May 25, 2013
Succulents Point Lobos 1921Imogen Cunningham1883 - 1976
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The Far FieldTheodore Roethke
(....)
I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of t...
May 25, 2013
Succulents Point Lobos 1921Imogen Cunningham1883 - 1976
_______________________
The Far FieldTheodore Roethke
(....)
I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.(....)
IV
The lost self changes,
Turning toward the sea,
A sea-shape turning around, --
An old man with his feet before the fire,
In robes of green, in garments of adieu.
A man faced with his own immensity
Wakes all the waves, all their loose wandering fire.
The murmur of the absolute, the why
Of being born falls on his naked ears.
His spirit moves like monumental wind
That gentles on a sunny blue plateau.
He is the end of things, the final man.
All finite things reveal infinitude:
The mountain with its singular bright shade
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
Odor of basswood on a mountain-slope,
A scent beloved of bees;
Silence of water above a sunken tree :
The pure serene of memory in one man, --
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding around the waters of the world....(more)
Theodore Roethke
May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963Photograph by Imogen Cunningham, 1959
Stanley Kunitz on Theodore Roethke
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The WakingTheodore Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
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Map Merchant Paris, 1949Vilem Kriz, An American SurrealistScott Nichols Galleryvia
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Word Choice
Five Poems
Sommer Browningbomb
From Friend
(....)
Sommer, I’m dying. I get this message on my phone in line at Rite-Aid. Sommer, I’m dying, you scream in my ear at the rock show. Sommer, I’m dying, you write in closing on a postcard from San Francisco. Sommer, I’m dying, it’s my heart, Sommer I’m dying, can you feel this? Is it normal? as we stomp through the snow to get cigarettes. Jesus woke up, but who muscled the boulder away? Some prince kissed the beauty, but who wrote it all down? Let’s go to the mummy exhibition, let’s read aloud Fear and Trembling, let’s slow the flow through our carotid. Sommer, I’m dying. Present tense. Subject. Verb. The thinning blood vessel, the soft pulsating stone, retina shriveled and rattling around in the skull. I can hear it when I jump. Then don’t jump, I say....(more)
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At Point Lobos
Imogen Cunningham
1921
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You might want to ask—if there is such a simple argument for physicalism, how come everybody hasn’t always been a physicalist? That’s a good question, and there is a good answer. The ‘causal completeness of physics’ wasn’t widely accepted until recently. A century ago mainstream science was still quite happy to countenance vital and mental powers which had a ‘downwards’ causal influence on the physical realm in a straightforwardly interactionist way. It was only in the middle of the last century that science finally concluded that there are no such non-physical forces. At which point a whole pile of smart philosophers (Feigl, Smart, Putnam, Davidson, Lewis) quickly pointed out that
