sounds of Charlotte
The United House of Prayer Band, “The Blood!,” live, Charlotte, N.C., 2020
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, outside Chicago (Salt Creek Trail)
*****
reading table
A pot poured out
Fulfills its spout—Samuel Menashe (1925-2011)
never enough
How many musicians talk as well as they play?
Jeremy Denk (1970-, piano), playing, and talking about, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (excerpts), live, 4/7/20
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lagniappe
reading table
North Haven
by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
In Memoriam: Robert Lowell
I can make out the rigging of a schooner
a mile off; I can count
the new cones on the spruce. It is so still
the pale bay wears a milky skin; the sky
no clouds except for one long, carded horse’s tail.
The islands haven’t shifted since last summer,
even if I like to pretend they have—
drifting, in a dreamy sort of way,
a little north, a little south, or sidewise—
and that they¹re free within the blue frontiers of bay.
This month our favorite one is full of flowers:
buttercups, red clover, purple vetch,
hackweed still burning, daisies pied, eyebright,
the fragrant bedstraw’s incandescent stars,
and more, returned, to paint the meadows with delight.
The goldfinches are back, or others like them,
and the white-throated sparrow’s five-note song,
pleading and pleading, brings tears to the eyes.
Nature repeats herself, or almost does:
repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise.
Years ago, you told me it was here
(in 1932?) you first “discovered girls”
and learned to sail, and learned to kiss.
You had “such fun,” you said, that classic summer.
(“Fun”—it always seemed to leave you at a loss . . .)
You left North Haven, anchored in its rock,
afloat in mystic blue . . . And now—you’ve left
for good. You can’t derange, or rearrange,
your poems again. (But the sparrows can their song.)
The words won’t change again. Sad friend, you cannot change.
what’s new
Rolling Stones, “Living in a Ghost Town,” 4/23/20
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Chicago
*****
reading table
Ghost I house
In this flat—
Your outpost—
My aftermath—Samuel Menashe (1925-2011), “Here”
what’s new
Susana Santos Silva (trumpet, electronics, etc.), live (Quarantine Concert presented by Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago), 4/18/20
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, outside Chicago (Salt Creek Trail)
*****
reading table
The whole country devastated,
only mountains and rivers remain.
In springtime, at the ruined castle.
the grass is always green.—Tu Fu (712-770), translated from Chinese by Sam Hamill
back to church
“It’s Another Day’s Journey,” Mt. Tatum Primitive Baptist Church, Dryfork, Va., 2011
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Chicago (Columbus Park)
*****
reading table
Spring and All
by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—
Lifeless in appearance,
sluggish dazed spring approaches—
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind—
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
what’s new
Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles, “In the Water,” live, Los Angeles, published 4/15/20
MVPs? No contest—bassist, drummer.
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lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
Pity us
By the sea
On the sands
So briefly—Samuel Menashe (1925-2011)
sounds of Kingston
Desmond Dekker & The Aces, “007 (Shanty Town)” (D. Dekker), official music video (shot in Kingston, Jamaica), 1967
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
We are survivors of immeasurable events,
Flung upon some reach of land,
Small, wet miracles without instructions,
Only the imperative of change.—Rebecca Elson (1960-1999), “Evolution”
what’s new
Andrea Bocelli (1958-, voice), Music for Hope (“Panis Angelicus” (from “Messe Solennelle” Op. 12, FWV 61), César Franck; “Ave Maria,” CG 89a (arr. from Johann Sebastian Bach, “Prelude” no. 1, BWV 846), Charles-François Gounod; “Sancta Maria” (arr. from “Cavalleria Rusticana”, Intermezzo), Pietro Mascagni; “Domine Deus” (from “Petite Messe Solennelle”), Gioachino Antonio Rossini; “Amazing Grace,” John Newton), live, Italy (Milan), 4/12/20
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 314 (Franklin)
back to church
Center Baptist Church Hymn Choir, “What a Time,” live, Gastonia, N.C., 2009
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
*****
reading table
Windowed I observe
The waning snow
As rain unearths
That raw clay—
Adam’s afterbirth—
No one escapes
I lie down, immerse
Myself in sleep
The windows weep—Samuel Menashe (1925-2011), “Downpour”
Some sounds offer solace.
Jürg Frey (1953-), Extended Circular Music No. 7 (2011/2014); Singularity, live, New York, 2018
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lagniappe
reading table
Empty mountains:no one to be seen.Yet—hear—human sounds and echoes.Returning sunlightenters the dark woods;Again shiningon the green moss, above.
—Wang Wei (699-759), “Deer Park” (translated from Chinese by Gary Snyder)
