wait for me

"wait for me

at the bright end of my voice

that from above the mysteries

of the galaxies

flows down to the earth

to be absorbed by the buds of growth

and to give the slumberers

of the gardens

tidings of sunshine and life.

wait for me;

i will become alive again."

words excerpted from "wait for me" by shadab vajdi

the photograph was taken out front of my house late one evening.

my daughter was given the rose after a dance recital.

deliquescence

i love words.

i have for as long as i can remember.

when there isn't a word for something,

i create it and let the world figure it out,

catch on to it,

whatever it takes.

some words i like because they describe something specialized.

for example, the word

deliquesce.

its usual context is science.

but i like to apply it to ideas.

a melting,

a dissolution,

a disappearance from one context

and a reemergence in another.

i recall an article in a magazine in which musician brian eno

described his excitement at living in new york city for a while.

he described the cultural tone as being

similar to that of a medieval crossroads.

all sorts of cultural assumptions,

experiences

and expressions

were colliding and reforming

into new and unexpected combinations

that allowed for him to see familiar music

in a new light . . .

and unfamiliar music with an open ear.

i love circumstances that lend themselves to the notion of "planned accidents",

or circumstances that are generative of newness

through the incidental juxtaposition of disparate states or qualities.

this sometimes happens with people.

it sometimes happens with my photographs

(like the ones i've used to ilustrate this little piece!).

del·i·quesce (dl-kws)

intr.v. del·i·quesced, del·i·quesc·ing, del·i·quesc·es

1. a. to melt away.

b. to disappear as if by melting.

2. chemistry:

a. to dissolve and become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air.

the daisy

it's getting late in the summer.

people are noticing the sun passes beneath the horizon earlier.

the nights have a coolness about them

that will seem warm - even hot - next spring.

the canada geese have been doing practice v's over our house for a couple of weeks.

and the breezes now have bronze, then silver fingers

that bring your elbows in close to your body

when you're sitting outside.

the indoor plants know.

some of them have dropped some leaves.

the outdoor plants are offering single leaves.

red.

yellow.

and there are the flowers.

who are there.

simply there.

despite:

cool nights.

ants.

dry ground.

twenty rays -

a floral corona.

the dayseye hugging the earth

in august, ha! spring is

gone down in purple,

weeds stand high in the corn,

the rainbeaten furrow

is clotted with sorrel

and crabgrass, the

branch is black under

the heavy mass of the leaves--

the sun is upon a

slender green stem

ribbed lengthwise.

he lies on his back--

it is a woman also--

he regards his former

majesty and

round the yellow center,

split and creviced and done into

minute flowerheads, he sends out

his twenty rays-- a little

and the wind is among them

to grow cool there!

(excerpted from) "the daisy" william carlos williams

august 17, 1936 blythe, california

seventy-three years ago -

almost to the day.

dorothea lange,

sees the world through a camera's eyes.

so many people

on the move.

desperate.

empty-eyed

and empty hearted.

and in their midst

this extraordinary photographer -

whose camera has been working at a fever pitch -

capturing a juncture in time and history,

all in the same moment.

a point of no return,

and a beginning

for america.

august 17, 1936. blythe, california.

in this moment,

she turns her camera towards a family of seven.

drought refugees from oklahoma.

they hope to get work in the cotton fields.

i see the woman first.

so strong. so pretty.

see her.

then feel her eyes.

gentle.

defiant.

can you feel

this moment

through her arms.

soft arms wrapped around a boy who knows no more

than this moment he's inside:

his mother giving . . .

food.

warmth.

love.

security.

move to her mouth.

it says

"no one.

no one will come between us."

and then i see the legs.

to her right.

whose legs?

with his arrival,

the moment relocates its centre in desperation.

yann arthus-bertrand

i see little pieces of this earth visually. the challenge is that the little loops and ecologies that i am a piece of are experientially and visually distinct from the larger pieces.

i can cerebralize my connection to the whole. even feel my connection to larger wholes but it is almost impossible to truly see the whole.

