from Charlottesville, Virginia
This beach will remain empty
for more slate-coloured dawns
of lines the surf continually
erases with its sponge,
and someone else will come
from the still-sleeping house,
a coffee-mug warming his palm
as my body once cupped yours,to memorise this passage
of a salt-sipping tern,
like when some line on a page
is loved, and it's hard to turn.
Derek Walcott
To Norline
The Arkansas Testament
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1987©
Les contours du silence
Garrett Neff
beautiful
ReplyDeleteI first thought you wrote it!
Kind of you to say, Tassos - unless you happen not to like the poem. :)
ReplyDeleteIn the first image, which I happily confess I will never forget discovering at your blog, there are so many possibilities for poetic adaptation that it surprises me, somewhat, that I should find it introducing this piquant turn of the imagination; but there you are: something marvelous has to be established as the benchmark, and for me, this picture will always be a spectacle of that feeling. I appreciate that the picture rushes the text, which is not about anything unambiguously marvelous until the last line of its 2nd verse; but there are layout considerations to address.
In fact, we come to it backwards, having started with what I think of as wonderful bonds of texture, hue, parallellism, and linearity between the counterpane and the waves. The crema in the cup and the unbitter salinity of memory are completely savoured, also, in the final panel. But the dressing portrait suits the retrospective as well as the prospective vision, so we naturally contemplate the preceding night. From there, the exuberance of the impending leap in the first panel responds to the third, with the seated portrait anchoring the next arrival, and the sense of slate (among other things).
In your compendious file on the model, Neff, one could have found much to embellish this entry, but it's a terse poem, and I had swiped what I needed. :)
Now these felicitous accidents of correlation make one think, for you, of another poetic phrase which could be a reflection upon many blogs, so let me enter it here and save time. This is the last verse of John Ashbery's "Andante Favori," and I hope you enjoy the imagery -
"Honor to him who sits and consults
his illustration. The backward weave
of the waves congratulates him.
Pilgrims scatter slowly. Eccentrics die or live,
but each casts starshine on the pebbled surface,
commanded to sleep, stay or recuse
a melting pince-nez, spin out a foppish hour."
We're fortunate that our affections can be experienced in multiple settings; and if we can sometimes collate them on the page, they compliment us by definition - they are, affections. We can trust them; the page unfolds this to us.
:)
Ok, I am going to have to hunt this down, as it has immediately captivated me just as Bandit did when I first smelt it years ago in my oh so passionate youth!
ReplyDeleteYour adaptions, give rise to feelings of envy
Isn't that the good thing, though, about your passions now ~ they have substantiation and enriched, treasuring conviction. Not to mention, exhilarating scent. :)
ReplyDeleteI am fortunate to have you, your mug...
ReplyDelete;-)
Damn. I knew it was somewhere.
ReplyDeletewell... this happens when you place it next to your blue linen!
ReplyDelete:-)
Do you remember where the third photo (of the two boys kissing)is from? It looks like a movie, perhaps? I'd love to know which one, thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry not to have a provenance for this portrait. It does look as if it could have been from a movie, or a dust jacket for some work of fiction; or possibly from the Treasury's Spring line in legal tender for all debts, public and private. :)
Delete