4.5 miles longfellow gardens / minnehaha falls 65 degrees
What a morning! Cooler and less humid. Ran to Longfellow Gardens to check out the flowers. In full bloom, mostly red and purple. People sitting on the benches — I couldn’t see them that well, but I imagine some of them were painting or taking photographs.
image: A portable red lawn chair in the shade under a tree. A person sit in it, facing the field with the statue of Longfellow, their back to the flowers.
Returning to the falls, I noticed a few trucks and heard voices chanting. Was it some religious thing? Or military training? A protest? RJP might know; one of her best friends works at the restaurant at the falls.
Took the steps down to the bottom of the falls, which were roaring. So was the creek. Walked then ran beside the water as it rushed by. Eventually it reaches the mississippi, but I crossed the bridge well before that happens. Admired the water that collects in a pool — sparkle and shimmer. In the afternoon, kids congregate here, wading and splashing, but not this morning. Just me, and a few diggers in the distance. What are they digging up?
Took the steps — more than 100 of them — back up to the park. Wow, what a leg burn! Glad I didn’t try running them!
It was not a question of not having the language for it— having two, in fact. The walking towards it, and then the walking away. How that felt, all the green gathering itself to the idea of green, lingering right at the edge of the dark, what we call the dark. And the languages, both of them, noticing that, envying it. From their places at the beginning & at the end.
all the green/gathering itself to the idea of green
I want to think about this green and the two languages and the dark, or what we call the dark, some more.
Yes! A wonderful morning swim. As usual, always a mix of excited and nervous before the swim, but once I entered the water, all of it went away. Not always easy — sometimes my back hurts or a shoulder or a foot — but almost always wonderful. I love the dream I enter below the surface and the confidence I feel slicing through the water and the warmth of muscles worked after. Nothing feels as natural as swimming across this lake.
10 Things
the crooked line of orange buoys — the one closest to the big beach much further north
the faint outline of vegetation reaching up from the bottom of the lake, just below me
swimming through a net of green milfoil near the white buoy
only the occasional flash of other swimmers — a bent, bare elbow, a black wetsuit, a yellow safety buoy
the brief flash of “buoy” or “orange” or “triangle” in my head, then nothing — I listened and believed and swam towards it
one menacing sailboat — an orange and red sail
open, empty water with vague trees in the distance
above the surface, vivid blue, below the surface, green with hints of blue and the faintest idea of yellow
my hands stretched out in front of me in the water — pale, glowing, a sharp contrast with the dark water
shafts of light illuminating the particles in the water, everything constantly moving
the best moment: Rounding the final orange buoy for the third and final time, heading back to the big beach, the sun came out from behind the clouds. Suddenly the water was a vivid blue when I looked up to sight or turned my head to breathe. When I went back under, everything a beautiful, rich green: blue, green green green green green, blue, green green green green. At some point a cloud came and the blue grew darker, not quite purple. I thought about Alice Oswald and Odysseus and purple robes and being purpled.
Alice Oswald and Nobody
Was thinking about this before my swim:
Well, as you know, I’m quite fascinated, even obsessed, you might say with Homer. And one of the things that really tantalizes me in Homer is what is the Homeric mind? Because I think it’s very different from a literary mind. And it seems not to be inside the skull, but to be out in the world. So, there is a particular simile in the Iliad, which actually that first bit of the poem is based on, where it talks about two goddesses coming from heaven to the earth. And they’re very physically described. They kind of fall down from heaven to the earth. And then when they land, they take little pigeon steps, steps like doves or pigeons. So you can really picture them. But the way their flight moves from heaven to earth is as a man, you know, as the mind flutters in a man who has traveled widely, so you can turn it the other way around and say the way a man thinks is like this incredibly physical flight of two goddesses coming down to earth a bit like pigeons. And that’s always really interested me, that for Homer, the mind has the limitations of a pigeon, if you like. It is this kind of … this physical thing that moves. So, if you imagine a place over the sea, your mind actually has to get there. So, even though it may be as fast as the light, it is physical movement.