fortunately, shortcuts abound because there are people like yann arthus-bertrand who have gone to the literal ends of the earth to bring back images and sequences that i would otherwise have no idea about let alone access to.

visiting his website you will quickly become aware of the fact that he takes his presence and impact on this planet seriously. he also takes his photography seriously. there are images here that will leave you awestruck. not only that the content of the images exists, but that someone could capture something so extraordinary.

yann spoke at the ted talks back in february. he is an articulate, passionate, talented man. it is beautiful and mind-opening work. watch this - i hope that you will be as blown away as i was.

cockatoo island

the mother of our children leaves for australia in a week or so. she'll be headed to a town called maitland where she will stay with a family (whose dad is a school principal like her) for a couple of weeks. because of that i've been looking at australia a little bit more than i might otherwise look.

so, today i'll share a little something i came across that appeals to me because i love to see the work of people who prettify or celebrate or see the deeper beauty in the ugly, the forgotten, the tarnished and the decayed.

cockatoo island is the largest island in sydney harbour. the island is located at the confluence of two rivers - the paramatta and lane cove rivers. the island was undoubtedly used by early aboriginal inhabitants and then went through a variety of uses including being the site of an imperial prison, an industrial school, a reformatory, and a gaol. in the twentieth century it was the site of one of australia's biggest shipyards. the island's maritime industrial activity ended in 1992.

photographer patrick boland paid a visit to the island and the resultant photo-documentary captures something of the island's gently decaying heritage. patrick appears to have used the multiple exposure technique previously featured on the golden fish blog.

to view more of the cockatoo island project as photographed by patrick boland, go here.

at patrick's website you can view an extraordinary collection of black and white photography.

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.

ray of light

the sun is entirely responsible for the continued existence of life on earth.

i like that the light that comes from the sun, loves to play. here are a few images from around my home of sunlight that has somehow squeezed itself through little cracks, bent around corners, stuttered up mouldings and window frames and for the briefest of moments created something really beautiful to watch.

i.


ii.


iii.


iv.



v.


vi.


vii.

the house where i was born - four

"farm window view"
i remember, it was a morning, in summer,
the window was half-open, i drew near,
i could see my father at the end of the garden.
he was motionless, looking for something,
i could not tell what, or where, beyond the world,
his body was already bent over, but his gaze
was lifted toward the unaccomplished or the impossible.
he had put aside his pick and his spade,
the air was fresh on that morning of the world,
but even freshness can be impenetrable, and cruel
the memory of the mornings of childhood.
who was he, who had he been in the light,
i did not know, i still do not.

but i also see him on the boulevard,
walking slowly, so much weariness
weighing down the way he now moved,
he was going back to work, while i
was wandering about with some of my classmates
at the beginning of an afternoon still free from time.
to this figure, seen from afar, moving on its way,
i dedicate the words that cannot say what they would.

"farmer walking home"

(in the dining room
of the sunday afternoon, in summer,
the shutters closed against the heat,
the table cleared, he suggested
cards, since these are the only pictures
in the childhood house to satisfy
the needs of dream, but he leaves,
and when he does, the child clumsily takes the cards,
he puts the winning ones in the other’s hand,
then waits feverishly for the game to begin again,
and for the one who was losing to win, and so triumphantly
that he might see in this victory a sign, something
to nourish some hope the child cannot know.
after this, two paths part, and one of them
vanishes, and almost immediately, forgetfulness
sets in, avid, relentless.

"playing cards in an alcove"

i have crossed out
these words a hundred times, in verse, in prose,
but i cannot
stop them from coming back.)

i open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where i was born,
exactly as it was and nothing more.
the same small dining room whose window
gives onto a peach tree that never grows.
a man and a woman are seated
at this window, facing one another,
they are talking, for once. and the child
sees them from the end of the garden, watches them,
he knows that people can be born from such words.
behind the parents the room is dark.
the man has just come home from work. Weariness,
the halo that surrounds all he does,
the only one given his son to see,
Is already removing him from this shore.

