At Dawn, Revisitation

awynfoto - 19 January 2015

The Snow Mind

Though one be accustomed to

winter's flakefall and drift,

tree limbs encrusted with snow,

or cedars' boughs iced and

heavied in the wake of

each freezing sweep

as January's cold gels dreams of
spring thaw, keeping one frosted
in the moment,

no thinking, no feeling,
no sight nor sound should permeate,
so that one can behold

the all and the nothing,
be-ing, non-thereness, and the
That that just is.

Inspired by:

THE SNOW MAN
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;



And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter



Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,



Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place



For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

 It was -29C last week.  Yesterday it warmed up to about  -17C  and we got new snow.

Early morning, I saw my elderly neighbor out the window, already shoveling.

awynfoto-19 January 2015

 Partout, l'hiver.

C'est ça. C'est bon.

awynfotokard, 19 January 2015

*Blackie #3, a neighborhood stray, inspects the new snowpath. 

The keys you're given

 On Remembering the Discovery
 of  Two Grand Old Masters 

I.

And when you can no longer speak

or move 

                 or think
                              or see,

will Beethoven enter the room

to remind you of when you first met?

You thought you heard an echo
in his deafening howl

of something deep and known,
of some collective fist

 screaming out "Not Yet! 
Not YET!"

(the one one thrusts toward the heavens

to rail against Death's grip
or life's 
cruel unforeseens)

II.
"You must listen to Mozart," said the bearded professor,
 "for he is Purrfection."   ('Tis true, what he claims, 
Wolfie calms and delights,  sometimes you sense "God" 
and that music heals  - you later found so) -

but sometimes the fire in your belly is such,

 no contentment can quell, and its sparks burst right through,

 to plead with the universe, just one more 
try.

(Some flames don't die.
"Not yet, please,  not yet,
. . . not yet!")

III.

Beethoven's fingers,  on keys with no sound,
a world gone silent, can't hear his own screams.
(Like Van Gogh's anguished eyes,
 face thick-slabbed and framed,
 the museum warns DON'T TOUCH!!!
 (As if you need fingers,
 to feel his cries.)

IV.
Two worlds collide, arms reach to explore,
 yet to learn of the Gray that hides, that obscures
in the world of Either/Or's -
That's not the point. 
Hierarch toward  mastery

or highest Peak - or just stumble 'round -
until journey's end,
so to speak. But are Heaven or Hell
 the only two doors?

V.
Poor mortal, you want it both ways -
 to get the prize, but not end the chase;

Paradise on earth, and Heaven ungated

(no pre-vetting, no measuring, no "scale",
no rock-hard rule that says 
you graduate or fail.

VI.  
Schiller oded the 4th of the Ninth

with  thunderous joy sparkled by gods,
exhorting us to seek The One
o'er the canopy of stars -
but his There's not a there, 
nor a place out in space,
and The One seems more sensed than e'er known,
(some have shown).

VII.

And when you can no longer be who you were,
find yourself in a room all alone
in which even Mozart doesn't come 'round anymore,

 remember  -
That you have gone to the stars and back
(and not just once or twice)
on rides hitched with all manner of extraordinary souls, 
genius and lessers alike.

 VIII.
 Art, music, and words, and above all, great love
take you there, bring you back, keep you sane.
 You suspect there are slits in that canopy where
 even oft-blinded mortals can peek  past the Peak -
no need anymore
for a key.


__________________________________

*First draft publication

Blitzbuzzed

awynart

Too much attention to a mountainized molehill clouds the purview . . . 
you can't press PAUSE or mute the buzz, it's now too shrill.
Escape to sleep?  Evade time's march, as whirlwinds of every sort
sweep past?     Look, when you awake it's all still there, at every edge, in each nook.  
It's all around, you cannot hide, don't try.  
At each new crash you still rush to look,
it's all a game (they've said as much). 

Those mountains still beckon. 
Just don't get trapped in the woods.

  ____________________________

*The above art image is tweaked from an early original sketch/watercolor  in an ol, forgotten practice notebook.  It seemed to fit the mood of this draft piece, a spontaneous reaction to having too many things coming at one all at once -  but rather than question the urge to instantly react, this imaginary person attempts to reset the clock to allow for time "out".   Or something like that. 

Decide

awynfotokard

Solidarity

[Source]

[Source]

Eye on Wall Street

The ever-present bull,
forever charging.
Both it and us,
watched.

@@

[camoseenities] -
also good for
 virtual weather monitoring,
armchair visits to the Big Apple,
and for the utterly bored -- hours of 'people-watching'.

My Feet, Remembering

Have been trying to re-learn some steps, sequences, variations, etc.
by watching their feet