I’m still looking for where in the Iliad these goddesses/pigeons are. And I’m still figuring out what AO might mean here. But it is helpful to read it beside these two parts of Nobody:
1/ page 1
As the mind flutters in a man who has travelled widely and his quick-winged eyes land everywhere I wish I was there or there he thinks and his mind
immediately
as if passing its beam through cables
flashes through all that water and lands less than a second later on the horizon and someone with a telescope can see his tiny thought-form floating on the sea-surface wondering what next
2 / page 30
When trees take over an island and say so all at once some in pigeon some in pollen with a coniferous hiss and run to the shore shouting for more light and the sun drops its soft coverlet over their heads and owls and hawks and long-beaked sea-crows flash to and fro like spirits of sight whose work is on the water shading it blue and thinking
I wish I was there
or there
Is the Homeric mind restless? I wish AO would say more about what she means by the literary mind and its lack of movement. I agree, but I’d like it spelled out. Does my mind work this way when I’m out moving by the gorge, or swimming across the lake? Does it move through or above the water? Maybe it became a fish.
Here’s one more line from the interview that I want to respond to:
. . . feeling of characters who have been eroded by the weather and by the sea is really what I’m feeling in this poem. It’s a poem that just opens itself to the elements and gets kind of washed, it gets its features washed off. . . . I think that’s all part of the erosion, really, it’s like even the forms of visible things have been almost worn down to their abstract shapes.
Overcast this morning. Cool, but humid, sticky. Another run that wasn’t easy or effortless. Keep showing up. It will get easier or you’ll get better or it will (eventually) get cooler. I’m not too worried. Is it the lexapro, or am I just satisfied being able to get outside and move by the gorge?
10 Things
the crater with the tube sock/Florida outline is gone, filled in yesterday
a gnat flew in my eye — a fullness, than a small sharpness, then a watery eye, finally gone!
a motorized scooter on the bike path — hey, you’re supposed to be on the road! (thought, not said)
today’s color palette; green and gray
dark mud, not gooey but slick
laughing kids on a playground
the surreys, all lined up at the falls, one being readied for a family as I ran by
rushing falls, roaring creek, gushing sewer pipe near 42nd
some loud rustling in the bushes
passing a walker, a whiff of subdued perfume — fresh, floral / passing a biker, a sniff of cologne — fresh, earthy
At some point, looking up at the green trees, remembering green water, I thought about Alice Oswald and the connection between water and grief. Then I recalled Tony Hoagland’s poem about swimming and cancer and thought about water and relief.
a few hours later: It’s raining — a soft, light rain — right now (2:30 pm). I’m hoping that open swim will still happen at 5:30. Tomorrow it probably won’t: thunderstorms all day. Anyway, I’m continuing to listen to and think about Alice Oswald’s “Interview with Water.” Very cool! Here’s the next little bit:
Find yourself in the silence underneath an overhanging wave that or thereabouts is the color of a bluish violet ultramarine gown so the great poet sang, “But Odysseus taking his bluish gown in his big hands drew it over his head and hid his face ashamed to let the Phaeacians see his tears.” The gown goes over the head like a wave, the human sits under its sea color with salt water pouring from his eyes. It is one of those places where the form of the poem hurries us forward, the form of the language pulls us back. Porfurion is a word with water inside it like a bucket down in the middle of a line. Already if you look hard at the word you can see the widow’s simile underneath it but Homer is not yet ready to make that gift. With magnificent theatricality, he draws a blue gown across the mind and we, like the Phaeacians, are left looking at it, waiting.
Homer is the foremost poet of the visible. Homer delights in surfaces, but the surface of water is complicated by transparency, and its transparency is complicated by refraction. Water is never the same as itself. Rivers can only exist as similarities, lakes reflect more than their own volume, and what’s more, when you look at water, it allows you to exist twice but more darkly. When you look at it again it evaporates as if moving in and out of existence — it simply requires a bit of sunlight then it reappears as frost. Perfectly symmetrical as if discovering pre-drawn diagrams in thin air. Then it reappears as tears so that any attempt to describe the surface of water tells you to hide your face and inspect your innermost thoughts. All these waverings are part of the word porfurion. The physics or nature of water is metaphysical meaning that its surface expresses more than itself.