yves bonnefoy

martha in sunlight / isadora's scarf

for about five minutes each day, sunlight plays in a small area of my home. i've watched it a few times as it arrives, plays into all sorts of little shapes and then slowly fades from an almost pure white, through yellow to mauve and finally to the faintest of grey and then . . . .

here it is . . .

they're simply beautiful

the sun set a little slower this evening and it sent a really clear light across the garden in the back of my home. i have a bush with yellow leaves - chrome yellow - and i loved the way it was glowing so i went outside with my camera and took some pictures. while i was there i saw a few other plants who were looking radiant and happy in the way that plants do when they hit that sweet spot in the year and know there is nothing but sunshine, rain, rich soil and care in their future!!

you'll notice that when i write about my garden, i rarely refer to the plants by their names. you see, at the time i buy or am given the plants, i know what they are. but later on, when someone comments on them, or asks me what i grow, or when i post pictures here i have no idea what most of them are. if you want to tell me what these plants are then please write a comment and i'll add it into this entry!!!

these guys started appearing a few years ago and have gradually established a place for themselves - well it's a growing presence actually because they spread a little bit each time the earth goes 'round the sun. i think they're violets. i really like these little flowers. they're on a bush i planted about five years ago. i love the way they are spreading across this small boulder . . . this beautiful plant grows in an obscure corner, almost forgotten but its bright red stem and coral flowers allow it to shine without being front and centre . . . to be really honest though the artist in me loves the background behind the flower more than the flower itself . . . is that wrong?

cloud appreciation

i love clouds. check this blog over time and see how many cloud pictures show up. as a long time cloud watcher, i am intrigued by the presence and work of the cloud appreciation society. i've featured their work here before.

so i was pretty interested when i came across an article by a member of the c.a.s. consisting of a short slide show with explanations that suggests that we should redefine our naming of clouds. now that's not a big big deal but it's a cool argument because it seems to me that there is something changing in the variety of clouds that i see and how they behave. some of the pictures that accompany the article are not only amazing to look at but really explain in as graphic a manner as possible, just why we need to rethink the naming of clouds. have a look! .

i never want to leave

there's something so essential in this little place where a tree wraps its roots around a beautiful pink rock. there's so much age contained in the rock and so much knowledge in the tree.

ryokan allowed himself to become a part of a similar essence . . .

"in my youth i put aside my studies
and i aspired to be a saint.
living austerely as a mendicant monk,
i wandered here and there for many springs.
finally i returned home to settle under a craggy peak.
i live peacefully in a grass hut,
listening to the birds for music.
clouds are my best neighbors.
below a pure spring where i refresh body and mind;
above, towering pines and oaks that provide shade and brushwood.
free, so free, day after day --
i never want to leave!"

you might like to visit my other blog "flow"

trillium wood

the trillium is this province's official flower. it's appearance in the nearby woods is a brief event that is the herald of late spring. the trillium has a lot of very interesting features, one of which is that it is spread by the work of ants and mice. "trillium seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that attracts ants. the ants take the seeds to their nest, where they eat the elaiosomes and put the seeds in their garbage, where they can be protected until they germinate. they also get the added bonus of growing in a medium made richer by the ant garbage." (wikipedia)
what i do know is that they grow in profusion in our woods and make for a very beautiful show at a time when nature is just beginning to flex its green muscles. on my walk i came across a few little clusters . . . after which i found some larger gatherings . . .
and then when i had walked as far east as i could i turned and looked back and saw that the woods were in fact filled with these tiny three-petalled beauties! but my favourite was this slightly past its prime becoming pink-petalled rendering of a trillium that was all on its own in a distant corner . . .

into the heart of things

the nearby woodlot is a place filled with magic. if you step carefully and move with care then you are invited to share in all sorts of wonderful and lovely moments and experiences.

through the portal . . . and into a blessing of blossoms . . . and when i look at these tiny perfect little blossoms, whose fragility and softness are like a song, i think of tagore's line in his poem "my song" . . . "my song will sit in the pupils of your eyes, and will carry your sight into the heart of things".

you might like to visit my other blog "flow"