Restoration time Down East

Hoping not to be misunderstood as of the especially cowering sort, one would confide experiencing a reliable sense of shelter in Mr Sherman's scholarship, in which conundrum and controversy are cured by a meticulous concentration. Ah, but is such succour ever certain in cross-currents of these days, censoriousness ascendant 'gainst the way a fact's displayed? No sooner had one turned to a current entry, than terror seized one in its grip - the very last sensation and manner to expect of such a trip. Our Mr Poe comes from down this way; we don't expect to panic in the drawing rooms of the shingle style, at a spectacle of usage.

But there we were, accosted by a grisly glimpse our nature forbids us to recite, of a vulgar term of art for chimney-piece, and in the very sanctuary of our first resort. Scrolling hurriedly to the Comment Box, to advise against exposure of this kind, we dashed off a warning before fleeing the page in fright against the fray which must, anon, befall it. M'lords and Ladies, the offense was too great, but even worse must be the plea of innocence, which is the exact quality to be condemned in the first place: the mark of a barbarian, indeed. For being bred to incurable deformity to begin with, the heart goes out to any scholar.

Oh, our renovations are contested so these days, it seems like a novation to attest how it dismays, to be arrested, much less bested by some wit in how he plays. How little did we know, the hothouse heaviness of claustrophobia which cloisters itself to cure the web of openness, in these cluttered ranks of arbiters. And who could have thought, righteous braggartry could gain traction of consent, in the medium invented for its clutches to relent? 


El niño come naranjas.
Desde mi balcón lo veo.
The little boy is eating oranges.
From my balcony I can see him.








Brad Sherman
The Down East Dilettante
  A rolling .. gathers no moss
April 7, 2011


Federico García Lorca
Despedida
  Canciones, 1921-1924
W.S. Merwin, translator
Francisco García Lorca and
Donald M. Allen, editors
The Selected Poems of ..
New Directions, 1955©