Interview with Water
All of AO’s mention of surfaces makes me want to think about surfaces during my swim. I swim on the surface, wanting to stay with my head just below as long as possible. What does the surface look like or feel like when I’m breathing every five (or more) strokes? What if I tried every 2 or 3? What is the color of the surface — from above or below?
swim: 2 loops lake nokomis open swim 68 degrees
Wow, what a perfect swimming night! The water was warmer than the air temperature. The sky was white and heavy. Everything calm, quiet. I felt fast and strong cutting through the water, breathing every 5 strokes with the occasional 3, at least once, after 2. I tried to give attention to the surface. Just under the water, I watched my hands stretch out in front of me, covered in bubbles. The water was a beautiful deep (but not dark) green, with the feeling of deep blue and gray. I could see the sediment swirling. Above the water, the surface was silver, still.
A quick run before meeting my college friends for lunch. Cooler today. Heard the rowers. Spotted: at least 2 bright yellow shirts, one bright pink. City (or county or park?) workers were out re-tarring a few more spots on the trail. Hooray for less craters! Last week, they finally filled in the big crack that had white spray-paint around it, making it look like a tube sock or Florida (I’ve written about it before). I wonder if they’ll finally fill in the hole that’s been getting deeper every year? The one that would definitely twist your ankle if you stepped in it. I hope so.
I don’t remember hearing any birds or roller skiers or laughing kids, but I do remember the squishy mud on the winchell trail and the bug bite I got as I walked home.
color in/on/under water
Listening to Alice Oswald’s lecture, Interview with Water, I came across this great passage about color. First she’s mentions that poets performing The Odyssey always wore blue robes, then she mentions a line from book 8:
Odysseus with his strong hands picked up his heavy cloak of purple, and he covered up his face. He was ashamed to let them see him cry. Eachtime the singer paused, Odysseus wiped tears, drew down the cloak (8:84-89)
Then she references something she said a few minutes earlier —
I keep a bucket of rainwater under my window and it delights me that green leaves reflected in a black bucket are not quite green. I don’t know what color they are. At certain moments, early in the day, they might be called pre-green, but then the clouds change or the wind moves the surface mark and all at once they seem bright dark and blind silvery then foggy emerald.
— and says this:
To go back to that bucket of water — to wave a blue gown above it and ask, What is that color which Homer calls porfurium? It is not blue exactly; it gets translated as purple but purple is a settled color whereas Homer’s word is agitated. It derives from the sea verb porfurion which means to roll without breaking, so it is already a fluid word, a heaped up word, a word with underswell, not a pigment but an emanation from the nature of water. To get a true sense of porphyrion you need to see the sea in it and for Homer the sea is unhuman full of strange creatures missed colored unplowable and this is my favorite word it is a peritone meaning unfenced. If you want to imagine the colour of Odysseus’ gown you will have to swim out into the unfenced place, the place not of definitions but of affirmations. Yes I’m afraid you will have to find your way to the p volume of Johnson’s unwritten dictionary. There you will discover a dark light word an adjective for edgelessness — a sea word used also of death smoke cloth mist blood between bluish purple and cobalt mauve. It appears mid-ocean when the wind perhaps makes a network of backblowing glitters that the underswell moves sideways as when a big sea swells with noiseless waves. It is used of the heart meaning his heart was a heaving not quite broken wave. It indicates a surface but suggests a depth a mutation of flatness or noiseless sheen, a sea creature, a quality of caves, any inlet or iodine or shaded stone, a type of algae or rockfish, anything excessive or out of focus or subliminal — for example: a swimmer seen from underneath, a rotting smell, a list of low sounds, an evening shadow or sea god, a whole catalogue of simmering grudges storms waves and solitudes or deep water including everyone who has drowned in it. To be purpled is to lose one’s way or name, to be nothing, to grieve without surfacing, to suffer the effects of sea light. to be either sleepless or weightless and cut off by dreams — find yourself in the silence underneath an overhanging way that or thereabouts is the color of a bluish violet ultramarine gown so the great poet sang.
