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One Fish, Two Fish, Get Your Mitts Off My Fish
Tuesday, August 15, 2006 So here it is, the catch of the day - "Here and Now" Number I.x.  Starting with one of my own I've often wondered about the fascination old folks have for weather. Though I've not tuned my TV to the Weather Channel and thrown away my channel changer, I am beginning to exhibit some of those same obsessions myself. I blame it on the god-awful heat and drought. This poem was written earlier this year before the true godawfullness of this summer was apparent and when it was still possible to have lunch on a thatch-shaded table at Cascabel (a little pocket-sized restaurant on South St. Mary's near downtown) without ending up with heat stroke as a side order. your daily weather report Sunday might be I'll watch it rain from here I'm hoping the sky has gone dark and the wind is playing crack-the-whip with the trees could be I'll see it rain today I'm hoping Monday I sat at this window yesterday and watched the sky go dark and the trees do the hully-gully in the wind I wished for rain but none came nor will it rain today the sky is blue and the wind is barely a breeze slipping almost without notice through limbs it blew to frenzy yesterday but it is cool, a blessing in this too-soon summer season tomorrow? we'll see Tuesday remember yesterday? well here's another day just like it oh, the sky might be just a touch bluer and those clouds a teeny bit fluffier but you have to be really invested in a need for change in your life to notice just like the weather is the life of a weather enthusiast boring Wednesday the morning was cooler again than usual for this time of year so we had lunch downtown on the patio at Cascabel nice in the shade, with hungry little sparrows looking on from the next table, waiting for one of us to drop a morsel or two on the floor, but the sun shifted leaving us exposed about the time we finished eating time to leave already this year we've had four days in the triple digits, but not today oh, it will be hot but the humidity is low so it's not so bad this is the time of year when Mexican farmers in the interior clear their fields by burning, so, for several days there's a light scent of natural incense in the air seen from northside heights as a thick, ugly haze blanketing downtown, the woodsy smell when you're in it brings a relaxed campfire air to the city as pollution, not so bad and way better than strangling on diesel fumes in the suburbs all in all, a nice day so far, and the walk back to our car past Rosario's and the elementary school and other little shops and galleries along South St. Mary's is pleasant Thursday the cosmic quiver of a beautiful morning woke me early, just as the day broke yellow in the black going blue sky walking the creek in this first light I flushed the heron and the red-tailed hawk that stop here briefly every year as they make their annual passage from winter to summer skies the heron's cry as its long wings lift it slowly from its night hours refuge is a startled honk like an old maid in pearls and flowery dress confronted by an open-raincoat pervert at her front door the hawk's call is something else, bone chilling, fingernail on a blackboard shriek that screams beware predator predator as it launches from its cottonwood perch with a sonic crush of air smashed aside by its flight as always in May it will be hot again by midday as the sun climbs to its peak unobstructed in the cloudless sky until then the day is one to celebrate Friday looking for a cloud but can't find one instead a sky like blue-gray slate, mean looking sky, hot, tin roof under midday sun hot sky a day for lemonade drunk slow under a shady tree Saturday winds aloft are strong, pushing clouds fast over a bright-morning moon, the pale silver disc in a bluebonnet sky slipping in and out of sight much to do today first enjoy the moment at hand before it passes  Back to Lu Ji To refresh memories, Lu Ji was a third century Chinese poet and military leader. As the story is told by his translators, Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping, he is remembered as a military leader primarily for his loss of a battle (due to the treachery of a fellow general) which led to his execution on trumped-up charges of treason. As a writer he is remembered for The Art of Writing, described by Barnstone and Chou as "both a cosmic treatise and a practical one." They compare it, in the western tradition, to Pope's Essay on Poetry and Pope's model, the Ars Poetica of Horace. We left Lu Ji a couple of weeks ago with lesson number 9, The Riding Crop. We return to him this week with lessons 10 and 11. 