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...

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?"

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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)

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...

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)

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...

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...

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...

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...

Analect 2.360x

Gray dawn, yellow lamplight amidst trees, burrows. A single racoon, loping form half-seen, bounding from one storm drain to the next...

Or Paris, hidden as she was in the name Pissarro. Or Walcott, perhaps--in Charlotte Amalie, the palmy heat and stone dry fields, sun and cobalt seas... But no, a quiet fog, enveloping, gas lamps and horses' backs, spectral in the mist. Almost unknown, yet light, so light--the brush, the grays--a single truth... Or fleeting reason, made immediate...

Camille...

Analect 2.359x

3 October 2008. Gray skies, wheeling gulls, talk of rain...

Analect 2.358x

2 October 2008. Gray dawn, rain in the air, autumn light. Natasha's plump darkness, on paisley spread, in the half-light, poking up her head for a rub...tiny pink tongue protruding, just a touch.

Our creaturely ways. Covered and hidden--in the half-light of a mantilla, estilo colonial--house of cloth, castle eve--gentle bastion and parapet, in the old Spanish way...Torrevieja, Alicante... Aires del Sur...

La Lopez Pereira...

Yo quisiera olvidarte, me es imposible, mi bien, mi bien,
tu imagen me persigue, tuya es mi vida y mi amor también.
Y cuando pensativo yo solo estoy
deliro con la falsía con que ha pagado tu amor mi amor,
deliro con la falsía con que ha pagado tu amor mi amor...

Analect 2.357x

1 October 2008. Soft lines of hills, yellow dawn--empezando. Notice taped to pool desk counter--also yellow lines, announcing close. Better the world...

A white ermine hat--or is it badger--or just fuzz? Thelonious as he was--blocky form, alert in perennial big-man's slouch, back straight--up towards the shoulder, whence the arm, the wrist... Playing with his thumb--splayed flat. Percussion precision: Dunh-dahhh....duh-duh-duh duh duhh, duh-duhhhhhhh.....dunh-duhhh...

Transcription impossible--it's either you or it's not. An essentialist here? We're talkin' grace, maybe, or truth, or justice, even...

Analect 2.356x

29 September 2008. Wheeling gulls, by the dozen, arcs and whorls, Javed's world. A scatter of bread, or dried cake--pulse and dal--pullao, biryani, naan... Cast by hand on on asphalt lot. Each one a being, each one a name...

This day beginning, this year, this world...



Rosh Hashanah...

Analect 2.355x

26 September 2008. Yellow dappled light on brownish gray. Larry's truck, lodged at curb, wheel turned in to blunt roll. Meanwhile, on his haunches--a narrowish black dog, red collar, positioned at very center of double 7-eleven door--waiting. While the "open" sign for Clean Living Cleaners forges ahead, in italic, motionless...

Like the economy. "We're talking about point two per cent." "Round it off to two trillion...," voices in the near distance, adjusting figures, as in checkers, or mah jong--a morning's romp...

Ivy Day in Committee Room, Joe Hynes maybe. Or Mr. Henchy.

"He took two bottles from the table and, carrying them to the fire, put them on the hob. Then he sat down again by the fire and took another drink from his bottle. Mr. Lyons sat on the edge of the table, pushed his hat towards the nape of his neck and began to swing his legs..."

And Ben Webster, when we need him...

Analect 2. 354x

25 September 2008. Winding up La La Loma at midnight, hairpin curve through redwood arch, swinginging left onto
Virginia, then down downhill... Quiet time in deer town again. Art Pepper maybe, mellowed-out on the alto, a personal message from Echo Park...

And to the morning, autumn sparkle on an Indian summer's day. Euphoria of the evening before. Making pictures, making sounds--lips with dimple, language unknown, seen up close as can be, trying to ar-ti-cu-late, to ar-ti-cu-late the im-pos-si-ble... A bus and a car, or somesuch, via Seoul, via the heart...

Analect 2.353x

24 September 2008. Beautiful day, can we say this? Sounds from back office--silky and mellow... "Some...where over the rainbow..." Willie, even...

