Friday, May 30, 2014

Things Unseen

RIP Maya Angalou

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

--Maya Angelou
       
      

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Things Unseen

                             
                               
Take this Waltz

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women
There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows
There's a tree where the doves go to die
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost

Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws
I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lilly,
In some hallway where love's never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea

There's a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking
They've been sentenced to death by the blues
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?

Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz, it's been dying for years

There's an attic where children are playing,
Where I've got to lie down with you soon,
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
In the mist of some sweet afternoon
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
All your sheep and your lillies of snow

Take this waltz, take this waltz
With its "I'll never forget you, you know!"

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea

And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
O my love, o my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now. It's all that there is

--Leonard Cohen
               
   


Saturday, April 12, 2014

Things Unseen

                           
                                  
The Forgotten

Nonsense XX III

Vibrant violence
come closer, dear.
Do you see me?
Walk slower to be
noticed by no one.
Find me a place to
sleep; I care not
for shelter, just
comfort.
My pillows are
concrete.

--Adel 156
                      
                       

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

My Chi-town

                  
                            
Descending
                 
              


Saturday, March 22, 2014

My Chi-town

                 
                 
Ripple Effect III
                   
             

Monday, March 17, 2014

Things Unseen

                          
                          
For A Moment You Were There
             
                

Monday, March 3, 2014

Photographer's Journal: Louisiana Landscapes

                  
                     
Palmetto Fields Forever

Yesterday I had the great privilege of preaching and leading Morning Prayer at Christ Church, St. Joseph. I love doing that. Beautiful church, lovely folks. Inexplicably, they also seem to appreciate my sermons. I mean, they always take me to lunch afterwards! :)

But I confess there's another reason I love to go to Christ Church: I leave a little early, take along a camera, and turn it into a bit of a photo outing as well. And if I'm really fortunate, as I was yesterday, the weather is beautiful and I had no Sunday afternoon obligations to force me home.

And so I spent a gorgeous afternoon stopping and shooting all up and down Highway 65. You'll see more of those photos in the coming weeks.

For the moment, this one I took on the way to St. Joseph. I have observed many times that while the trees are yet gray and leafless and most of the undergrowth has not yet come to life, the palmetto fields along Highway 65 are vibrant, glossy, dark green. And they extend as far as I can see standing on the roadway.

This photo looks like I've done a process called "selective color," which is to take out all of the color and then replace the color in only those items you want colored. But I didn't do that here. This is a full color photo. I love it precisely because it so clearly illustrates how the fresh, new palmettos--and a DMAP sign, of course--stand out in the otherwise gray landscape of early March woods in Louisiana.