.
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.
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)
"The World and Life are one. "...beautiful words and photos!
ReplyDeleteYou have to choose to run with that "tidy simulation"; the give-away is in the seamlessness and polish.
ReplyDeleteLiving with the distance between World and Life; that's the courage we should hunger for.
"It begins then to be possible to imagine..."
ReplyDeletethat 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?
Myopia--
ReplyDeleteisn't that
easily corrected
with the proper
prescription lenses
America? I did not
say cheap but what
the hey--
Tom,
ReplyDelete"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
waterfall take me with you in your esterline currency
ReplyDeleteand where stern and obstinate blockages liberate differences
let there be shrines
to punctatoschism's
inviolable hydra
of constructionism..
‘I cannot bend the happenings of the world to my will . . .’ True. Exceedingly so. Civilization’ bloody s ten-thousand-year smash up stands witness.
ReplyDelete‘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.
In deference to your vision, the Squint-eyed Kid takes off his glasses.
ReplyDeleteGlimpse the old falls
ReplyDeletesilver 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