[Image: “Self-Portrait in Mouth of Crocodile” (1965) by photographer-adventurer Peter Beard (who had earlier shot the 15-foot crocodile alongside Lake Rudolph in Kenya). One source says that while the photograph was being set up, “the insides of the freshly dead crocodile began to contract, nearly crushing [Beard’s] legs.” The photo almost certainly inspired the rather problematic “Crocodile Eating Ballerina,” Helmut Newton’s 1983 photo (see the “Lot Notes” tab at that link).]
From whiskey river:
The Happiest Day
It was early May, I think
a moment of lilac or dogwood
when so many promises are made
it hardly matters if a few are broken.
My mother and father still hovered
in the background, part of the scenery
like the houses I had grown up in,
and if they would be torn down later
that was something I knew
but didn’t believe. Our children were asleep
or playing, the youngest as new
as the new smell of the lilacs,
and how could I have guessed
their roots were shallow
and would be easily transplanted.
I didn’t even guess that I was happy.
The small irritations that are like salt
on melon were what I dwelt on,
though in truth they simply
made the fruit taste sweeter.
So we sat on the porch
in the cool morning, sipping
hot coffee. Behind the news of the day—
strikes and small wars, a fire somewhere—
I could see the top of your dark head
and thought not of public conflagrations
but of how it would feel on my bare shoulder.
If someone could stop the camera then…
if someone could only stop the camera
and ask me: are you happy?
perhaps I would have noticed
how the morning shone in the reflected
color of lilac. Yes, I might have said
and offered a steaming cup of coffee.
(Linda Pastan [source])
…and:
You look at the world and it may seem whole or it may seem broken but the world looks back and some sort of reciprocity that is not romantic and is not of any school of poetry or any single denomination happens, and in our absolute attention we feel attended to:
…for here there is no place
That does not see you. You must change your life.
(William Olsen [source]; last two lines by Rainer Maria Rilke [source])