Short order place on Tenth Avenue, diner-metal siding, pink motif mixed with grey, waitress who's been there forever, her slightly tilted white paper tiara announces a presence--as does the steaming cup of black brew she deposits on quick-wiped linoleum before me... Mornings...

Or a bus stop in Berkeley, book tucked under arm, gazing up Solano, waiting for the G...

Analect 2.352x

23 September 2008. El Lucero--the morning star--poised in the branches of the mariposa sometime before dawn. A luminous embrace--as in the legend of Huanguelen, son of a Mapuche chief--who fell in love with her...then became himself a star, to follow her forever...

Gambles and predictions. Smokescreens of fate...

Comó se inclina la flor
hacia el tallo que la guía,
así se inclinó mi amor,
sin pensar de tu falsía...

Analect 2.351x

20 September 2008. Two dark bird shapes against pinkish gray sky, heading west. Dawn. Ying behind pool counter, already smiling. Her ancient block-like Lincoln moored at curb, corroded grays in early light.

Llanura. A man of few words. Qué no dice mucho. Lo quería conocer, pero no se paraba de hablar... I wanted to understand him, but he just kept talking. Better to offer a smoke, see how he accepts it, lights up. The gesture. As in coiling a rope--something simple, revealing...

La cosa es así...

Analect 2.350x

19 September 2008. Sun and shadow, for once. Push of dawn, bank of opaque pool windows to east--now glowing gray. Javed at eight, dark jacket on bike, watchcap, glower...heading home.

Los cuatro vascos, otra vez. Dependably themselves. But why? A consciousness, perhaps, of something tight and old--like worn brown shoes, or a wooden wheel in a deep rut, or the clasp of the foot of a sparrow on a twisted branch. Agarrar: to seize. An old word. As in Ipousteguy or Abarrategul--chunks of sound, like the rocky cliffs in northern Spain--peninsular--limestone and chalk, buried deep in the earth...

¿ Dónde está mi corazón,
que se fue tras la esperanza?
Tengo miedo que la noche
me deje también sin alma...

Analect 2.349x

18 September 2008. Gulls whirl above 7-eleven roofline, gray skies. Larry's brown truck lurched in at an angle, moored in fact. Welted silver tool box propped in place, mute red tail lights waiting...

Morning's return. Forget the banks--insurance bets to the tune of three trillion--or so Javed, with his bags of almost stale bread--the gleanings, in reverse--a source of wealth, scattered over asphalt, as they wheel in, wings spread wide, from Richmond, Hercules, Pinole...

Analect 2.348x

16 September 2008. Gray, simply gray.

The hodge-podge of hedge funds. Bonds. Narrow poll shows financial analysts ahead by a head, as they come 'round the curve on Hanover--Nassau, Pearl, Moore--all the alleyways that add up. Let's examine in terms of chiaroscuro--the deepest tones following always, later in the afternoon...

Sun behind mountains--the concerns of the highland people. Because they hear the echos of their own voices. Moon rising in the east, then gliding over the highest peaks, "a su muerte," so goes the myth. And what else a vanishing...?

La luna alumbraba el canto,
el grillo junto al camino,
y yo con sombra en el alma
pensaba en la ausencia del bien perdido...

Analect 2.347x

15 September 2008. Gulls guard gray, all facing east on pale 7-eleven cornice line--or is it simply a strip of aluminum molding along run of roof? All take flight but one, grayer than the rest...

A Russian tale, somewhere in the Crimea. Koktebel--a place of myth--the stone house, dry hills, wind-blown sea...

Girl in white--early Soviet, or a t-shirt maybe--BVD--where the touch of soft cotton, a strand of hair, milk...

Analect 2.346x

12 September 2008. Gray, and just now eight. Javed, shoulders hunched forward, heading out on his bike. Young latino guy, back on 7-eleven curb, t-shirt, hands in pockets, leaning in with all the rest...

