Wednesday, July 17, 2013

"When heaven pulls earth into its arms..."

This blogsite is dedicated to my dear friends:  N (who's name has to do with light), AWD and RW (also for his artist daughter, Summer)



"soliel levant" by Monet





Monet Refuses The Operation

by Lisel Mueller


Doctor, you say there are no halos

around the streetlights of Paris

and what I see is an aberration

caused by old age, an affliction.

I tell you it has taken me all my life

to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,

to soften and blur and finally banish

the edges you regret I don’t see,

to learn that the line I called the horizon

does not exist and sky and water,

so long apart, are the same state of being.

Fifty-four years before I could see

Rouen cathedral is built

of parallel shafts of sun,

and now you want to restore

my youthful errors: fixed

notions of top and bottom,

the illusion of three-dimensional space,

wisteria separate

from the bridge it covers.

What can I say to convince you

the Houses of Parliament dissolve

night after night to become

the fluid dream of the Thames?

I will not return to a universe

of objects that don’t know each other,

as if islands were not the lost children

of one great continent. The world

is flux, and light becomes what it touches,

becomes water, lilies on water,

above and below water,

becomes lilac and mauve and yellow

and white and cerulean lamps,

small fists passing sunlight

so quickly to one another

that it would take long, streaming hair

inside my brush to catch it.

To paint the speed of light!

Our weighted shapes, these verticals,

burn to mix with air

and change our bones, skin, clothes

to gases. Doctor,

if only you could see

how heaven pulls earth into its arms

and how infinitely the heart expands

to claim this world, blue vapor without end.


http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/236810#about


The painting which gave rise to the Impressionist movement is now in the public domain.
This photo from Sindh, Karachi here seems to me to lends itself to a monet-like painting if the artist
had the right eye and soul.  Hint, hint :-)



Various websites suggest how to copy Monet's technique or provide critique/opinions/analysis -- yet in some ways these may limit the free expression of someone who may come to this blogsite.  This someone may easily feel the beginning from within of a one of a kind impression.  Perhaps there is another sunrise, sunset, view of streetlamps or angels or beautiful vision of light in need of a poem, painting, photo, wall, letter or journalistic expression?

Is there a possibility you are the one to provide the freedom to "that" particular vision?


******************
Credit for the 2nd photo of a sunrise goes to:

                 http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Pakistan/East/Sindh/Karachi/photo633042.htm







3 comments:

Akhtar Wasim Dar said...

Thanks dear friend for always holding us in light and prayers, this is a very elevating poem and the blog site. You are always inspiring through your words and through your remembrance.

robert said...

Greetings,

I very much like this poem by Lisel Mueller. Thank you for sharing it.

The poem itself hints at a blurring of the presumed edges of perception itself. It hints at an evolution of perception, and a rightful denial of what the doctor says, s/he being the driven world.

Really beautiful...

All good wishes,

robert

CN said...

Perceptive friends,

Indeed I had no doubt that if you read this poem, you'd elevate the jist. And sure enough, you saw and did add even more and deeper perception.

I so love, dear Dar Sahib, that we are STILL able to "hold" one another "in light and prayers" despite the "apparent" boundaries of geography and other supposed borders.

Dear Robert, I love the depth of your lines "presumed edges of perception" and "an evolution of perception".

The way you both "get" poetic, literary and spiritual metaphor sees the writer as well as artist in your soul

You are among the highest gifts to me where there is often a dearth of such clear understanding of soul.

Saturday, July 20, 2013