10. Making It New Perhaps thoughts and words blend together into a lucid beauty, a lush growth; they flame like a bright brocade, poignant as a string orchestra. But if you fail to make it new you can only repeat the past. Even when your own heart is in your loom someone may have woven that textile before, and to be honorable and keep integrity you must disown it despite your love. 11. Ordinary and Sublime Flowering forth, a tall rice ear stands proudly above the mass, a shape eluding its shadow, a sound refusing echoes. The best line is a towering crag. It won't be woven into an ordinary song. The mind can't find a match for it but casts about, unwilling to give up. After all, jade in rock makes a mountain shimmer, pearls in water make the river seductive, green kingfishers give life even to the ragged thornbrush, and classic and folk songs blend into a fine contrast.  Introducing guest blogger Michelle Beth Cronk Michelle lives in Southern California. She is a wife, a mother of two small children and a poet. That's pretty impressive by my lights. When I was a husband with one small child, I could barely get my mind around writing a grocery list. In addition to her own work, she is also assistant editor of the ezine The Eight Seasons of Silver City and the email poetry letter Coterie and is on the board of emergingpoets.com. In a new venture, she and friend Tina Vonhagel are embarking on an editing adventure with a new ezine, published by Rick Stansberger, entitled Admiring Bog after Emily Dickinson's "I'm nobody, who are you?" which will feature talented poets who do not yet have a book published. They are hoping to roll out the first issue sometime this Winter 2006/2007. There will be no submissions, but rather poets will be invited to publish. If you know of someone you think would fit right in, send their name and where Michelle & Tina can find examples of their work (and info on how to reach them). m.b.cronk@verizon.net I enjoy Michelle's work and especially like this poem due to it's delicate simplicity and directness of thought and imagery. Reading Levertov in the mountains If you were here you would tell me how cold lives below mountains on the lake how the creek passes over tumbling stones and a perfect branch hangs some where in a hill side of pine  Quotations From Chairman LBJ While in Afghanistan in 1967, I bought a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao, the "little red book" of Cultural Revolution fame, from a bookseller in downtown Kabul. It was little (shirt pocket size, with room for a pen and pencil), it was red, with the iconic picture of Mao in an oval on the cover and it had shiny plastic cover, making it both cheap and durable. When I returned to the States in 1969, I picked a semiserious knockoff, Quotations from Chairman LBJ, just as red and a little larger, with a picture of LBJ in a Mao jacket in an oval on the cover. There's some serious stuff in it; also some funny stuff. Here's a couple of quotes from the book. For those born somewhat after the dark ages of the 1950's-60's, Johnson was famous for working extremely hard and pushing his staff just as hard. To aide Malcolm Kilduff, July 1965 Kilduff, I hope your mind isn't as cluttered as your desk. To Kilduff a couple of days later Kilduff, I hope your brain isn't as empty as your desk.  Poets with bombs So far as I know, Lyndon Johnson never wrote a poem, but Mao Zedong, following the Chinese tradition that expected the writing of poetry to be among the accomplishments of rulers and the ruling class, did. (The American tradition is so surprised when it's rulers write poetry that a big deal is made of it, for example, the gushing over Gene McCarthy's poetry and the media stir when Jimmy Carter publishes his books of poetry. Americans expect their rulers to make John Wayne movies, not poetry.) Mao, though much more likely to be remembered as a despot and murderer of his own people than as a poet, did his part to uphold tradition. Here's an example. Changsha I stand alone in cold autumn. The River Xiang goes north around the promontory of Orange Island. I see the thousand mountains gone red and rows of stained forests. The great river is glassy jade swarming with one hundred boats. Eagles flash over clouds and fish float near the clear bottom. In the freezing air a million creatures compete for freedom. In this immensity I ask the huge green-blue earth who is master of nature? I came here with many friends and remember those fabled months and years of study. We were young, sharp as flower wind, ripe, candid with a scholar's bright blade, and unafraid. We pointed one finger at China and praised or damned through the papers we wrote. The warlords of the past were cow dung. Do you remember how in the middle of the river we hit the water, splashed, and how our waves slowed down the swift junks? (Translated by Willis Barnstone and Ko Ching-po.)  