rain into evening

amy lowell saw the inside and outside of evening rain in the big city. written in grey-scale with occasional splashes of colour, her writing washes from large to small scale, distant to up-close, and all the while painting your senses with the most intimate of detail.


afternoon rain in state street

cross-hatchings of rain against grey walls,
slant lines of black rain
in front of the up and down, wet stone sides of buildings.
below,
greasy, shiny, black, horizontal,
the street.
and over it, umbrellas,
black polished dots
struck to white
an instant,
stream in two flat lines
slipping past each other with the smoothness of oil.

like a four-sided wedge
the custom house tower
pokes at the low, flat sky,
pushing it farther and farther up,
lifting it away from the house-tops,
lifting it in one piece as though it were a sheet of tin,
with the lever of its apex.
the cross-hatchings of rain cut the tower obliquely,
scratching lines of black wire across it,
mutilating its perpendicular grey surface
with the sharp precision of tools.

the city is rigid with straight lines and angles,
a chequered table of blacks and greys.
oblong blocks of flatness
crawl by with low-geared engines,
and pass to short upright squares
shrinking with distance.

a steamer in the basin blows its whistle,
and the sound shoots across the rain hatchings,
a narrow, level bar of steel.

hard cubes of lemon
superimpose themselves upon the fronts of buildings
as the windows light up.
but the lemon cubes are edged with angles
upon which they cannot impinge.
up, straight, down, straight -- square.
crumpled grey-white papers
blow along the side-walks,
contorted, horrible,
without curves.
a horse steps in a puddle,
and white, glaring water spurts up
in stiff, outflaring lines,
like the rattling stems of reeds.

the city is heraldic with angles,
a sombre escutcheon of argent and sable
and countercoloured bends of rain
hung over a four-square civilization.
when a street lamp comes out,
i gaze at it for fully thirty seconds
to rest my brain with the suffusing, round brilliance of its globe.

amy lowell

all images courtesy of shorpy's except "times square 1940" courtesy of life magazine.

it was a bright sunday morning . . .

it rained and thundered and there was lightning flickering around like snake-tongues across the yellow-grey sky.

sometimes the rain smells like the sea. sometimes it smells like soil. yesterday it smelled like a fast-moving river. clean.

it washed the air and left a clear-sky evening with lots of stars. i looked for the space-station but i dont really know where to look so i just saw the blurry flickers of far-away stars.

the summer holidays are times of remembering and recharging the many batteries that allow steven to be.

probably the most powerful and direct recharging source i have is reading. i read as much as i can during the school year but it is fragmented and often at the time when i am least focussed - one half hour before i fall into the dreamless sleep that characterizes true tiredness. i am careful to read as many new books as possible but there are some that i can read over and over.


among my many many favourite books is one written in 1969 and set in the 1930's. a semi-autobiographical account of a journey undertaken by the author. the story begins . . .

"it was a bright sunday morning in early june, the right time to be leaving home. my three sisters and a brother had already gone before me; two other brothers had yet to make up their minds. they were still sleeping that morning, but my mother had got up early and cooked me a heavy breakfast, had stood wordlessly while i ate it, her hand on my chair, and had then helped me pack up my few belongings. there had been no fuss, no appeals, no attempts at advice or persuasion, only a long and searching look. then, with my bags on my back, i'd gone out into the early sunshine and climbed through the long wet grass to the road.


it was 1934. i was nineteen years old, still soft at the edges, but with a confident belief in good fortune. i carried a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change of clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits, and some cheese. i was excited, vain-glorious, knowing i had far to go; but not, as yet, how far. as i left home that morning and walked away from the sleeping village, it never occured to me that others had done this before me."

as with all journeys that are worth anything, this one is rich with discovery, trials and tribulations, but through it all the author maintains his sense of wonder coupled with an awakening awareness of a world that is rapidly changing. the early approaches of the war that would forever change the world colour what might otherwise be an idyllic tramp through europe in the 1930's.

oh by the way, this excerpt is from a book by author laurie lee entitled as i walked out one midsummer morning. this book was nominated by england's telegraph newspaper as one of the top twenty travel books of all time. to view the other nineteen, go here.

just visiting

plants fill my home. each has a special place for me as i tend to them each week. water, food, sometimes moved into the sunlight, sometimes taken outside. each is a small treasure. it helps clean the air of this house, provides colour at times when there is not much colour to be seen, and softens the space. the japanese poet basho knew of their value when he wrote . . .

for a lovely bowl
let us arrange these
flowers...
since there is no rice

basho


coleus are native to tropical africa, asia, australia, the east indies, the malay archipelago, and the philippines. i can't remember a time when there hasn't been one somewhere in my home. what a lucky person!!

the one in the picture above is enjoying summer on my deck. far from its ancestor's home. but very welcome!!!

the far field

on my rides out west of the city i pass big old farms beautifully placed at the top of hills. they command views that are breathtaking across the peterborough drumlin field and beyond.

i have always loved fields. huge swaths of colour. an unimaginable multiplicity of plants all growing side-by-side.

i slow down and look at them. i let them inside me.

there's something about the expanse that allows for a feeling of openness. of possibilities.

even though i know it is a finite space. the finite reveals infinity.


i learned not to fear infinity,
the far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
the dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
the wheel turning away from itself,
the sprawl of the wave,
the on-coming water.

the river turns on itself,
the tree retreats into its own shadow.
i feel a weightless change, a moving forward
as of water quickening before a narrowing channel
when banks converge, and the wide river whitens;
or when two rivers combine, the blue glacial torrent
and the yellowish-green from the mountainy upland, --
at first a swift rippling between rocks,
then a long running over flat stones
before descending to the alluvial plane,
to the clay banks, and the wild grapes hanging from the elmtrees.
the slightly trembling water
dropping a fine yellow silt where the sun stays;
and the crabs bask near the edge,
the weedy edge, alive with small snakes and bloodsuckers, --
i have come to a still, but not a deep center,
a point outside the glittering current;
my eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
at the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
my mind moves in more than one place,
in a country half-land, half-water.

i am renewed by death, thought of my death,
the dry scent of a dying garden in september,
the wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
what i love is near at hand,
always, in earth and air.

the lost self changes,
turning toward the sea,
a sea-shape turning around, --
an old man with his feet before the fire,
in robes of green, in garments of adieu.
a man faced with his own immensity
wakes all the waves, all their loose wandering fire.
the murmur of the absolute, the why
of being born falls on his naked ears.
his spirit moves like monumental wind
that gentles on a sunny blue plateau.
he is the end of things, the final man.

all finite things reveal infinitude:
the mountain with its singular bright shade
like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
the after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
odor of basswood on a mountain-slope,
a scent beloved of bees;
silence of water above a sunken tree :
the pure serene of memory in one man, --
a ripple widening from a single stone
winding around the waters of the world.

theodore rothke

from this tangled convolution

and from this tangled convolution shall emerge a thing of singular beauty. and with it a friend in kind. and they shall talk about the improbability of it all: the sun, the rain, the wind, and most especially they will talk about their mother - who holds them in her green hands like flags. tiny semaphores to all other living things that she will freely share the most deep-rooted images of herself for all to see and love.

and in their petals they hold her face, her heart, her soul . . . and so it is that flowers are little microcosms of the whole of nature - unconditional acts of love.