Wow! So many wonderful things to do with this passage! For now, I want to think about how color works underwater. In an hour, I’m heading over to deep (at least, deeper than Lake Nokomis) Cedar Lake to swim across it. How will color work as I swim? Below water? Above? Is this agitated, moving purple similar to how I see all the time? (Yes, I think.)
swim: 4 cedar loops (= 2 nokomis loops) cedar lake 72 degrees
The first swim at Cedar Lake! As I’ve mentioned here before, Cedar has a very different vibe than Nokomis. Hidden away, at the end of a gravel road. A small beach. No buildings, the only bathroom a port-a-potty. Chill lifeguards. Today the water was cold but (mostly) calm. Not too many swimmers. 2 lifeguards on kayaks, 2 orange buoys, too much vegetation growing up from the bottom of the lake. I overheard another swimmer mentioning the vines too.
color: Inspired by Alice Oswald, I tried to think about the color of the water. Cloudy, not clear. I could see the vines and the bubbles from my breathing and my hands entering the water but not much else. Not purple or blue but green — not dark green but pale green. Maybe some pale blue — yes — and light gray. Occasionally a shaft of light from above, a dark vine below. Textured bubbles. Not much to see, but not nothing there. Instead, everything small, packed, too dense to decipher. No color and too many colors. Impossible to pin down with “green” or “gray” or “blue.” Not grief, but uncertainty.
Still struggling with endurance, still showing up. How much of this is mental, how much physical? The sixty-four thousand dollar question, as my dad used to say. I think it’s both, but probably more mental. Maybe the lexapro is already kicking in, but my struggles aren’t bothering me. After the run I thought, these struggles will make showing up at the marathon start line, then finishing 4-5 hours later, much more meaningful.
It rained this morning, so everything was wet, even the air. Everything was also green. Green green green. Any other colors? Nope, not much to break up the green. Green green green green green.
10 Things
lush green, dark, on the part of the path that goes below the road
puddles
a woman ahead of me, running, wearing only one compression sleeve on her right calf
a group of kids walking to the playground at minnehaha
a much bigger group of kids walking near 42nd — a long line, 3 across, took me 10 or 15 or more? seconds to pass them
gushing water near the ravine by the oak savanna
the bright yellow crosswalk sign — my bee — was muted in the gray sky
crossing the bridge high above the creek, all green, no view of the water below
lush green, dark, on the steep hill descending to the locks and dam no 1
a pile of e-bikes parked near a bench — black with blue accents
paean to place/ lorine niedecker
Before my run, I started writing out, by hand, Niedecker’s poem. It’s so long! My hand started cramping up. I had to write slowly to account for my visual errors, like not seeing the words I’ve already written and writing words almost over them or above them instead of below them. The slow work is good, giving me time with each word and line.
Ah, summer mornings! Beautiful. Cooler. If I would have slept better, I would have tried to go out even earlier. The first half of the run felt good, then I got hot and it got harder. Today I didn’t worry about what that meant for my training. Instead, I enjoyed the brief minutes of walking, taking in the trees at the falls — so green! so full!
10 Things
the falls, flowing, white, undulating — the water not falling straight, but almost falling over itself — was it hitting some limestone on the way down?
a bundle of something on the ground next to the dirt trail — a hammock?
2 women with tall hiking packs on their backs walking on the paved path
some animal — a turkey? — upset, calling out, a human voice saying something — hey?
a flash below the double bridge — a sliver of creek almost covered by green
2 roller skiers near locks and dam no 1
the dirt trail cutting through the small wood near ford bridge looking cool and inviting
happy kids on the minnehaha park playground — happy: green voices, where green = young, outside, tender
(walking back, about to cross 46th ave at 37th street) 2 older women chatting, then greeting me, oh! hello!
(walking back almost to my alley) heard on a radio or from a phone or a computer in neighbor’s backyard, the next one is Scandia — was this talk radio or a zoom meeting or what?
