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My River of Rivers (with thanks to Wallace Stevens) 12-31-2017
by John R. Williams
My smallest of rivers is river enough.
The Styx’s Gothic cascades
And weird twisted trees be damned.
Long, long ways from Stygia.
Little spring-fed river spawning
Countless fecund ponds great and small.
No shades slink here. Fateful not ill-fated.
A grave ferryman would be supererogatory
Where gravel roads and culverts suffice.
So little to meet the eye
This subtle river without appearance
Barely marked by some stunted trees
It is as common as light and air.
Locally just a river of exposition.
It’s vigor and curriculum undetected
Save in my myth: Springs from nowhere,
Makes magic broth, rises up on wings,
Flows down to dust plumes in a dead sea.
And it was at that age
poetry arrived in search
of me. I don't know where
it came from, from winter
or a river. I don't know how
or when, not voices, not words,
nor silence, but from a street
I was summoned, from
the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say,
my mouth had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started
in my soul, fever
or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense, pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
image of mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose
on the wind.
--Pablo Neruda
From a distance, these California Poppies in this cliffside reminded me of dabs of orange paint on stone, so I experimented a little with the processing to strengthen that particular visual. View large on black.
The amaryllis on our porch
Piet Mondrian was a Dutch painter and one of our most influential 20th-century artists. He is best known for moving away from realistic painting toward a completely abstract style that used only basic elements.
Born: March 7, 1872, in Amersfoort, Netherlands. Died: 1944 in New York.
Mondrian was a pioneer of abstract art and best known for capturing "universal beauty" through pure geometry. He developed a style he called Neoplasticism with most of his works characterized by -
Primary Colors: Red, blue, and yellow.
Non-Colors: White, black, and gray.