Reverberation

Years ago I heard a federal agent describe his mistake in a major crime investigation in a way that broke my heart because that mistake had obviously broken his own heart. I also felt deep sympathy with the victims of the crimes committed, and I still do, as the agent did.   Compassion and pity and anguish for all involved.

I wasn't there in that original hell, but listening to such testimonies puts a burden on the listener.

I still haven't figured out how to share that story with my own students, though I ought to--and I mean that in the best ways.

Looking Toward Angel Island

Required Reading, Say I

Remembering Rudi: A Gallery

Rest in peace, dear me-orange-boy-o:
You fought the good fight against cancer for many years.

April 1, 1995 - September 16, 2008.

Pictures of pictures.

Alice Jones: "Knots of Possibility"

PAINTING

He'd go down to the basement
wearing his dark blue work shirt,
to the corner of the windowless,
cinder-block room where he had
his canvas propped, and somehow,
after years of being tangled up
in knots of possibility, after
days of talk, after wrestling 
with the angel of Not-painting,
he squeezed a wildly orange
Vermont landscape out of those
bright oily tubes, smeared it,
all its red-leafed, golden blur,
onto the rectangle of cloth
and gesso that had been waiting,
like me, for his stroking hand.

--Alice Jones

from her The Knot,
published by Alice James Books,
Cambridge, MA: 1992.

"The Armor of Your Virtue"

THE ARMOR OF YOUR VIRTUE

Coffee cups, pastry plates,
Corner booths, and study dates--
The rushing fool who hesitates
Lately finds that his angel is lost.

Should you ever address such divinity
With this litany of virtuous sinning?
Do you dare press this unsuitable case
In the bare face of a model affinity
On the strength of such illusory
And unsubstantiated winning?

Not proven, not proven, not proven--
Do you rue the imprudent fiction,
The innocent, illicit diction?
You ration out your conquests in respect
To consequence, conscience, and blundering.
To a Scotch verdict, no contest you've pled
To govern such botched, besotted hungering.
Never guilty quite, you oddly-kiltered martyr,
With the armor of your virtue left
Virtually without a dent.

Back to the coffee cups, pastry plates,
Corner booths, and study dates--
The stammering fool fails to prevaricate;
Another angel-- oh, hesitate--is lost.

How do you ever qualify for happiness?
How do you ever quantify your joy?
Where's the form for furthering matters
Or the pattern to know and avoid?
Chipped glass, stalled payment,
Standing traffic, walking the pavement--
Till the pang of passing passion's freshly frosted
In an ashen hour of friendly fashioning.

Coffee cups, pastry plates,
Corner booths, and study dates--
The fearful fool bravely hesitates,
Though fortune favors a state of grace,
And finds his angel is lost.

Finally, you fear shyly she will be offended.
If only she could condescend to be flattered
By the curtained confession still to be amended,
Still to be shuttered and shattered.

Coffee cups, pastry plates,
Corner booths, and study dates--
The brazen fool still hesitates,
For fortune favors a state of grace,
As he finds his angel is lost.

--Matt Duckworth


(I wrote this poem back in 1996 on my 35th birthday.  Lightly edited recently.)