Edinburgh Light

Edinburgh was a bit of a puzzle for me, and it still is in terms of balancing or juggling what I like and don’t like about the city.  Edinburgh is a city and a wonderfully compact one, as anyone will tell you, and that’s appealing in the same way that San Francisco is so much more appealing than LA, say.  Or, perhaps, Seattle may be a better comparison, nowadays.  I’m not sure.

When I first saw Edinburgh, I was looking through a doubled pair of lens, Boswell’s and Ian Rankin’s, seeing both the 18th-century and Rebus’ cities intertwined.  And a third strand when I looked at the Castle and saw the winding streets and closes near the Castle was Dunnett’s strand, the Lymond of Crawford strand, for that one wasn’t as apparent as I had first hoped.  I had to look for the 16th and 17th century elements.   And, while I knew the Castle was on a volcanic outcropping and loomed over the New Town, say, I wasn’t quite prepared for the layering, the labyrinthian qualities, the sheer complex design and lack of design of a city that had grown over time on such an uneven surface.  I could understand Edinburgh metaphorically, suddenly, and that made both Dunnett and Rankin clearer to me.  A canny place.

I wanted to like Edinburgh, but I didn’t like the city at first.  Rain coming down didn’t help; anxiety about getting from airport to city centre to Dalkeith lodgings didn’t help either.  The height of the houses, of the buildings in general, surprised me and put me off.  The dirty gray and yellow and black stones of the houses also looked dingy, sooty, filthy in the cold, gray light too.  But then the sun flashed out through the clouds as the wind whipped about, and a brighter face shown through.  The sky in its brightness seemed higher than the sky at home, as if the sky were a ceiling however highly placed, but that’s exactly how the brightness of the light translated to me, illuminating the walls and the streets, catching the wetness of the past shower with a gleam, raising that ceiling as it were for a more expansive world.   

 I didn’t quite get all that, not in words, until I’d seen the brightness of the summer light in Northern England as well over York and Durham and Hadrian’s Wall.  And I don’t know if I am right about the light and the lifting up of the sky and of the spirit, but that’s how it felt and how it feels now in retrospect.

Rum Reflections

When I was in my teens, my 20s, and my 30s, I wanted to rescue people. When I was in my 40s, I wanted to rescue myself. At the edge of 55, I'm still committed to a little of both, but I am also fairly sure that the matter is largely out of my hands.

I'd like to help out, in any event, as the case may be.

"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.)

Emerald Waters

Emerald Bay: Fannette Island, Lake Tahoe.

I included this shot in an earlier blog-entry, but only after clicking on the shot and considering an enlargement did I appreciate the ripples, the clear water, the reflection of the tree, and so forth.  That's why I'm reprising this piece in extra large and large formats.

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.

Trusty Companions

Or, How It All Starts.

Who Are You?

Prop to be used teaching Shakespeare's Hamlet: the graveyard scene. "Alas, poor Yorik. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest . . . ." Or something like that. When that task comes around, I'll know my lines.

Small Face: sculpture mix; shiny black and (fake) Shino glazes.

Passages: Heaney's "North"

I've got Dougie Maclean's "Mo Nighean Donn" playing from the Whitewash CD, and that seems a fitting background as I open up Seamus Heaney's North and share a favorite poem. Heaney is my favorite model of a poet whose symbolism is always grounded, always working concretely and figuratively, gaining strength from that constructive duality. Here, now, I just want to reread a memorable piece, not blather too much about it.

NORTH

I returned to a long strand,

the hammered shod of a bay,

and found only the secular

powers of the Atlantic thundering.

I faced the unmagical

invitations of Iceland,

the pathetic colonies

of Greenland, and suddenly

those fabulous raiders,

those lying in Orkney and Dublin

measured against

their long swords rusting,

those in the solid

belly of stone ships,

those hacked and glinting

in the gravel of thawed streams

were ocean-deafened voices

warning me, lifted again

in violence and epiphany.

The longship's swimming tongue

was buoyant with hindsight--

it said 'Thor's hammer swung

to geography and trade,

thick-witted couplings and revenges,

the hatreds and behindbacks

of the althing, lies and women,

exhaustions nominated peace,

memory incubating the spilled blood.

It said, 'Lie down

in the word-hoard, burrow

the coil and gleam

of your furrowed brain.

Compose in darkness.

Expect aurora borealis

in the long foray

but not cascade of light.

Keep your eye clear

as the bleb of the icicle,

trust the feel of what nubbed treasure

your hands have known.'

--Seamus Heaney

North. Faber and Faber. London & Boston: 1975.

North is my single favorite volume of Heaney's verse, though Death of a Naturalist, Station Island, and Seeing Things all make claims upon me--as does Heaney's translation of Beowulf, though that's a different beast of mixed lineage and joy. His North pulls together my own preoccupations with the North Atlantic, with Celts and Vikings, with history and autobiography, bog people and ambition, with sagas and cauldrons and the cold salt sea.

(Heaney revises "North," this specific poem, slightly in his collected works of 1996: Opened Ground. He substitutes "curve" for "shod" in the second line; I'd been wondering if "hammered shod of a bay" was an Irishism or a metaphor, and I'd even devised an interpretation for "shod" as a noun, just in case. Isn't that what you do, too?)

Read "Exposure" next.

Annotations: Dan Duane's Caught Inside

Note: As a sabbatical project back in Fall 2008, I produced an annotated bibliography of 129 non-fiction texts treating water and water-related topics, usually emphasizing marine biology or adventure. Dan Duane's Caught Inside is one of my favorites.

Postcard: Fishing with Clay

Stoneware; glazed with a thin coat of Celadon and a splash of Stormy Blue: Fall 2009.

A friend has said, ruefully, that what you love most, you do second. He was talking of teaching and making music. His comment has had me thinking, Can I even say what I love most? The water? the classroom? books? clay? And what about the fatalistic or even cynical logic in his saying? How do I feel about that? Do I recognize a truth there?

"What you love most, you do second." Really? Always? And, why? Or, why not?

I like to spin out questions in postcards, probably to the dismay of my correspondents, much like that old Romantic spider, Coleridge. But I'll pause from questioning, and attempt some assertions, using my friendly fish above as a guide.

He is friendly, isn't he? Despite the teeth, yes? Is he art? I haven't a clue. I enjoyed the making, and I enjoyed seeing him come out of the kiln, just as he is, even more. I love how the fire of the kiln has that last word beyond any of my expressing, my intending, my making, and yet what does that say about me, as a maker? Is he art? Is it art? Sure, why not?

I couldn't begin to say what I love most--teaching, reading, learning, making with clay, diving and swimming and kayaking--though I know I love all of those activities. (I don't spend enough time working with clay to say I love it most.) Still, that saying from my friend makes me wonder, and wonder may lead to knowledge and, better yet, to wisdom. I have a fondness for rephrasing questions and statements, not liking to be subject to much of anything, frankly, but I haven't yet decided on how to rephrase that saying to my liking. Yet. I'm letting everything stew in the cauldron of my mind for now.

I like this fish a lot. He's worth liking, don't you think?