Patria

The Farnese Diadumenos

Collection British Museum

Examine the stone. 

The files have been selected to enable that inspection. I walk with Whit, and I sometimes stand still for what truly does seem like hours, as he investigates a simple frond. I wonder if James was too fastidious, in The Tragic Muse, in his recounting of how a family acquaints itself with art, or if we are all exasperated at the same pace.

Has my eye been destroyed: to be astute, without the gift for learning? Or is there some other word for what my dog does, to acquire and to understand?

The Louvre torso is the greatest find. What a tactile opportunity it is, with wear and tear of empires crossing, this way and that, and fortunes bartering, bidding, thieving, to open up its warmth of pure conception. Here, the Polykleitos original, quite contemporary with Bacchylides, is well evoked and strengthened for traversing 25 centuries. Inherit it. 


Diadumenos, we know you.

        . .  war is not all
death it turns out war is what 
little
thing you hold on to refugeed and far from home . .
     . . I'm here oh I'm here.

















Then, schooled by a corps of youth
Who gentle the golden grove of Zeus
With softening songs of praise,
I learned that whoever would root out Hate 
must celebrate the brave.

The New York Times
Clipping, February, 1999©


Paul Monette, Here
West of Yesterday, East of Summer
St. Martin's Press, 1994©


Bacchylides
Encomium for Hiero of Syracuse, 450 BC
Robert Fagles, translation
Foreword by Sir Maurice Bowra
Yale University Press, 1961©

Horace at Tivoli

Michaelmas Term

Neither should one, Licinius, beat forever
For the open sea, nor from a fear of gales
Become too cautious, and too closely hug
The jagged shore.














Clare College
Horace
Ode, II, 10
Richard Wilbur, translation
J.D. McClatchy, editor
Princeton University Press, 2002©

Hey, Mister ..

 .. you wanna hear a song?

CD booklet photo, The Witmark Demos 1962-1964

1961, Greenwich Village.

Before there were the recordings,

there were already the words.

  

How would they sound?

You tell me. You sing them.

Now the mate of Aglaus' sister

Stirs this seaborne bee

To build with his clear song

A work for the deathless Muse,

A joy in common to men . .

Bacchylides

Isthmian Ode for Aglaus of Athens, 450 BC

Robert Fagles, translation

Sir Maurice Bowra, foreword

Yale University Press, 1961©

Whitty can't cry

The English Cocker Spaniel will never let you see he isn't happy, and sometimes this is very difficult to discern. His tear ducts aren't reservoirs of protest, they are wellsprings of refreshment for his nostrils and his sight. If they close, you mightn't notice, so insouciant is his nature. Allergies can irritate him; genetics can play a part. Other things. 


We watch an English Cocker Spaniel at his play as some shimmering cuirass of our own wearing, against every knowable slight; crown, upon every gladness; lens, upon so much loveliness; panache, on so much mirth. None of the things we know to be true of his fragile gift to us can ever breach our bond, through him, with delight, curiosity, energy, and respect for rampant sauciness, fair play, wit, and gentleness. Where does it come from?

Very few things I believe are not passed through Whit's exemplary sieve in my assessment. I don't tax him with the weird occupations of one's life, any more than I inquire of him what makes a bush so damned interesting. But he shares. And this is the prettiest sight I can ever expect to contemplate. We give him medicines now, and prepare for his surgery early next month. He's a vigorous little guy, and we're very hopeful.

If this blog could be an English Cocker Spaniel's, it would be so sweet. This posting naturally raises fellow feeling, but it's not a complaint. It's a tribute. We can accept no comments; Whit wags, and pays it no mind. That's the spirit.

Georg Frideric Händel

Sonata, Anthem for the Duke of Chandos,

I will magnify thee

Harry Christophers, The Sixteen

Chandos Records, Ltd., 1989©

Saturday commute v

Out our window, we watch the UVA boys going off to swimming practice, flotation at the ready for their meet today with Princeton, valour unmistakable; while, in New Haven, Yale's pet implores the Tiger at the station, for some favours from the gridiron in the Bowl. The aviator's packed for any destination that will have him, no hip flask left to mar his symmetry. It's a day when we don't wonder where to be. 

Whit and I are at home to savour life in sweet alignment. It's the season's peak in the Piedmont, it's Pinot Noir weather again, and John Le Carré has a new book out. You just can't think of a suppler languour for an English Cocker Spaniel, than a master whose ankle has seen the last of his boots for the day, and has a sensuous Échézaux in hand to coax a text of intrigue from the best.


For as the sun is daily new and old
So is my love still telling what is told.

Translucent leaves of maple blaze, entrapt, in naked stems of lavender, and watercress shine green in practice rows for sandwiches. We still feel the light, but now it soothes, diffuse in reciprocity with seethings of the earth. There could be truffles for our quail, pale gnocchi for its foil.

Why is my verse so barren of new pride, 

So far from variation or quick change?

The Côte d'Or, when decanted, is our hour's natural scent; its earthiness, when glazed, will steep the air in plushest loam of garnet. The blood awakens as it warms to consanguinity discovered in its depth. Charlemagne, on Corton's molded peak, could claim no more than lendings of its fruit. Speak, cousin.

William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 76

Matins

Hark, hark! Just now my list'ning ears

Are struck with the repeated sound

Of labouring oars, and it appears,

By growing strong, they're this way bound

Henry Purcell
Swifter, Isis.., 1681
James Bowman, counter-tenor
Robert King, King's Consort
Hyperion, 1992©

Valéry Lorenzo has created a posting on Josef Sudek

In the United States, as he may not know, we have a saying, "Lowells speak only to Cabots, and Cabots speak only to ...". It's a hideous enough reflection on our inexpressibly empty 'social mobility,' to lay its cap of blasphemy aside. Although hierarchy is diametrically not in the nature of the humane art of photography, the saying runs through one's mind, on seeing the learnèd and candid posting Valéry Lorenzo has published today at his blog, on the illuminating Josef Sudek.

One values one's betters by their candour as much as by their work. M Lorenzo has designated Sudek as his favourite photographer, and has confessed to harbouring not the least interest in imitating him. But he'd be a grateful splashblock, he implies. And who knows how impermeable any of us is, to what we respect? I, ever querulous in photography, feel a happy enough debt to a Valéry Lorenzo to welcome it, as he would say, to my dreams.

An egg and a crust of bread from Josef Sudek (subtitled, "Poet of Prague" in my lone volume of his works). I had him in mind, with Paul Strand, when I spent a day recalled in "American veteran." I second this happy posting, and thank M Lorenzo for joining followers here - which term is surely backwards, for all one's readers.


We are a city of coffee, comprising wafts of crema in our whirl.

Rhetoric suspended

Claude

me voici sur la plage armoricaine