Repose: Lady and Captain

I always feel a little more rested, a bit more at ease, when I watch my cats sleeping.  Or, as I should say, resting.  If you look closely, you can see that Lady's eyes are open and watching me take yet another picture, and Captain is resettling here atop my laptop, which I need to work . . . .

Divination: A Quartet

Tomales Bay:
December 2016.

Lines Upon Lines

Ring: "Waves"

A good-luck ring, I'm hoping.

Classic artistry from the Irish metal-workers on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, CA.
You can find their fine work here.

For me, the wave-ring is also a wyrd-ring, the pattern of becoming, of winding and unwinding, that marks the Old English idea and practice of fate, of the world's workings, of past/present/future.

Check the rings and lines of age on my hand too.  I'm reminded of how trees show their life-lines.  Knotwork.  Or, there's a Bruce Sterling novel that I never liked much of a future dystopian universe in which wealthy people could live long, long lives in young and younger bodies, but their hands would give them away -- the signs of aging in the wrinkles and lines of their hands being resistant to the otherwise miraculous drugs to offset mere age -- would give them away, and as an older reader now, as an older man now, I see what he was getting at.

That's cool.  Slipping over the cusp of 2015 into 2016, I think about something the great surfer Fred van Dyke said --in an excellent documentary, David L. Brown's Surfing for Life -- "I'm getting older, and I gotta dig it."

Something like that.  And I am digging it.

(Talk to the hand, if you don't dig it too.)

McDuck Underwater and the Fields of Light

A Man and A Boat

Self-portrait #52.


An empty boat
will volunteer for anything.

--Harrison and Kooser

Body By The Numbers

Stunt Doubles

Just Shy Of Fifty-Two

I've outlived Keats, Shelley, and Byron by a considerable margin with not all that much to show for it.

The heat is on, then, to make the second half-century count.  I embrace the challenge.

Lines: evidence of time passing, though not of any mere passive passage of time.  Maps to the country of character, of mishap and what-have-you.  A lack of sunscreen, certainly; plenty of squinting into the sun, commuting, driving across bridges, kayaking and diving out in the glare.  Pool-time and sea-time too: dried skin from the chlorine and salt.  And all that reading, of course, the concentration above all those pages . . . .  And yet, and this is something I wear with pride: more smiles than anything, frankly.  There's an aspiration, don't you think?  Crease your face with good will and cheer, if you dare.  (I'm smiling as I type that.)

There's a poem by Robert Graves that comes to mind, though he was older when he wrote it.  I'll post it in a day or so.

This year I've written at least one poem worth keeping, and that's a fine judgment, a fine declaration.  More would be better, but then that's homework to be dealt with in the next few months.

Just now, right now, I am toasting all of us with a bit of Bushmills.  Carry on, and live as large as you can.

May the devil . . . oh, you know.  And, here's to King Brian in the interim.  I'm drinking Irish, after all.

Practical Reading: Poetry in Motion -- McKay, Teasdale, and Wroth

Poetry Study Notes

--1.  Turn to Claude McKay’s “The Tropics in New York”:
What’s the story?
Who are the characters that we get?
What’s the scene, the physical scene?
What happens?  Is there action? Interior or exterior action?
What’s the mood? How can you tell?
What questions do you have about this poem?  Ask me.
There are three stanzas here: what should we notice about that?
How many sentences are there in this poem?
How do the number of sentences relate to the flow of the poem?
What would happen to the poem if we just had the last stanza?
Or, what if we had stanzas 1 & 2, but not 3?
Do you like this poem? Does it work for you?  Why or why not?


--2.  Turn to Sara Teasdale’s “Night Song at Amalfi”:
How does this poem feel different from McKay’s poem?
What or where is “Amalfi”? Do you know? Can you guess? Does it matter?
What’s the story?
Characters? Scene? Action?
What’s the mood? How can you tell?
What questions do you have about this poem? Ask me.
There are three stanzas in this poem: what should we notice about that?
Do the sentences end with each stanza or flow into the next stanza?
What would happen if we changed all the “night” and “dark” references to “day” and “light” references?
What would happen if we changed all the “I” references to “he” or “she” or even “they”?  What about “we”?  How would this be a different poem?

