The Mysterious Clarities of Summer

From whiskey river (italicized portion below):

Mind Wanting More

Only a beige slat of sun
above the horizon, like a shade pulled
not quite down. Otherwise,
clouds. Sea rippled here and
there. Birds reluctant to fly.
The mind wants a shaft of sun to
stir the grey porridge of clouds,
an osprey to stitch the sea to sky
with its barred wings, some dramatic
music: a symphony, perhaps
a Chinese gong.

But the mind always
wants more than it has —
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses — as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren’t enough,
as if joy weren’t strewn all around.

(Holly Hughes [source])

…and:

The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer — they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.

(Ken Kesey, from “The Art of Fiction,” interview by Robert Faggen, The Paris Review)

Not from whiskey river:

Another solitary pleasure I have known is to sit at the back of an old oak pew below a white dove descending in a narrow window of stained glass. I returned recently to the chapel of St. Catherine’s Court after an absence of many years. The little building was full of shadow; it was like sitting in a whitewashed cave. I sat in the gloom and the silence and let my eyes fall closed. How long I sat there I do not know, but it was long enough to become unusually still.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice seemed to ring through the quiet of my body: Just rest, it said. Just rest. It wasn’t a thought, it was a sound, as clear and loud as day. I had thought I was already at rest, but as I heard these words I was instantly aware of the silence I was in. Even that small ripple of an effort was a residual holding back from being where I was completely. I let the silence take me then, hold me; and in that moment I became the silence. I was the silence.

… All my strivings, all my questionings, all my aspirations and disappointments, everything had fallen away to reveal this. I had come home, and I knew then that it was good.

(Roger Housden [source])

…and:

One perfect afternoon we spent at Bodiam — my first visit there. It was still the old spell-bound ruin, unrestored, guarded by great trees, and by a network of lanes which baffled the invading charabancs. Tranquil white clouds hung above it in a windless sky, and the silence and solitude were complete as we sat looking across at the crumbling towers, and at their reflection in a moat starred with water-lilies, and danced over by great blue dragonflies. For a long time no one spoke; then James turned to me and said solemnly: “Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

(Edith Wharton, writing of a visit with Henry James)

…and:

If You Get There Before I Do

Air out the linens, unlatch the shutters on the eastern side,
and maybe find that deck of Bicycle cards
lost near the sofa. Or maybe walk around
and look out the back windows first.
I hear the view’s magnificent: old silent pines
leading down to the lakeside, layer upon layer
of magnificent light. Should you be hungry,
I’m sorry but there’s no Chinese takeout,
only a General Store. You passed it coming in,
but you probably didn’t notice its one weary gas pump
along with all those Esso cans from decades ago.
If you’re somewhat confused, think Vermont,
that state where people are folded into the mountains
like berries in batter…. What I’d like when I get there
is a few hundred years to sit around and concentrate
on one thing at a time. I’d start with radiators
and work my way up to Meister Eckhart,
or why do so few people turn their lives around, so many
take small steps into what they never do,
the first weeks, the first lessons,
until they choose something other,
beginning and beginning their lives,
so never knowing what it’s like to risk
last minute failure…. I’d save blue for last. Klein blue,
or the blue of Crater Lake on an early June morning.
That would take decades…. Don’t forget
to sway the fence gate back and forth a few times
just for its creaky sound. When you swing in the tire swing
make sure your socks are off. You’ve forgotten, I expect,
the feeling of feet brushing the tops of sunflowers:
In Vermont, I once met a ski bum on a summer break
who had followed the snows for seven years and planned
on at least seven more. We’re here for the enjoyment of it,
he said,
to salaam into joy…. I expect you’ll find
Bibles scattered everywhere, or Talmuds, or Qur’ans,
as well as little snippets of gospel music, chants,
old Advent calendars with their paper doors still open.
You might pay them some heed. Don’t be alarmed
when what’s familiar starts fading, as gradually
you lose your bearings,
your body seems to turn opaque and then transparent,
until finally it’s invisible — what old age rehearses us for
and vacations in the limbo of the Middle West.
Take it easy, take it slow. When you think I’m on my way,
the long middle passage done,
fill the pantry with cereal, curry, and blue and white boxes
of macaroni, place the
checkerboard set, or chess if you insist,
out on the flat-topped stump beneath the porch’s shadow,
pour some lemonade into the tallest glass you can find
in the cupboard,
then drum your fingers, practice lifting your eyebrows,
until you tell them all — the skeptics, the bigots, blind
neighbors,
those damn-with-faint-praise critics on their hobbyhorses —
that I’m allowed,
and if there’s a place for me that love has kept protected,
I’ll be coming, I’ll be coming too.

(Dick Allen [source])

The mysterious British graffiti artist known as Banksy branched out a year ago in a “cheeky and renegade” exhibit at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery — way beyond graffiti. (Some of the works were original; others appeared to be vandalizations of the museum’s own holdings.) Here’s the BBC’s introduction to it:

Also see the Telegraph‘s Flickr gallery of photos of the exhibit, the Guardian‘s version, the BBC’s own slideshow, and many other photos around the Web. (Apparently, photography wasn’t just allowed but actively encouraged!) Total attendance — even having endured fantastically long lines of five, six hours and more — reportedly ran to over 300,000 during the two-and-a-half months the exhibit ran… and admission was free.