Lorine Niedecker and “Paean to Place”
to dwell with a place:
What is required, however, is sensual, embodied experience—close encounters of awe, wonder, fright, disgust, or even tedium—which remind us both of the real earth with which we dwell, and that we share our home with innumerable cohabitants.
in the leaves and on water My mother and I born in swale and swamp and sworn to water
My father thru marsh fog sculled down from high ground saw her face
at the organ bore the weight of lake water and the cold— he seined for carp to be sold that their daughter
might go high on land to learn
Wow! Reading this opening, I’m thinking about the Objectivists and the Imagists and Ezra Pound’s 3 rules for writing poetry:
Direct treatment of the “thing,” whether subjective or objective
To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation
As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome
What condensery and music in these lines! And what wonderfully effective descriptions of two people dwelling in and with a particular place, especially her mother, born in swale and swamp and bearing the weight of lake water and the cold.
definition of ecopoetics:
The word itself is an amalgam of two Greek words: oikos [household or family] and poïesis [making, creating, or producing], so that ecopoeticsquite literally means the creation of a dwelling place, or home-making. The term came into special prominence after the influential British literary critic Jonathan Bate published The Song of the Earth in 2000. There, Bate defined ecopoetics as a critical practice in which the central tasks are to ask “in what respects a poem may be a making … of the dwelling-place” and to “think about what it might mean to dwell upon the earth.”
LN’s opening lines and her descriptions of her parents, reminds me of Mary Oliver’s The Leaf and the Cloud and her brief mentions of her parents in the first section, “Flare.” LN and MO have different experiences but they rhyme, somehow, or echo?
My mother was the blue wisteria, my mother was the mossy stream out behind the house, my mother, alas, alas, did not always love her life, heavier than iron it was as she carried it in her arms, from room to room, oh, unforgettable!
Like LN, MO was also an amazing poet of place, but she doesn’t extend her ideas of place to her parents — a deliberate severing:
I mention them now, I will not mention them again.
It is not lack of love nor lack of sorrow. But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.
So much to say about that iron, but I have run out of time right now. Perhaps more later. . .
I’m back. First, the not carrying the iron makes me think of my mom and her desire for displacement from her abusive parents. More than once she said to me that she wanted to break that cycle of abuse — and she did. And I am grateful. But there’s something to explore here for me and my relationship to place, this place 4 miles from where my mom was born and raised, that I can’t quite get at yet.
The iron also reminds me of the wonderful lines from the opening of LN’s “Lake Superior”:
In every part of every living thing is stuff that once was rock
In blood the minerals of the rock
*
Iron the common element of earth
Both MO and LN write about their fathers. First, MO:
My father was a demon of frustrated dreams, was a breaker of trusts, was a poor, thin boy with bad luck. He followed God, there being no one else he could talk to; he swaggered before God, there being no one else who would listen.
and LN:
He could not —like water bugs— stride surface tension He netted loneliness. . .
. . . Anchored here in the rise and sink of life— middle years’ nights he sat
beside his shoes rocking his chair Roped not “looped in the loop of her hair”
The “looped” quote comes from William Butler Yeats and his poem, Brown Penny and it’s about love. I like how she throws in this line from poets or about poets, like this:
Grew riding the river Books at home-pier Shelly would steer as he read
I noticed another line of the poem in quotes, “We live by the urgent wave/of the verse.” Looked it up and found an article about “Paean to Place” and thanks to my college-attending son, I have access to it! Time to read it: Lorine Niedecker’s “Paean to Place” and its Fusion Poetics
Warm and windy. Lots of sweat. Another day of telling myself to keep showing up. A hard run with lots of walking. But, one faster, freer mile, and some scattered thoughts that might lead to something! I’ll take it.
