Reflections Through My Window in Winter

January 23, 2010

Outside my window the sphere of the ever-changing shape of nature and the human spirit unfolds. Inside, from my desk, the foreground is the peeling white paint on the 84-year-old window.  I must say it is hard to imagine our house existing 84 years ago. I suppose that the afternoon light bathed the yellow walls as it edged nearer to spring in the same way in the winter of 1927, as it does now.

January 24, 2010

Is it not stange that cloudy, gray days in midwinter seem to blind one more than the brightest summer afternoon? Today is such a day. The only interruptions to the still, silenced uniformity of the dayare the beating raindrops upon the roof that dance among the chilled air and the flock of migratory birds who are scattered in the backyard and on the three pines covered in ivy, that I see from my window.

Written Upon Departing from the Biltmore Estate

Shrouded in midwinter fog,

the mountains almost seem to blend into the sky

the line between the sphere

of the Earth

and that of the sky

becomes blurred.

Rain pellets lightly

cover the trees, grasses, and stone buildings

in an afternoon shower.

And yet, through all this

we continue to wander

through the rough, winding paths

we coin “life” while the

serenity of a mountain

covered in light rain

continues to exist.

“The Path by the Sea”

–Prose inspired by the sea, November skies, and Debussy’s “La Mer” Symphonic Sketches–

"La Mer"

The same wind that scattered the leaves across the path–that winding, wondering path by the sea–now seemed to sigh, ominously, as the clouds moved in darkening the landscape. With what sadness she looked upon the sea, feeling almost swallowed by its expanse, shadowed by the rapidly moving clouds, and under the spectrum of the flickering sunlight, cast in various spots of the path where she stood. Here, where the sea meet the land, giant, salty waves crashed into and enveloped the roughly etched faces of the boulders. It seemed that two worlds converged at the seaside: the vast, wondering, violent sea and the more permanent, lasting, lush land, where the world of her reveries intersected with the stark reality. Why did this border between two spheres of existence: the reflection of fast-moving clouds on the gray ocean water, slightly morphed by the wind and waves–those endless cycles–conjure such melancholy in her mind?

The beginning of an extremely descriptive story…

The rain fell in great drops, shattering  on the tin roof of the house. I was an abandoned farmhouse; the red paint of the porch peeled off in strips resembling the bark of the tree that stood in the yard. It was on this day that she set out with only the light of a lantern, to seek the city, to seek her fate, her destiny, the future of improbable events: events that she could only observe in retrospect.

The city she sought lay beside the sea, connecting its inhabitants with the Earth and its cyclical continuity. Her family had all been lost in the fire that ravaged their cabin, which stood just miles from the white farmhouse, with it red trim. Why she sought that city, that dismal, gray city, filled with the never-ending rain, I cannot tell you, for I am no judge of another human’s emotions.

“Scattered Leaves”

Scattered Leaf--God's Acre

With what delicacy

that leaf—golden, at its peak—lay across the page,

its face spread like a giant fan from its stem.

 

The came from all ends of the country,

even the world, those who found their

last resting place here.

 

The shadows mingled

on the resolute pillars,

in which indiscernible words

were etched

as the light faded

from behind

“Reflection”

A wash of impressionistic shades-
the clouds shrouded in pink from the setting sun-
and also, the lunar orb, with its textures,
full, in the cool air,
glimmering with cicadas

“Clouds”

By late-afternoon, the sun
had passed behind a collection of thick clouds-
grey-almost azure-in tone,
their shapes of various complexities,
as if ominous warnings

Behind a tree-an oak-
the speckled shadows created by
a passing spectrum of light
bounced off the surface-of a rippled consistency-
of the water, with its shadows of
both mystery and recognition

“Somewhere”

Somewhere the strange
sigh of the
wind moves
the dried-out
leaves in
a patch of
buttery sunlight

Somewhere a train
whistle screeches,
long and solemn,
as it approaches
the last
stop of its
long and winding
day

Somewhere the weekday,
rush-hour mob
of citizens
push their way
through the hubbub
in the
finite cycles of
their
monotonous lives

Somewhere light is
reflected off
the surface
of a pond
and I become
aware
of the passing seconds
and, also, of
their woven
melodies

“Panorama”

Clouds and Sky, San Francisco

By the late afternoon,
the impeccably blue
sky had partially broken through
the dense layer of
clouds and fog, reminiscent of so many San Francisco
mornings.

Looking up:
on the corner
two identical towers and a geometric rose window,
a white cathedral,
was revealed in the soft sunlight,
the phone lines intersected,
a antique clock hung above a Chinese sign
of gleaming red characters.

Around the scene the breeze
blew the flags, leaves, scarfs;
the melody of Italian music mingled
with the rhythms of Chinatown,
and the hour was rung in,
loud and clear,
by the Ferry Building
as the spirit of imagination
and the world of reality
seemed to collide.

“Remnant”

Downtown Winston-Salem

Light bounces of the smooth surface of a glass window
in a wide spectrum of color
as
the drone of an airplane
is blended with
the reverberating echoes of car horns, train whistles
and contrasted with
the passing of wind through papery, translucent leaves
on a lop-sided tree near the tracks

faded advertisements
once painted on gleaming, brick warehouses and factories,
have now lost their glow and
exist, waiting;
ghosts of the old economy, of the flourishing profits
of the fortunate and the toil of the unfortunate
to achieve a shared goal
in the
solemn light, evoking thought from the
distant yet
recognizable past of
unobtainable love, prospering riches, forgotten dreams
all too great to
last;
all lost when the worn bricks of the colossus:
the formidable achievement
tumbled into a heaping pile and all
that remains
the same
is the undying light and
mankind’s ingnorance
subtly
reminding us of the fates of our
menagerie of ancestors
who
dwelled and dwindled
in the
sordid tenant houses or the well-kept Victorians
on the west side of town
but
were all immersed in the ephemeral, golden
“gilded” age
unaware that the prosperity
would not last
but, instead, become
a romanticized remnant,
the worn memory
of
future generations