Leaning in, as with Vicente Huidobro, from Chile, here perched in Spain on a bit of photographer's property--the short run of the baroque, balusters and newel posts, aimed at the sea. At the sea... "Vientos Contrarios"--contrary winds--the endless horizons of the south, lo Pacífico--where leagues become sound--phrases, words... An expansion of meanings, groundswell and kelp, beyond jetty's end...

Y si yo soy el traductor de las olas
Paz también sobre mí...

Analect 2.344x

11 September 2008. Gray gray skies. Seven years. Changing room at the Martin Luther King pool, just after eight. A voice on the radio, coughing between phrases--Larry Bensky--sense of unease. The hyper-real announcements--facts?--one after the next, beamed in from Washington, New York. Unfathomable...

Reading about a baby goat. Cabrito chico. Open volume held in both hands, before a group of school children, vaguely attentive. White tufts of fur--or were they gray--tucked behind each ear, or under the chin--a farm animal story--as if there were animals, as if there were farms...

More, miles of steel cable, girder and joist, raised up after Harte Crane, intent and mindless--mindless in the classic sense, mindless like Babel, like Cheops--more an assertion than an idea...

The two men in the tango room, pibes in perfect suits--city garb--their confidence and slicked-back hair--gomina--leaning towards each other, un desafío, a challenge--all before the first beat...

Analect 2.343x

10 September 2008. Gray clouds roll in, muted dawn. Lights on the hillsides at night--a quiet jewelry store, twinkling.

"Los cuatro vascos locos..." Phrase from decades back--depreciative, of course, but not without a zigzag of admiration. The square in front of the cathedral of La Plata, capital de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, it's high severe facade of brick, etched in the cold... The very first days of spring (Septiembre)... and gathered there in "national dress" a group of Basques--all alone--folkdancing in the icy winds off the river...

Río de La Plata, silver and unseen...

Analect 2.342x

9 September 2008. Gray from Albany to Port Costa, rolling banks of cloud edge in over the bay, sweeping low over the hills...

The purpose of description. Two figures on horseback, from the north--Salta or Jujuy. White horse chests, prancing. Wing shapes of leather to either side--as in the time of Güemes--cuero de vaca, por el monte--vela mayor, de un barco viejo--trinquete, velacho, juanete de proa. Seas of land. All but that other guy, who somehow just won't go away--a bystander on a dusty streetfront, next to Mary's despensa, alongside the dented pickup truck of heavy build, the narrow elm with missing limbs...

Age of imagination--boundlessness, huellas sin fin...

Autumn...

Analect 2.341x

8 September 2008. Autumn gray, bay fog laps hills. Ying's six o'clock smile, beaming through the dark.

Or three sisters, their own darkness, from somewhere deep in time. Ancient braids, bound in home-spun, cotton shifts prevail--whiteness--and a certain modesty, but purely from within.

Or Cézanne, crossing the schoolyard to greet an outcast--the young Émile Zola--who next morning brings a gift--a wicker basket filled with apples--each one green...

Analect 2.340x

5 September 2008. Sparkle and sun, mid-morning now, interrupted, after animated talk with Beatriz, sitting by this window on Solano, Toyota Tundras and all...

The word from Portugal--Lisboa, Oporto, Coimbra, (a university town, "like Oxford or Cambridge, scholarly and old...") The three schools of fado, each one distinct--"Lisboa of course being the saddest." A kind of deep melancholy, or longing... The Portuguese word, saudade... without translation. The quality of a particular place, a particular time... Like the fisherman of the northern Portuguese coast--launching their boats out through the surf, their wives remaining behind, on the shore, alone. The women's feelings at this moment--the immensity of the sea, the unknown... "Some already weeping..."

Or Ercília Costa, in Lisboa, 1930s, casa de fado... A girl from the countryside, simple--almost entered a convent, but instead, the fado bars of this ancient port town. Fados--songs of loss and lament--she sang them always with her hands pressed together, in front of her breast...

Saudade...

Analect 2.339x

4 September 2008. Sun again, luminous air...

Un ritmo elemental--de negra y dos corcheas...un óvalo oscurecido, silencio...