Speaking of...... A poem by Jimmy Carter from his book Always a Reckoning published in 1995. Why We Get Cheaper Tires from Liberia The miles of rubber trees bend from the sea. Each of the million acres cost a dime nearly two Liberian lives ago. Sweat, too, has poured like sap from trees, almost free, from men coerced to work by poverty and leaders who had sold the people's fields. The plantation kiln's pink bricks made the homes of overseeing whites a corporation's pride Walls of the same polite bricks divide the worker's tiny stalls like cells in honeycombs; no windows breach the walls, no pipes or wires bring drink or light to natives who can never claim this place as theirs by digging in the ground. No churches can be built, no privy holes or even graves dug in the rolling hills for those milking Firestone's trees, who die from mamba and mosquito bites. I asked the owners why. The cost of land, they said, was high.  Three love poems by Lady Izumi Shikibu (970-1030) The daughter of a Japanese provincial governor, Izumi Shikibu began service at court in her early teens. In 995 she was married to the governor of Izumi, and in 997 she had a daughter. She was known as a poet before her marriage; she had already written one of her most popular poems, "I go out of the darkness." Around the year 1000, she began an affair with Prince Tametaka (977-1002), the son of the Emperor by a junior consort. The affair was apparently not conducted discreetly, for it became the subject of gossip; Izumi's husband divorced her, and when Tametaka died, his death was rumored to be due to his visiting Izumi during a plague season. A year after Tametaka's death, his brother, Prince Atsumichi (981-1007), began to visit Izumi. It is the first year of this affair that the Izumi Shikibu nikki describes, from the early summer of 1003 to the spring of 1004, when Atsumichi's wife left his house in anger. Although called a nikki (memoir) Izumi's book reads much like fiction: the story is told in the third person; the thoughts of various characters are given and the two major characters' names are never given: they are simply "the lady" and "the Prince." The affair continued until Atsumichi's death in 1007. In the next year Izumi went to court to be an attendant to Michinaga's daughter, Empress Shoshi /Akiko. If Izumi Shikibu nikki was written during this period, one of its purposes may have been to explain her indiscretion to her fellow courtiers. Certainly many of Izumi's poems (Izumi Shikibu shu) not included in her Nikki appear to come from this period; a good portion of these are poems mourning Atsumichi, while other reflect life at court. Around 1010, Izumi remarried and went to the provinces, apparently never to return to court, although she continued to write poetry; 240 of her poems were included in later imperial anthologies. We don't know how long she lived; the last official reference to her was in 1033.* *Above from Other Women's Voices, Translation of Women's Writing Before 1700 Three Poems On Love 1 On nights when hail falls noisily on bamboo leaves I completely hate to sleep alone 2 You told me it was because of me you gazed at the moon. I've come to see if this is true. 3 If you love me, come. The road I live on is not forbidden by impetuous gods. (Translated by Willis Barnstone)  Li Bai, 701-762 No Bukowski this week; instead Li Bai. Though separated in time by more than a thousand years, they could have been brothers. A drunk, a womanizer, a scoundrel and a tweaker of convention, the legend of Li Bai's death is telling. It is said in the legend that he was so drunk on a boat that he fell overboard and drowned while trying to embrace the moon reflected in the water. Bukowski's Chinaski would understand and approve. Drinking Alone by Moonlight A pot of wine in the flower garden but no friends to drink with me. So I raise my cup to the bright moon and to my shadow, which makes us three,but the moon won't drink and my shadow just creeps about my heels. Yet in your company, moon and shadow, I have a wild time till spring dies out. I sing and the moon shudders. My shadow staggers when I dance. We have our fun while I can stand then drift apart when I fall asleep. Let's share this empty journey often and meet again in the milky river of stars. (Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping)  It doesn't seem like it ought to be that hard Late news is that the UN has come up with something that might slow down the organized killing of each other by some parties in the Middle East. Too bad it doesn't seem likely to do anything about the semi-organized killing that continues at it's uninterrupted pace. for you and me blood clots on dry desert dust in steamy jungle rot on busy city streets in green country fair again & again & again death daily some where again&again&again until you & me say nononononononononononononononono more again & again no more *From Seven Beats a Second Poetry by Allen Itz & Art by Vincent Martinez  Seems like that's about it for this time out. Meanwhile, trees, like the one above, grow old in difficult places. Maybe by the time it's here and now again next week, children in Lebanon and Israel will be allowed to do the same. Photos by Allen Itz |
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