{"id":18877,"date":"2017-01-27T10:09:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-27T15:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=18877"},"modified":"2017-01-27T10:09:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T15:09:00","slug":"dark-skies-stark-uncertainties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/dark-skies-stark-uncertainties\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark Skies, Stark Uncertainties"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'Dark<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “Dark Clouds,” by “Never Edit.” (Found it on Flickr<\/a>; used here under a Creative Commons license.) No details about this photo are provided by the pseudonymous street photographer (other than the data captured by the automatic camera). Her profile says, “Never Edit — no real name given because I don’t want my nosey neighbours checking on me — means I like the street as it is and don’t want to turn my photos into digital paintings. Therefore I hardly crop or edit the photos in any way.”]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Genesis<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, I said, this is going to be.
\nAnd it was.
\nOh, I said, this will never happen.
\nBut it did.
\nAnd a purple fog descended upon the land.
\nThe roots of trees curled up.
\nThe world was divided into two countries.
\nEvery photograph taken in the first was of people.
\nEvery photograph taken in the second showed none.
\nAll of the girl children were named And.
\nAll of the boy children named Then.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Ruefle [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Below Zero<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are at a feast which doesn’t love us. At last the feast sheds its mask and shows itself for what it really is: a switchyard, cold colossi sit on rails in the mist. A piece of chalk has scribbled on the freight car doors.<\/p>\n

It mustn’t be said, but there is much suppressed violence here. That’s why the features are so heavy. And why it’s so hard to see that other thing which also exists: a mirrored glare of sun which moves across the house wall and glides through the unknowing forest of flickering faces, a Bible text never written down: “Come to me, for I am laden with contradictions like you yourself.”<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I’m working in another city. I whizz there through the morning hour which is a blue-black cylinder. Orion hovers above the frozen ground. Children stand in a silent crowd, waiting for the school bus, children for whom no one prays. The light grows slowly like our hair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The Blue House<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is night with glaring sunshine. I stand in the woods and look towards my house with its misty blue walls. As though I were recently dead and saw the house from a new angle.<\/p>\n

It has stood for more than eighty summers. Its timber has been impregnated, four times with joy and three times with sorrow. When someone who has lived in the house dies it is repainted. The dead person paints it himself, without a brush, from the inside.<\/p>\n

On the other side is open terrain. Formerly a garden, now wilderness. A still surf of weed, pagodas of weed, an unfurling body of text, Upanishades<\/span> of weed, a Viking fleet of weed, dragon heads, lances, an empire of weed.<\/p>\n

Above the overgrown garden flutters the shadow of a boomerang, thrown again and again. It is related to someone who lived in the house long before my time. Almost a child. An impulse issues from him, a thought, a thought of will: \u201ccreate… draw…\u201d\u00a0 In order to escape his destiny in time.<\/p>\n

The house resembles a child’s drawing.\u00a0 A deputizing childishness which grew forth because someone prematurely renounced the charge of being a child. Open the doors, enter! Inside unrest dwells in the ceiling and peace in the walls. Above the bed there hangs an amateur painting representing a ship with seventeen sails, rough sea and a wind which the gilded frame cannot subdue.<\/p>\n

It is always so early in here, it is before the crossroads, before the irrevocable choices. I am grateful for this life!\u00a0 And yet I miss the alternatives. All sketches wish to be real.<\/p>\n

A motor far out on the water extends the horizon of the summer night. Both joy and sorrow swell in the magnifying glass of the dew. We do not actually know it, but we sense it: our life has a sister vessel which plies an entirely different route. While the sun burns behind the islands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Tomas Transtr\u00f6mer [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Nothing Is Lost<\/strong><\/p>\n

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
\nLie all our memories, lie all the notes
\nOf all the music we have ever heard
\nAnd all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
\nSorrows and losses time has since consoled,
\nFamily jokes, out-moded anecdotes
\nEach sentimental souvenir and token
\nEverything seen, experienced, each word
\nAddressed to us in infancy, before
\nBefore we could even know or understand
\nThe implications of our wonderland.
\nThere they all are, the legendary lies
\nThe birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
\nForgotten debris of forgotten years
\nWaiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
\nBefore our world dissolves before our eyes
\nWaiting for some small, intimate reminder,
\nA word, a tune, a known familiar scent
\nAn echo from the past when, innocent
\nWe looked upon the present with delight
\nAnd doubted not the future would be kinder
\nAnd never knew the loneliness of night.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(No\u00ebl Coward [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

In the Happo-En Garden, Tokyo<\/strong><\/p>\n

The way a birthmark
\non a woman\u2019s face defines
\nrather than mars
\nher beauty,<\/p>\n

so the skyscrapers—
\nthose flowers of technology—
\nreveal the perfection
\nof the garden they surround.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Eden is buried
\nhere in Japan,
\nwhere an incandescent
\nkoi slithers snakelike<\/p>\n

to the edge of the pond;
\nwhere a black-haired
\nEve-san in the petalled
\nfolds of a kimono<\/p>\n

once showed her silken body
\nto the sun, then picked a persimmon
\nand with a small bow
\nbit into it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Linda Pastan [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Dark Clouds,” by “Never Edit.” (Found it on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license.) No details about this photo are provided by the pseudonymous street photographer (other than the data captured by the automatic camera). Her profile says, “Never Edit — no real name given because I don’t want my nosey neighbours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Mary Ruefle, No\u00ebl Coward, et al.: Dark Skies, Stark Uncertainties","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,250,5,36,251,4159],"tags":[1812,2801,3075,4483,4484,4485,4486],"class_list":{"0":"post-18877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-everyday-life","8":"category-ruminations","9":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","10":"category-art","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-reading","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-linda-pastan","16":"tag-tomas-transtromer","17":"tag-mary-ruefle","18":"tag-contrasts","19":"tag-parallels","20":"tag-looking-back-and-ahead","21":"tag-noel-coward","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/darkclouds_neveredit_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C450&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4Ut","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18877"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18892,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18877\/revisions\/18892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}