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Wednesday 29 August 2012

Myopia Falls


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photo

Praekestolen, Geiranger Fjord, Norway, c. 1890: photochrome print, Detroit Publishing Co., 1905 (Library of Congress)



The happenings of the world are like shimmering fish leaping through the falls.
I cannot bend the happenings of the world to my will: I am completely powerless.





Silvefos, Hardanger Fjord, Norway, c. 1890: photochrome print, Detroit Publishing Co., 1905 (Library of Congress)



A tidy simulation credible in
proportion to your myopia falls over everything.


 


Vorinfos, Hardanger Fjord, Norway, c. 1890: photochrome print, Detroit Publishing Co., 1905 (Library of Congress)




It begins then to be possible to imagine that
The World and Life are one.




Buierbrae Glacier, Odde, Hardanger Fjord, Norway, c. 1890: photochrome print, Detroit Publishing Co., 1905 (Library of Congress)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The World and Life are one. "...beautiful words and photos!

Mose23 said...

You have to choose to run with that "tidy simulation"; the give-away is in the seamlessness and polish.

Living with the distance between World and Life; that's the courage we should hunger for.

Susan Kay Anderson said...

"It begins then to be possible to imagine..."

that milk falls down the mountains
perpetual flood of tears
in all the misunderstanding

between The World and Life

listen for the bridge
it is for crossing
friend peace
remember when we
worked together
because of the weather
when we used to drink there
was it frequent?
do you know if
there was honey too?

Susan Kay Anderson said...

Myopia--
isn't that
easily corrected
with the proper
prescription lenses
America? I did not
say cheap but what
the hey--

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

"The happenings of the world. . ." -- what else can one do but attempt to make "A tidy simulation. . ."?

e.g., such a poem, such photographs

8.29

light coming into fog against invisible
plane of ridge, planet next to branches
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

“different,” what made this
was that it in effect

but what is thus so in this,
once again, given one

sun rising above trees at top of ridge
shadowed green pine on tip of sandspit

Phanero Noemikon said...

waterfall take me with you in your esterline currency

and where stern and obstinate blockages liberate differences

let there be shrines
to punctatoschism's

inviolable hydra
of constructionism..

Hazen said...

‘I cannot bend the happenings of the world to my will . . .’ True. Exceedingly so. Civilization’ bloody s ten-thousand-year smash up stands witness.
‘I am completely powerless.’ Maybe not.
It’s possible to control my responses to the happenings of the world. Maybe this isn’t much. But it’s not nothing. Nor is it a given.
It’s a practice. Things are not what they seem. It’s hard.
The illusion of balance is a danger to someone walking the high wire.
Keeping this in mind, I might yet make sense of life,
restore to equilibrium that one bit of existence
over which I can hope to exercise any control—myself.

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

In deference to your vision, the Squint-eyed Kid takes off his glasses.

Susan Kay Anderson said...

Glimpse the old falls
silver over
old formations
shaped by glaciers
by your myopia

this is your life
my life in poems

but which direction
to look? Which falling water
catches the most light
moon sun falling
here there