Poets Read at Occupy Boston

Yesterday, Oct. 27, in Dewey Square, Boston, Don McLagan tries to keep his poems dry.

Rain picks up. People begin to gather for the reading.

It was my turn. I read "Buying Flowers," a poem from the T'ang Dynasty, which speaks for the poor man in the "emperor's city." As I read this 8th century poem, I felt part of a cycle of voices. Rain spotted the page.

Buying Flowers

Late spring in this emperor’s city,

horses and carts clattering past:

it’s peony season on the avenues

and the people stream out to buy.

They won’t be this cheap for long.

At these prices, anyone can buy.

Showing five delicate whites amid

hundreds of huge luminous reds,

they rig canopies to shelter them

and bamboo screens to shield them,

sprinkle them, stand them in mud,

keeping their color rich and fresh.

Families come back day after day:

people just can’t shake their spell.

Happening by the flower markets,

an old man from a farm somewhere

gazes down and sighs to himself,

a sight no one here could fathom:

a single clutch of bottomless color

sells for taxes on ten village farms.

Po Chu-i (772-846 C.E.)

Translated from the Chinese by David Hinton

J. took the photo. Po Chu-i's poem set in spring, in the imperial city, fits the fall day in Boston. That red umbrella is a rain-spotted peony, and the folder in my hand a big petal. Let's stop there before metaphors taken too far become absurd.

Out

It was marvelous to see this still life in a private apartment near Harvard Square. Someone arranged it for the passerby, kept the shade up. I wonder what happens at night. I wonder whether the still life is lit then.

Duck, horse, church, red tassel, sage, shoebox, carrousel riders but no carrousel. What else is there? What can you see? Not the absent person. Do you make altar-like arrangements like this one?

On another day, this time at the pond: snarled, useless fishing line and fly caught the light.

Fretted leaves make shadows.

October days: I want to be out, in them.

Loitering with Intent

Though loitering with intent, not to do mischief, while reading you, off and on, in the nowhere of the blogosphere, I haven't blogged much. Summer, storms--of various kinds--and physical problems have cut short my time at the computer, but now there are fresh pictures, and a little about Robert Walser's Microscripts.

Above: black elderberry--I think--at the pond, tiny figures in the distance, just the right proportion.

Hard-boiled? The eggs are so carefully placed. Discarded from someone's meal?

Delicate chance mold, mushrooms breaking down all right and finding another form. Words that might apply to Robert Walser's life.

Walser sometimes shrunk his writing to tiny letters and marks, which for a time was believed to be code. He wrote "Swine," an essay now included in Microscripts, published by New Directions, on a slip of paper measuring approximately 3 inches by 2 1/2 inches. Walser's tone disarms with seeming inconsequence. His tone charms me:

A person can be swinish in matters of love and might even succeed in justifying himself to a certain extent. In my opinion, various possibilities would appear to exist with regard to swinishness, etc. Someone might happen to look like a person who appears to be a swine, and all the while he is at bottom perhaps fairly upstanding. One can say with a rather large degree of certainty that men seem to possess a greater predisposition and talent for swinishness than women, who of course are now and then capable of achieving excellence in this regard.

Walser's charm is sly: "achieving excellence " in swinishness. I'll cop to that.

What are you up to? Let me know, please.

Microgreens

Forget about macro. Try working small. There are daikon radish in the green pot and cress in the muffin tins. I punched holes in the muffin tin with an ice pick--easy. Water must drain. Isn't that an enormous ash tray?! Repurposing--awful word--is satisfying.

Fiona Hill's book, "Microgreens," is my guide, and already I've tasted a cress leaf, a primary one, but will be patient and wait until the secondary leaves come in.

Though I like working small, I don't want to shrink. My friend R., who has been lifting weights for years, is doing well at eighty! I've begun to lift at a local class and like it. I'm working with small weights, a present from J., They are red, my color.

What are you growing?

Wedding Surprise

'Keep it fresh', someone once said about writing poetry, yet "keep" implies control. How to live a fresh life? Maybe wander a bit and do nothing; though, as for exercise, I need routine, which can be be reassuring but sometimes dull. Sunday I went out for what I thought would be a routine walk, round and round on a brick path, and found a wedding party assembled for photographs. I wish I had gotten a shot of the red fans the bridesmaids carried but it was difficult. I didn't want to intrude. The couple was striking.

There was break-away action.

How do you break up the routine? Or do you?

Back Home Up North

It's taken a while to settle in, get my bearings and begin writing again. I've missed connecting with you. I'm glad to be back. North is still home. North is familiar glossy black sugar-eating ants rather than Florida's red fire ants. They sting. A few black crazy ants dance if you get too close and do not sting.

I feel at home when I take the lid off the compost pile and see this piece of disintegrating fabric. How long will it take for those embroidered flowers to disappear?

Someone on my block has put out books-- for the taking. There were no takers, not before rain soaked the books, certainly not after. None of the books interested me--pop, pulp, poor.

The next morning some of the books ended up in the gutter. Teenage marauders?

Small ruins are easy to take.

Tell me how you get your bearings.

Exposure

In a few days I'll be leaving South Beach and wanted a few pictures to remind me of the view. Twilight today: a view I'd never see without my little camera.

It's been a quiet day. Scorching weather at first. J. and I closed ourselves in. Air conditioning on. Simple Father's Day lunch. For post Bloom's Day, between the first course and the main, we read passages from Joyce's Ulysses out loud. Short passages, stumbling here and there. I like the words Joyce gives to Simon Dedalus: ". . . that will open her eyes as wide as a gate. I'll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me." Smiling we finished our lunch and talked about other things.

The weather changed. Rain at last. The storm blew out. Clear air. Brilliant sunset. How are you all? I've been caught up with packing and sorting and haven't had time to check in.