the blessings of blogging

How amazing it is
that when I will be reading
my work in public, even if
I have been in too much pain
to write much for months,
I can come
here
and find
so much wealth
to plunder.

we are determined to make this week better

when I got to work, there was
a poem on my keyboard next
to my wrist brace, and the poem
was deep and wise and magical
and the tree on it was where the
magic lived twisted ink branches
bereft of leaves that will live next
to the painted full moon waiting
for whatever happens next

Farewell to the Lady

The July painting on my Pre-Raphaelites calendar

was "The Lady of Shalott" by William Holman Hunt. 

This awful reproduction made me long to see

the original test painting again with sharp 

lines of threads snapping and unraveling like

whips, like the lady's life when 

her curiosity got the better 

of her self-control.

The Calendar (October)

I turned to October late,
but the picture grew so
lovely to me by then end,
I didn't want November
to come.

Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, Spain

The travel website says
you should leave at least
half an hour to fully enjoy

the cathedral.  It has 34
chapels, a unique exterior
and interior, and it would
take me hours even to glance

over all the glorious light and
shadow, especially because
the windows were built to
make the nature of the light
change inside as the sun
moves across the sky outside,

something I would never
have noticed on my own,
because who can sit still
and watch surrounded by
all that soot-stained stonework,
imagining the raising of the
keystone and arches with

ropes and pulleys and
sweat and blood
and Plague and Inquisition
or the time it burned for
11 days and almost fell apart.

The travel website is silly
to think 30 minutes can
contain all that beauty.

It's probably a good
thing I will never go there
because I would weep
at all those tourists

who could see all
they wanted to see
(who thought they had
seen everything
there is to see)
in 30 minutes.

wanting to own that water

On the first day of physical therapy across town, I stopped in a cafe to wait out the rush hour traffic that lasts for 3+ hours, and I saw this painting for sale.  Blues and greens and all the luminous shades in between and black layered on each other: it was beautiful.  I loved it immediately, and I wanted to buy it, to support this artist of water from a lake I have never actually seen.  I wanted to look at it every single day I was home, to rest my eyes on its restless beauty.  But I could not afford it.  Not when I need new orthopedic shoes because the ones I've been using for longer than the doctor says I should are completely losing their tread, and I keep slipping and skidding on carpet and wet concrete, the motion tugging at the tear in my hip. 

But when I looked at that painting, sidelong glances every minute or so, every time I looked at it, I just grew to love it more.  I tried to tell myself that I could start wearing my boots outside until Winter came again, that I could ask for money for my orthopedic shoes as a Christmas present (and maybe it would work this year), that surely a couple of slips and falls are worth it to be able to daily look into the depths of Lake Superior as rendered by this artist who loves the same colors I did (or at least loves this lake made of colors I love), that I might never again find a painting I immediately connect with and love so deeply.  Dangerous thoughts for someone in my position.

I have not returned to that cafe after other PT appointments since that first day because I try not to test my self-control when I can avoid it.  I am practical. 

Sometimes I hate being practical.

why I love readings

.

feeling full and drunk

on literature again

good reading tonight

.

"The Lady of Shalott" by William Holman Hunt

"I am half sick of shadows," said
            The Lady of Shalott. 

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I am glad it is December,
that the awful November
picture on my calendar has
flipped, that December's picture
is one I have seen in person.

Few calendar prints can capture
a painting, so while I am glad
the November goats are gone, I long
for the real thing whole
and complete and beautiful.

But this is a lie because
I love this smaller test
painting by the master's
own hand since he was
mostly blind by then and
couldn't paint the full
canvas himself.

I prefer this panel
because I remember
how the unraveling
threads in it sliced
through the picture, so
sharp the air between us
was nearly bleeding.

the impermanence of things

 .
three months after the accident
the bruise beneath my fingernail
looks like a Chinese brush painting
made with blood

a tree on a hilltop
overlooking the sunset
all of it slowly floating away
complete with calligraphed characters
in the upper right hand corner

emphasizing the impermanence of things
.

Things that make you want to sing

Take a look at this.  Such beauty.

Ugly church art

We were part of a big service at a gorgeous neo-Gothic church, and I spent much of the service while we were not singing contemplating an absolutely hideous four-sided monstrosity of a tapestry hanging directly beneath the bell tower and blocking out too much of the light from the copious stained glass windows.

The church itself was beautiful.  It had a devoted art gallery and lots of lovely (and less-than-lovely) art works in different forms on walls and in alcoves throughout its labyrinthine corridors.  So why was there such a tacky, ineffably ugly, and more than a little incomprehensible piece in the heart of the church sanctuary destroying the beauty all around it?

The world may never know.

How's the state of the art in your church?

Italian music, Italians, Latin

We had a mini-concert tonight, three pieces in a music department showcase they do every fall for Parents' Weekend on campus.  Our first song was in Italian, and I found myself thinking of a friend who is of Italian descent and has the ability to make any foreign language sound like Italian.  It's hilarious.  My favorite was his impression of The Count from Sesame Street, sounding like an Italian trying to sound (like an American trying to sound) Transylvanian or something.  You probably had to be there.  He makes incredible Italian food, too, and cheesecake, which is not exactly Italian, or is it?  Also, his wife makes the best chocolate bread pudding in the history of ever.

The concert went pretty darn well.  Wow.  That second song (in Latin) went much better than I thought it would from our rehearsals, but I think in a month when we have our Christmas concert, it could actually be breathtaking, like people in the audience might stop breathing during the pianissimo parts because they want to make sure they hear it all.  Then again, I think the chamber music concert hall we performed it in today may have actually been the best acoustic for it, so we'll see how it fares in the muddled reverb of a cathedral.  There weren't a ton of people at the concert, but those who were there will have a lovely memory of "Lux Aurumque".  Pretty. 

Excuse me while my eyes roll back in my head as I remember how lovely it was to be a part of that sound . . .


Ever had any fun with accents/other languages?

About singing

"Singing well is one of the greatest pleasures a human being can experience."

- my choir director

Something funny I came across while researching something else

Just thought you'd appreciate a laugh. There's more.  It makes me a bit happy that there are other people out there who use stick people art.  I"m feeling somewhat inspired.

How I spent my summer vacation

That's a lie, since I work full time, but I was thinking about my plans for my day off and laughingly titling it after that elementary school cliche essay.

On my day off, I will

• go to physical therapy
• go to my local HUD office to see if I qualify for assistance with my rent under Title 8
• go to the art museum because it's hosting some pre-Raphaelite goodness
• go see a movie with the gift cards my parents gave me when they visited for my graduation

I seriously never thought this would be what my summer would be like once I had my degree . . .