Words for music, hidden in the traces of the cordillera. Laguna Brava--an Andean lake, high above, rippling with sea waves... Linked, as legend has it, by underground caves reaching all the way to the Pacific...

Baguala--mountain song...

Analect 2.338x

3 September 2008. Clear sky, shadows from early sun--warm grays on creamy tan wall.

* * *

Coplas de Baguala...a lament from the highlands of Salta. Coyas--pueblo del norte:

Para cantar a bagualas,
la música está de más,
cóntale tu pena al viento,
y el viento las cantará.

Voy andando por el mundo,
lo miro al cóndor volar:
¡ malhaya, bicho dichoso,
tus alas me has, ¡ ay !, di dar.

¡ Malhaya con mi destino,
caminar y caminar!.


(Juan Carlos Dávalos, Atahualpa Yupanqui...)

Analect 2.337x

2 September 2008. Golden morning, hint of fall--Indian summer, rather, with blue skies in all directions. Albany High kids already returning, half-grown gulls with puffy gray plumage, nothing fits quite right. Girl with dark hair hopping out of car on one foot, loaded with books, Sierra pack, swinging door shut with free hand while nudging an inadvertent goodbye in the direction of her mom, the driver, whose hands grip the wheel like out of Le Mans, or Bakersfield, maybe, an all-night truckstop on Highway 99--as the big metallic Honda lurches off down the street...

Payador. Where story becomes song. "Re menor," the key of D minor, different somehow in those southern climes--la llanura--the untouched plains, an endless expanse of open land, incommensurate--

Cómo no he de llorar yo
sí me quitas lo que es mío...

Analect 2.336x

29 August 2008. Same van, same place, same sun. Woman on bicycle with covered baby trailer, yellow pennant flying high, streaming into view... Complexion of the day...

The Governor of Alaska who shot a moose--a badge of distinction. Not by the moose, however. But suffrage in our realm remains incomplete. So let's get on with it--give the vote to insects--the katydid and the firefly. Things will be decided in no time: mind the bushes, furnish the fields. Food for all, leaf by leaf...from each according to his ability, to each according to his need...

Oh yes, and keep the darkness dark as well...

Analect 2.335x

28 August 2008. Glare of sun on Plymouth hood. Lee's hat appears--straw with tiny knockouts, as she bends over green recycling bin to rescue this or that. Over-sized dark glasses to shield the gleaner...

Gleaning--to gather remnants, the stubble after the harvest. Poignant because...

Story of Ruth, in the fields of Boaz. The harvesters’ disdain, unconscionable to us, who read in reverse. A social order, in recapitulation--top down. But still the bending--as if over a game of cards. Fast-forward to Le Nain, 1612 or so, with his solemn gathering of boys. A barrel table, rough hands. Truco, mahjong--slights-of hand...

"Un patio ancho como una luna llena..."

Analect 2.334x

26 August 2008. Late summer sun, glowing red on long side of Cola truck. Flash of chartreuse, cyclist en route downhill, tiny rear-view mirror at her temple.

Temple--sien in Castellano, perhaps from the German, influenced by sentir--to feel.

Story from Atahualpa Yupanqui. In the quebradas of Salta--the arid backcountry slopes of the Andes Cordillera . A German mining engineer, rough sort, living out of a tent--in which he has installed an old upright piano. Enjoys inviting up the locals for an evening of food, comraderie--in which he launches into vintage renditions of Wagner. Then Don Atahualpa, with his zambas and vidalitas--todo lo criollo. A Salteño, worked up by spirit of the latter, and having downed a fair amount of Argentine wine, appears suddenly with a large revolver, pointing the barrel directly at the German's head--at his temple... No one moves. But slowly an older criollo appoaches, "Pelao, toda musica tiene su valor..."

Analect 2.333x

25 August 2008. Light just at dawn, treeline of hills, tiny filigree sentinels etched against sky. Quattrocento.

But guarding what? The new day will mind itself. Voices from pool steps--the early crew, locked out--no one's showed to open up. Gear bags over shoulders, towels, hunched and leaning--bluster and indifference, on and on, leaving finally one by one...

