{"id":5034,"date":"2009-07-10T06:01:20","date_gmt":"2009-07-10T10:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=5034"},"modified":"2009-08-28T15:30:50","modified_gmt":"2009-08-28T19:30:50","slug":"stories-in-the-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/stories-in-the-trees\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories in the Trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[The artwork above comes from a fantastic — fantastically rich, but also just literally fantastic<\/em> — Web site called The Hermitage<\/a>, from the mind and imagination of artist Rima Staines. She and her companion Tui seem to have a life straight out of fiction, as you can see from her blog<\/a>. Check out their “wandering house,” which is to a motor home as a cottage is to an office, and her handmade clocks (!).]\n

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

Generations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our stories lie down in the orchard,
\ntheir time is not now, but something is
\ncoming, something is going away. They<\/p>\n

rise to the stars, and wait to be told.
\nThere are listeners who know how little
\nwe know, how much we are feeling.<\/p>\n

We had to go our own way, a little off course,
\nalways, no matter how specific the directions
\nseemed at the time. In this universe if we’re lucky,<\/p>\n

we will live in our children’s stories,
\ntheir tales that will turn us to legend,
\nsome absurd truth that has nothing to do<\/p>\n

with our plans, our meticulous records.
\nNo matter what stories we discard or keep,
\nthey will give us a life we cannot imagine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jeanne Lohmann, from The Light of Invisible Bodies<\/em> [source<\/a>]<\/em>)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

\n
\n

Shaking the Tree<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vine and branch we\u2019re connected in this world
\nof sound and echo, figure and shadow, the leaves
\ncontingent, roots pushing against earth. An apple<\/p>\n

belongs to itself, to stem and tree, to air
\nthat claims it, then ground. Connections
\nbalance, each motion changes another. Precarious,<\/p>\n

hanging together, we don\u2019t know what our lives
\nsupport, and we touch in the least shift of breathing.
\nEach holy thing is borrowed. Everything depends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

(Also by Jeanne Lohmann, found at the same page<\/a> where I confirmed the above.)<\/p>\n

Also not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

…You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.<\/p>\n

Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep.<\/p>\n

And you alone can hear the invisible starfall, the darkest-before- dawn minutely dewgrazed stir of the black, dab-filled sea where the Arethusa, the Curlew and the Skylark, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover, the Cormorant, and the Star of Wales tilt and ride.<\/p>\n

Listen. It is night moving in the streets, the processional salt slow musical wind in Coronation Street and Cockle Row, it is the grass growing on Llareggub Hill, dewfall, starfall, the sleep of birds in Milk Wood.<\/p>\n

Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, suckling mintoes, fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino; in Ocky Milkman’s lofts like a mouse with gloves; in Dai Bread’s bakery flying like black flour. It is to-night in Donkey Street, trotting silent, with seaweed on its hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot, text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercolours done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy. It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies.<\/p>\n

Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding though the Coronation cherry trees; going through the graveyard of Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed; tumbling by the Sailors Arms.<\/p>\n

Time passes. Listen. Time passes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Dylan Thomas, from Under Milk Wood<\/em><\/a>; complete text here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Finally: the little fantasia below — on the places from which stories come — won the 2006 CAEAA<\/span> award in the “Best Classical or Stop Motion Animation in a Student Production” category:
\n<\/object><\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

P.S. When I found Rima Staines’s site, I was happy — among other reasons — because I thought the illustration-wonk elves over at 7-Imp<\/em><\/a> would fall over in delight when I shared the link. Not surprisingly, they had already fallen over<\/a>. It’s so hard to surprise elves, of any stripe, with news from their own forest!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[The artwork above comes from a fantastic — fantastically rich, but also just literally fantastic — Web site called The Hermitage, from the mind and imagination of artist Rima Staines. She and her companion Tui seem to have a life straight out of fiction, as you can see from her blog. Check out their “wandering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,274,50,36,251],"tags":[178,849,1313,1314,1315,1316,1317,1318],"class_list":{"0":"post-5034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-cartoons","10":"category-language-writing_cat","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-whiskey-river","14":"tag-dylan-thomas","15":"tag-stories","16":"tag-trees","17":"tag-rima-staines","18":"tag-jeanne-lohmann","19":"tag-under-milk-wood","20":"tag-the-story-tree","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-1jc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034","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=5034"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5069,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034\/revisions\/5069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}