11 Things
under the lake street bridge, the side of the road was packed with parked cars — rowers?!
yes, rowers: heard the coxswain calling out instructions
briefly watched the rowers through a gap in the trestle: a head, an oar, a boat gliding by
ran into a branch while avoiding another runner, just a few inches from my eye, imagined a scenario in my head where the branch had cut my eye
in the tunnel of threes: a sea of swaying green
a woman stretching in the 35th street parking lot, blasting music out of her phone
wind pushing me from behind, making my ponytail swing to one side
a cartoonish figure spray-painted on the sidewalk: bright orange outline
loud rustling in the nearby brush then a hiker emerging from below
whoooosssshhh — the wind rushing through the trees
dragonflies? running near the trestle, an insect with a long, narrow body and wings almost flew into my mouth — no iridescent color, no color. Later, pausing at the top of the steps, I saw half a dozen of them. They opened and closed their wings in the sun
Yesterday, I decided that the theme of color or green wasn’t working for me this month. Instead, I’d like to return (again) to Lorine Niedecker. I’m particularly interested in her form of condensing and how I might apply it to my Haunts poems. Yes, the haunts poems are haunting me again. Before heading out for my run, I found a few lines from LN’s “Paean to Place,” that I especially like:
grew in green slide and slant of shore and shade
Child-time—wade thru weeds
Maples to swing from Pewee-glissando
sublime slime- song
A few times, I recited the first big: I grew in green/slide and slant/of shore and shade. As I thought about those lines I wondered what I grew up in. Green, for sure, but not by water. Then it came to me: I grew up on the edge of green in subdivisions that butted up against farms and woods, creeping, consuming those green spaces. I also grew up in carefully managed and cultivated green — bike paths through small stretches of trees offering the illusion of nature, privately owned by the subdivision. A very different green than the rural green of my dad’s farm in the UP or the urban green of my mom here by the Mississippi River. I thought about the managed green I run by and the difference between it, a public, national park, and the managed green of my suburban childhood, with its private green parks and private (No Trespassing!) acres of farm land, soon to be sold and converted into more “little boxes.”
Yes! The green I grew in was in-between col-de-sacs, and within small ravines and the slight stretches of trees or creeks developers left for aesthetic reasons. This green has deeply influenced my understanding of the wild and “green” spaces and is one reason why I’m fascinated by the management of nature.
Another beautiful morning. Felt drained by the sun, but still managed to push through a few moments when I wanted to stop. Walked a little. My mantra: keep showing up. It might not get easier but I’ll get better at handling it (it = heat and humidity and doubt and the desire to stop). Listened to my Color playlist for the second half, the birds for the first half. Sparrows and woodpeckers and cardinals. The falls and the creek were gushing. I read the other day that, after 2 years, Minnesota is no longer in a drought. Hooray for the farmers! And the flowers! And the trees!
Today, the green was cool, then scraggly. Sprawling, stretching, overstepping. Almost consuming the narrow dirt trail on the grassy boulevard between edmund and the river road.
something for future Sara to remember: On Tuesday, I went to open the lime green umbrella on our deck and noticed something dark in the corner. With my bad vision, I thought it was a leaf at first. Then I saw something that looked like wings — a bat. I dropped the umbrella cord and ran inside. A few minutes later, Scott cautiously opened the umbrella then freaked out when the bat flew out. He staggered back and rammed into the handle of the door — hard. Knocked the wind out of him. Since then, he’s been having intermittent back spasms, which he describes as “charley horses” in his back. I would be freaking out, but he’s handling it fairly well. The worst part: trying to sleep — too painful in the bed, and we don’t have a recliner. Maybe he cracked a rib, maybe it’s a strained muscled. Hopefully it heals soon.
What I remember is seeing the bat wings as it flew away, looking like a Scooby Doo cartoon. Since then, I’ve cautiously opened the umbrella — no bat! Every time I bird flies overhead, their shadow crossing my legs, I wonder — a bird or a bat?A thought: bats as fully fleshed shadows. What if the dark forms we think are shadows are actually bats? That’s both a creepy and delightful thought!
A quick run before taking FWA to buy his biggest purchase ever: an A clarinet. Not an easy run, but a sunny day with fresh air and clear trails. More cool, refreshing green coming from the floodplain forest. Everywhere, mundane, flat green. A green greeting: saying good morning to a runner with headphones on who didn’t me coming. A green sound: a bird’s clicking jaw somewhere below.
