

Cosas así...

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Analect 2.611x



11 November 2009. Pale sun against mantle of gray, pushing through.

Choice and resolve. A wandering line, figures emerging as if from two pieces of cloth--held in the hand, released in the air. Their separation a measure of commitment--as if the bekoning were all.

The zamacueca, first danced in Lima, in 1824--la liberación, Gral. San Martín. "Su denominación como 'zamba' se aplicaba a las mestizas descendientes de indio y negra (o vice versa). La danza esta diseñada para seducir a las zambas, y de alli su nombre, tanto en Perú como en la Argentina."

Agitando Pañuelos. "...bailando esta zamba repiqueteadita..."

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Analect 2.610x



10 November 2009. Half blue sky, bundled guard, change...

La firmeza, danza de galanteo... A dance of courtship, the two figures separate and independent throughout...

Moving through their steps with a poignant sureness, bending bough...

* * *

Coreografía:

1. Cruz
2. Vuelta
3. Giro (de espaldas)
4. Primer paseo: hacia la izquierda de varón
5. Segundo paseo
6. Tercer paseo
7. Cuarto paseo: apoyo de codos
8. Retroceso: con la mano izquierda en el oído
9. Avance y retroceso: con los dedos índice y mayor de la mano derecha en la cabeza
10. Avance y retroceso: en el 2ndo compas, las manos en el hombro
11. Avance y abrazo: el hombre intenta abrazarla a la mujer y ésta se agacha
12. Avance y abrazo: hacen lo mismo; en el 4to compas, el hombre le tira un beso a la mujer
13. Zapateo y zarandeo: el zarandeo se realiza con gestos de negación y de vergúenza
14. Media vuelta
15. Giro final

Monday, November 09, 2009

Analect 2.609x



9 November 2009. Cool November morning, all nines.

Margot and Daniella, a birthday gathering, on a hillside at the edge of a great park. Circle of trees along the ridge line, just behind another circle of gathered flowers and boughs. An offering--heather and rosemary, California sage. Other young people, and a mother with two bright children. Talk of Portland, a French teacher, the rain...

One of the younger women with spoon in hand, carefully ladelling chunky apple sauce into one of the children's bowls. Slow and precise movements of her hands--just so. As if all the care in the world...

Friday, November 06, 2009

Analect 2.608x



6 November 2009. Ying at pool window, notebook of college studies. Elbow arms of swimmers, back and forth, hint of sun...

Story of a puma in the Oregon landscape--Thalia, near the Dalles. "All orchards and fields." Her brothers wouldn't believe her till they saw the size of the tracks. Big smile, both arms in the air, straight up, a contemporary hooray...

Or Christine, telling of musicians in the Austrian country towns--local folk, each person involved. "You don't buy a drum, you go to the man who will make you one; he makes the other instruments, too..."

Carmencita, filmed with el Cachafaz, mysterious bit of footage--unique, from years past. Then, dancing again, at ninety-five...

Derrick and Lisette... Adiós, arrabal...

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Analect 2.607x



5 November 2009. To the northeast, island clouds--St. Thomas and St. Lucia...speckled and spotted, mandrake root...

A man alone, heavy wool on an ancient plain, his hands bound in iron, head down, eyes inward--contemplating--no, just first imagining--the long-term history of a noble refusal--in this case his own. To reclaim a kind of justice, yes, great horned owl of the Dakotas, prairie wind, also his own...

(for Leonard Peltier)

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Analect 2.606x



4 November 2009. The gray skies...

And Tennessee Ernie Ford, with all his polished eagerness--the closely-trimmed moustache and those artfully wobbly teeth--sitting onstage together with Odetta, her presence, also artful in her own way--singing Woody Guthrie songs--the apple pickers' union in the Garden of Eden. A feigned spontaneity--or something more? Not that it matters, really, when they're so clearly enjoying each other's company... And the chance to do again what they truly love...

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Analect 2.605x



3 November 2009. Early pool, blue sky, golden jet sliver on long diagonal, upwards...

The claims of Corot. A woman reading in the landscape, by the side of a modest French pond. Barbizon School... Hand to cheek, book in lap, and in the distance, a boatman, partly hidden by rushes at water's edge. Here made wide, the horizon out of Homer or Inness, perhaps--a seafarer--the Coming Storm...

That expanse, a patrimony...

Monday, November 02, 2009

Analect2.604x



2 November 2009. Gauguin morning, two figures at pool, rounded forms, dipping, smiling...

"Her Name was Vairaumati," and so the question remains--Vairaumati then, Vairaumati now, if only for this glancing moment, in the line of a shoulder, a flower, a young breast. Turned to the side, after the Pharoahs' wives, on dark blue cloth...Prints of flowers--frond and swirl... White petals...

The sea...