--3.  Turn to Mary Wroth’s  Sonnet # 1 from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus:
What’s the story?
Who are the characters that we get?
Who is the son of Venus?  Who or what is Venus, by the way?
What seems to be motivating Venus?
Or, what's with all the burning ?  What burns? What does this burning mean?
What’s the situation?  The physical scene if we were making a video?
What questions do you have about the poem?  Ask me.
A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines, but notice how the units of the poem work:  1-4; 5-8; 9-14.
          How can I tell that these are the units here?
Does it help to read the poem in those units, pausing after each part to check what it seems to mean?  (I hope so.)
What is a “martyr”?  How is the speaker’s heart “martyred”?
What is the tone of the last three lines?  How can we tell?
Is this love, this being a lover a good thing to the speaker?
We have a dream vision in the poem: why use a dream to express what’s going on?

Narcissus At Sea? Diving Like A Duck?

The myth of Narcissus: fatuous overly-self-absorbed fool looking into a body of water and being pulled under by a water-nymph--as I'm recalling from memory, for it's been a while since I've read my Ovid . . . .  (How long can I really go without checking whether I've remembered correctly or not?  I may have to time this one.)  Wait.  Am I confused by the tale of Hylas and that sexy Pre-Raphaelite painting with all those water-nymphs I've got posted in the garage next to the posters of the famous Pre-Raphaelite mermaid, of Xena, and of Scully lifting weights?  What about N's metamorphosis into a flower?  (Tick, tick, tick.)

Or, to take the myth more seriously: looking deeply for self in any reflective pool, body of water, mirror, lens of the camera . . . .   Note the consequences, the dangers, of paying the wrong kind of attention, of distracting yourself, of inattention . . . .  I'm not trying to revise away the cautionary value of the original tale, but what can you see if you never look?

Unmythologically, these last few years I've been watching the signs of age--the lines, the gray and white hair amidst the brown--with something like fascination.  (I compare the gray in my hair to that in my father's hair, at different ages, in different photographs.)  Sometimes I fight the feeling of aging, working out harder, pushing myself physically and mentally, taking greater risks, and so forth.  

With my recent and 51st birthday--those three seventeens--I've been working to get back into shape, working to do the things that make me feel alive, no matter the years or the lines or the aching muscles.  Today, I put in two useful, playful hours in the kayak, paddling fairly steadily, reacquainting myself with North Coast kayaking, attuning myself to the light swell amidst rock gardens, practicing my surf landings on a mellow day, tasting the salt.  (I'm more anxious about sharky conditions, though I'm not sure if that's a measure of foolishness or wisdom finally kicking in.)

I'm a bit of a fool, whichever way you replay the tale, the myth, but that's all part of life, isn't it?  I'd far rather be a bit foolish than so many other things a person could be without any tincture of Puck in their veins.  

Dive like a duck, and keep on paddling.  My current foolish motto.

Kayaking off the Sonoma Coast.

Racking up the boat after a good workout.   Blind Beach, Goat Rock State Park, Sonoma County, CA.

(The marks on my face are from a recent visit to the dermatologist, who burned off the developing skin cancer spots on my temples and my cheeks again.  A life in the sun has joys and consequences too; don't forget to use that sunscreen!  I slathered three or four times today and wore a hat . . . most of the time.)

Time-Travel: A Mere 34 or So

Or, 2 X 17 versus 3 X 17.

I was probably 34 in this shot, and I looked like a child, don't you think? That's Motley as a kitten! She's 17+ now.

Here, I'm 51 now, and you can read the trail of years in the lines and in the gray and white on my head.  I've gotten quite a bit of sun here too, but that's all good, a sign of summer and outdoor activities.  Slather, slather, with the sunscreen.  (6 feet tall and 170 pounds, so that's not so bad; I've dropped 19 pounds since December 30th.  And, I could be in a bit better muscular shape, but that's what summer's for too.)

Just keeping track.

Book review or preview or tempting taste to be posted manana.