Seabirds over the North Pacific Gyre, a giant green swirl, twice the size of Texas (whatever can this mean?) Where polycarbonates find their home. Dunkin' Donuts, Matel, Park and Shop--our favored conveniences brought to rest, tidy and half-dissolved on miles and miles and miles of sea...

Better sing...

Analect 2.332x

22 August 2008. Sparkling sun. Islander mom with two daughters in hair salon, their dark locks courtesy of Roratanga, Makatea, Gauguin. The Society Islands--as they should be, in something approaching a mumu, here on Solano, her heavy contraposto frame, bare arms, holding up a catalogue or magazine with brightly-colored haircut samples... "Like this..."

Middle of the night: red tail light gliding slowly down the street, great ship in search of a mooring. The guests from afar--Brooklyn, Las Vegas, LA--tired but radiant after long meander up the coast. Stopping somewhere for a picnic--tables outside, in Santa Barbara, by the sea...

Whirl of time, older and newer...and older again. Shegiyot mi yavin...

Love of the world...

Analect 2.331x

21 August 2008. Milky gray, skirting the hills, revelling in blue. Thinking of Stillwater, where mists give way to cliff and sky... Forms of clarity, almost harsh were they not so grand...

Balzac, too, with the strength of his neck embedded in a fine linen blouse--white on white, small moustache, precisely placed, in the manner of the French, and the wild, precise pompadour...

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny--is that not the phrase--where the eye of the lizard, or the mouse, reaffirms itself 'neath our own. What chance then, when Nicola, her morning meows outside the door, would in...? Open wide, scamper and rush...salvation...

Analect 2.330x

20 August 2009. Gray doves at dawn, and before, first instance of light. Flickering speckles on windshield. Jin: "Is it raining?"

Questions and ponderings--middle-of-the-night kinds of questions--spaces and times--unanswerable there in the dark...

The family in Tucumán, Chugo's daughters, and Deborah, their mother. The d'Onofrio girls, waiting with patient anticipation in a plain but gemütlich pizza joint, each a little tired from their long hours in the small white car. Vagabonds--no, explorers rather--with dad in the lead, standing now, smiling, his arms spread wide, before yet another vast and arid landscape of the quebrada...

Here, in the foreground--the matted lambswool collar of Chugo's coat, draped carefully over the back of a chair...

Analect2.329x

19 August 2008. Gray light before dawn. Muffled sounds of on the roof--not the scamper of a squirrel, but something more substantial--raccoon steps, maybe, swinging over from birch tree limb.

Five seagulls aligned on mansard edge, faces to the east. Chilly wind, signs of fall.

Here, a drawing of Ayelen, Chugo's daughter, sitting at a table, breakfastime, somewhere in San Miguel de Tucumán. Glass of white milk against her dark hair, dark blouse, run of weathered cornice just outside--gray--techos de la ciudad colonial, siempre mirando al norte--the old views--Humahuaca, Cuzco, Potosí...

Each morning a beginning...

Analect 2.328x

18 August 2008. Gray mist over gray hills, lapping at the edges. White cotton shift, tossed and rumpled, sleepworn...

A group of boys, gathered together in a field, el Campo Don Oreste, somewhere beyond Santa Rosa, Provincia de la Pampa. Life of the campesino--each intent on manhood--scrub trees and dust, wide wide blue skies over baked earth. Argentina, meaning silver--from the intricate metalwork of the Guaraní. But that was in the north, where fragile Spanish ships on an immense brown stream...

Un mundo entero...

Analect 2.327x

15 August 2008. Gray hills at dawn, misty beard. Single black crow, wings wide, dipping. Ying at pool, wide smile, "It's Friday..."

But Friday? Sounds of bus and truck continuity, up and down the hill. Lee in straw hat, sprightly, pushing her remnants cart, bumpy roll. Resolute figure on old bike, lower lip pushed forward, curly hair with gray... An urban algebra...

Opening to the sea...