A green chant to keep me going:
Sycamore Cottonwood Slippery elm
Spoken in my head over and over. It helped me in the tougher moments when I wanted to stop and walk.
green
Even as green is my favorite color, I do not like when green takes over everything. Green = busy doing things, producing, connecting, crowds/crowded/crowding out.
4.2 miles longfellow garden and back 73 degrees / dew point: 75
Sticky again today, but not as bright. Still hard to run through the thick air. Struggled on the way back — walk run walk run. Trying to remember to keep showing up and believing that it will get easier, or I will get better at handling the difficult moments, or I will finally start getting up early. I tried to think about green.
my favorite green
Running south, just past the ford bridge, nearing the locks and dam no. 1, cool air was coming from the green to my right — a small wood. Refreshing! Often I associate late spring green with thick and stifling, but today it was fresh and generous, making it easier to breathe and to run.
After Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827), “George Washington at Princeton,” 1779
the color of life takes sun yellow and bluest blue sky and water for green ferns chartreuse buds beading above moss dappled shamrocks fragrant healing of sage, laurel, mint, basil, thyme, rosemary, myrtle amid the tall wonders of juniper pine, olive, pear even the meeting of sea and river— the sky, an intermingling of viridian and chetwode horizons, and cerulean clarity— offers its green seafoam, its seaweed pats, the crocodile at the edge of a freshwater marsh its teeth open gritted in green against the backdrop of hunter rainforest dripping in green
heaven is a field of persian green lit by translucent jade and celadon lamps a many-roomed chateau scented by aromatic tea leaves the aperitivo: gin, apple, and bitter lime the time: midnight green the guardian: a mantis in prayer
joy: harlequin, verdun, spring magic: kaitoke forest in its energetic whisper and pulse
green must exist inside brother james would he call it camouflage or nyanza or sap for washington it’s in the colors of flags the fields far off feldgrau or military or empire green or dollar bill or rifle green revolution with chains the result mix the green like a spell in making safe life hush arbor life nurturing abundant life free life bring the background to the fore ease ease ease life
So many greens! How many different greens can I see? Today, mostly, it was just green (or brown or gray).
Offering some advice on being judicious with your use of adjectives, Ted Kooser writes the following lines:
Morning Glories/ Ted Kooser
We share so much. When I write lattice, I count on you seeing the flimsy slats tacked into squares and painted white,
like a French door propped in a garden with a blue condensed from many skies pressed up against the panes. I count on
you knowing that remarkable blue, shaped into the fluted amplifying horns of Edison cylinder record players.
What? Come on, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I didn’t need to describe them like that, but I like to
however a little over my words, dabbling the end of my finger in the white throats of those __. You fill it in.
I could go on, but all I really needed to do was to give you the name in the title. I knew you’d put in the rest, maybe
the smell of a straw hat hot from the sun; that’s just a suggestion. You know exactly what else goes into a picture like this
to make it seem as if you saw it first, how a person can lean on the warm hoe handle of a poem, dreaming,
making a little more out of the world than was there just a moment before. I’m just the guy who gets it started.
Do I know that remarkable blue he’s writing about? Does he see the same blue that I do? Do we need to imagine the same blue to make his poem meaningful?
Reading “Making Life on a Palette” and “Morning Glories,” I’m thinking about the different work they ask of the reader, or, of this reader, me. “Palette” is filled with green words with histories that I don’t know; I had to do a lot of googling to dig into the poem. “Morning Glories” asks me to build an image from the name he offers, to draw upon the shared understanding/image of the flower that I already have.
Lately, I keep coming back to the question, how little data can we have and still “see” what something is? Not much, I think. Yet, to assume that we all see the same thing — the thing as it is — excludes a wide range of experiences and detail and ways of seeing. It leaves out a lot of different shades of green.
Speaking of green, I remembered that I had collected ideas about green in my plague notebook vol 3, June 2020:
