Hungry Heart

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
" . . . Such lowly ancestry
they have, these sprouts, so plain! They could be beads
or dresser knobs or marbles for a game . . . "
from the poem "Brussels Sprouts" by Catharine Savage Brosman
Thanks to the miracle of the internet and google search, I recently had the good fortune to encounter the work of contemporary poet Catharine Brosman and to "meet" her via e-mail. I had been experimenting with my camera, a pound of Brussels sprouts, and a few leeks, and was so pleased with my results (see "Still Life with Brussels Sprouts and Leeks," above) that I thought to myself, "There must be a poem out there somewhere to go with this picture." How delighted I was to discover Brosman's beautiful ode to the Brussels Sprout, just in time for St. David's Day (March First). Brosman herself observes that not many poems have been written on the topic of Brussels sprouts, and I know she is right, because I have searched! She (and LSU Press) graciously consented to my use of her unique vernal poem on my daily blog (see "My Vegetable Love," on the Quotidian Kit, March 1, 2011).

Brosman has written poetry on a variety of other vegetables, fruits and seafoods. The striking imagery of "Artichokes," "Mushrooms," "Lemons," and "Asparagus," was in my mind as I shopped for produce a few days after reading, her book Passages: Lemons "Seasoning the mind"; asparagus offering "all the images you wish"; mushrooms "decomposing in a bitter alchemy." My favorite has to be the secret interior of the artichoke: "A final leaf, and I have reached / the void of things, the emptiness within--but / no! for at the core . . . one finds . . . a hunger of the palate, / of the heart."

Everybody's Got a Hungry HeartPortobello Mushrooms in the Brattleboro Food Co-Op
Photo by Leif K-Brooks
The next two poems, "Portobello Mushroom" and "Truffles," capture beautifully this dual hunger of palate and heart. The narrator of "Portobello" longs for "purity," though not to the point of death. Life itself, as the mushroom exemplifies, can be "ugly," "rotten - looking," "disgusting," full of "nastiness and needs." In "Truffles," the hidden fungus is "almost a disease" yet "the taste of love is there." Brosman writes that "at an appearance at a Georgia university a few years ago, I read, as the last of my selections, the Portobello mushroom poem in front of a large crowd, mostly students; they were wild about it."

Here are the poems:

Portobello Mushrooms
They’re now in vogue, along with fava beans, veggie burgers,
feta cheese: all good for us, perhaps, but not uniquely so—
imported often and expensive, sought in grocery stores
and fancy restaurants by food snobs, vegetarians,
and others who have “principles.” Where’s the bello part
in portobello? Ugly and quite rotten-looking, they resemble
some strange, slimy creature living underground, or rather,
in the sea, a cousin to a sting-ray or a jellyfish, a slug

or barnacle. Good heavens, they’ve got gills! And I’m
supposed to have that in a pita sandwich, or, worse still,
in lieu of steak! Unless they’re finely chopped,
they cannot be disguised, and even then, that dark brown skin
looks awful, surely tough. Cèpes, champignons, morelles—
they too are fungi, like the portobello, but at least
they’re small and delicate and generally pale; yet I’m not sure
that they are not disgusting also. Do we really want to eat

a reproductive organ sprung tumescent from dead leaves
and compost? Gastronomic tolerance is quite amazing,
if you think of it: consider liver, tongue, brains,
tripe, and kidneys, not to mention mountain oysters. Writing
this, I fear I shall end up a vegan or a Jain, not on account
of “principles,” but after much reflection on such things.
I understand the man who starves himself, less from a saintly
impulse than through yearning for a kind of purity,

an unadulterated, out-of-body state, forswearing nastiness
and needs. But that is death. Serve up the mushrooms, then,
well diced and in a sauce, with garlic or another flavor, lest
they seem too close to nature: that my nature, too,
may be transcended, sublimated, borne beyond itself—
a feint (for even Adam and his rib-mate, newly fashioned, ate
of Eden’s fruits) yet an ideal—the being of the angels
without appetite, their wings transparent and their bodies light.

by Catharine Savage Brosman
© 2011.
"All Rights Reserved."

****************************
Truffles
Such a temperamental food—changeable, that is
deteriorating easily, and fitting thus a lovers’
dinner. Earthy too—in Paris, they are sold
still cradled in their soil, all damp and secretive,
suggestive of the body’s appetites—and seasonal,
like love, but more autumnal, being mold,

a fungus, almost a disease . . . Good heavens,
are they really a comestible? But those who know
them swear by the sensation: what aroma
in their pulp, what taste when they are perfect!
(the idea of pigs’ snouts, dogs’, and compost
notwithstanding). —There on my plate, it lay,

that tender truffle, once, with pâté de foie gras
and rounds of toast, intended to be savored
gracefully, enjoyed—a gastronomic jewel,
and more: epiphany, epitome of love. Bon appétit.
—Deep in his sea-blue eyes, the flavor
flashed and flamed. A bite, another bite, a kiss

across the table, more champagne. Thin coins,
they were, those moments of delight,
epiphenomena, mere flickers in a looking-glass,
or little tongues of fire on the river, silvered
by the setting sun, as twilight played
among appearances. The evening ended, wisps

of gustative remembrance on the wind,
and willow branches weaving in embrace. Now
I sometimes buy white truffles, tinned,
and serve them with a trout au beurre, my friends
exclaiming that the taste of love is there—
a luminance in flesh, the dark heart of the woods.

by Catharine Savage Brosman
© 2011.
"All Rights Reserved."

["Truffles" was published in Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture in 2003, and "Portobello Mushrooms" appeared in the same magazine in 2009. Brosman's upcoming collection, Under the Pergola will include the above "Portobello Mushrooms" and "Truffles," as well as a number of other food poems -- on Blueberries, Watermelon, Endive, Radishes, Figs, Grapefruit, and "Composition with Broccoli, # 2."]

The Yellow Morchella rotunda, a true Morel
photographed in France by Pascal Blachier
My personal introduction to the morel occurred one Spring, thirty - six years ago, just a month before my high school graduation, when my friend Yvonne invited me mushroom hunting. We rode the same school bus, but she lived just a little further out than I did, and in a more wooded area. I was never one for hiking or campfires; however, this particular excursion sounded not only pleasant but practically literary, like Wordsworth and his daffodils, or "gathering nuts in May." After all, it was May, and we hadn't much homework, and the sun lasted long into the evening. Yvonne said we should be able to find a lot; and she was right -- the morels were everywhere! However, I was startled abruptly out of my Wordsworthian reverie by Yvonne's observation that "obviously the brush hog had been through recently."

What? Should we turn around and run home? "No, it'll be okay." How could she remain so calm? She didn't seem the least bit bothered by this fearful news, so I tried to be a good guest and follow her lead, but visions of tusks and wild boars and razorbacks were racing through my head. I picked the rest of my mushrooms nervously and totally mystified by her lack of agitation.

As you might have already figured out, the last laugh was on me when I finally made it home and informed my parents of my brush with danger. It turns out that all the while that I was envisioning something like this:


Yvonne had something more like this in mind:


Well! How was I to know that
a Brush Hog (aka Bush Hog)










was not the same thing as
a Bush Pig?!













SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, May 14, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

and my previous Catharine Brosman post
on The Quotidian Kit:

"My Vegetable Love" March 1, 2011

Dagmar's Birthday

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Dagmar loved having lunch outside at little places like this!
Photo above taken in Brookston, Indiana
By Dagmar Murray, October 2010
Lunch Friends: Dagmar, Kitti, Katy, Cathy
(My Birthday Last Year)
I'm posting a day early this time ~ on the 13th instead of the 14th ~ because my friend Dagmar was born on April 13th, 1959, and today would have been her 52nd birthday.

Another friend ~ www.jandonley.com ~ also born in April and often mentioned on my blogs, sent a link to the following poem the other day on facebook. Jan wasn't sending the poem, which she describes as "short and so, so beautiful," just to me. Nor did she send it in connection with Dagmar, who died last month, sadly and suddenly. However, as so often happens, Jan's message seemed to come at precisely the right time, thus I share Rilke's poem here today in honor of Dagmar's birthday:

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

by Rainer Maria Rilke
from his Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

Dinner Dance Friends: Dagmar, Katy, Cathy, Kitti
(Keith, Peter, Jack, Gerry)
Dinner Theatre Friends: Dagmar, Kitti, Katy, Cathy, Leta
(2 husbands visible; 3 others taking photographs)

***********************
I also spent an afternoon last week reading Maya Angelou 's Letter to My Daughter because I wanted to find the sections that I heard Dagmar's daughters read at her memorial service. I believe these are the lines:

"I find it very difficult to let a friend or beloved go into that country of no return. I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with 'It is here in my heart, and my mind, and my memories.' I am besieged with painful awe at the vacuum left by the dead. Where did she go? Where is he now? . . . I find relief from the questions only when I concede that I am not obliged to know everything. I remind myself it is sufficient to know what I know, and that what I know, may not always be true.

"When I find myself filling with rage over the loss of a beloved, I try as soon as possible to remember that my concerns and questions should be focused on what I learned or what I have yet to learn from my departed love. What legacy was left which can help me in the art of living a good life?

"Did I learn to be kinder,
To be more patient,
And more generous,
More loving,
More ready to laugh,
And more easy to accept honest tears?

"If I accept those legacies of my departed beloveds, I am able to say, Thank You to them for their love and Thank You to God for their lives." (107 - 08)

And this:

"Condolences: For a too brief moment in the universe the veil was lifted. They mysterious became known. Questions met answers somewhere behind the stars. Furrowed brows were smoothed and eyelids closed over long unblinking stares.

"Your beloved occupied the cosmos. You awoke to sunrays and nestled down to sleep in moonlight. All life was a gift open to you and burgeoning for you. Choirs sang to harps and your feet moved to ancestral drumbeats. For you were sustaining and being sustained by the arms of your beloved.

"Now the days stretch before you with the dryness and sameness of desert dunes. And in this season of grief we who love you have become invisible to you. Our words worry the empty air around you and you can sense no meaning in our speech.

"Yet we are here. We are still here. Our hearts ache to support you.

"We are always loving you.

"You are not alone." (111 - 12)

Millennium Park Mirror Ball, Chicago
Photo by Dagmar Murray, February 2009
Back in June 2009, when I started my daily blog ~ The Quotidian Kit ~ I asked Dagmar if I could use her photo of our reflections in the giant mirror ball as the header, because it goes so well with the quoted passage from Quinton Duval. The city looks to me like a big, rounded jar where big ideas might huddle, along with the miniaturized images of our lunch group. We may appear very tiny, but we are not alone!

Here are a couple more pictures taken on the same day:

Riding the Train to Chicago . . .
to have lunch at the Italian Village and see "Jersey Boys"

Dagmar, Kitti, Cathy . . .
at the Chagall Four Seasons Mosaic
First National Plaza
Corner South Dearborn & West Monroe Streets


"The stars were my best friends.
The air was full of legends and phantoms,
full of mythical and fair-tale creatures,
which suddenly flew away over the roof,
so that one was at one with the firmament."
Marc Chagall

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, April 28, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Like a Spinning Top, Like a Sponge

A SCENE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

" . . . THIS TREMENDOUS SCENE —
THIS WHOLE EXPERIMENT OF GREEN — "
~ EMILY DICKINSON ~

**************************

"Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun."
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~

Esse
I was left behind with the immensity of existing things.
A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself;
a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees
are not clouds and trees.
Due to my usual seemingly (but not so!) distracted fashion of spreading and scattering reading material upon every available visible surface and jumping around (not randomly!) from text to text, the above passage from Czeslaw Milosz's poem, "Esse," is forever linked in my mind with Jean-Paul Sartre's essay "Why Write" (Click for full text). My reading method, while usually quite effective, does lead to the occasional "merged book" faux pas. In this particular case, in all good faith, I reassigned the image of the suffering sponge from Milosz to Sartre. I can only trust that Milosz would forgive and that Sartre would be flattered.

I still recall reading the Sartre and talking about it the next day in a critical theory seminar that I was taking at the time (i.e., way back in the Fall of 1983). I was excited for the class discussion and the chance to talk about Sartre's fascinating images and perplexing yet convincing descriptions of reading and writing:

" . . . when we seek to perceive our work, we create it again, we repeat mentally the operations which produced it; each of its aspects appears as a result. Thus, in the perception, the object is given as the essential thing and the subject as the inessential. The latter seeks essentiality in the creation and obtains it, but then it is the object which becomes the inessential. [emphasis added]

"This dialectic is nowhere more apparent than in the art of writing, for the literary object is a peculiar top which exists only in movement. To make it come into view a concrete act called reading is necessary, and it lasts only as long as this act can last. Beyond that, there are only black marks on paper" (Sartre).

Essential.

Inessential.

Essentiality.

Inessential.

Esse.

My contribution to the discussion was to say that in addition to the image of the book as a spinning top, I particularly liked Sartre's image of the writer as a suffering, unsaturated sponge; a river carrying the reflection of the clouds and tress. But no one else shared my enthusiasm or my memory. In fact, the professor informed me, those images were no where to be found in "Why Write."

Huh? Not in "Why Write." Not Sartre? Okay, what else had I been reading in addition to my big old tome of critical theory? A couple of seventeenth - century dramas, a novel, some magazines, some freshman compositions. Where had I read those words? Well, I felt pretty certain it wasn't those first-year essays. The plays? Possibly. The novel? Didn't sound right. Finally, it came to me: it was in one of the magazines (Atlantic Monthly? New Republic?) I went straight home, thumbed through all the pages until I found it, and have remembered it to this day. Esse: that was the connecting factor:

Esse
"I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro stations flew by; I didn't notice them. What can be done, if our sight lacks absolute power to devour objects ecstatically, in an instant, leaving nothing more than the void of an ideal form, a sign like a hieroglyph simplified from the drawing of an animal or bird? A slightly snub nose, a high brow with sleekly brushed-back hair, the line of the chin - but why isn't the power of sight absolute? - and in a whiteness tinged with pink two sculpted holes, containing a dark, lustrous lava. To absorb that face but to have it simultaneously against the background of all spring boughs, walls, waves, in its weeping, its laughter, moving it back fifteen years, or ahead thirty. To have. It is not even a desire. Like a butterfly, a fish, the stem of a plant, only more mysterious. And so it befell me that after so many attempts at naming the world, I am able only to repeat, harping on one string, the highest, the unique avowal beyond which no power can attain: I am, she is. Shout, blow the trumpets, make thousands-strong marches, leap, rend your clothing, repeating only: is!

"She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees."

Brie-Comte-Robert, 1954
By Czeslaw Milosz
Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Pinsky
"Czeslaw Milosz - Poetry: Esse". Nobelprize.org. 8 Feb 2011

In another poem, "On Prayer," Milosz writes mystically of the bridge leading to the "Shore of Reversal," reminding me somewhat of Harry Potter peering into the "Mirror of Erised" at Hogwarts. For Harry, Desire reversed. For Milosz, "everything opposite." The desire of Harry's heart is communication beyond the grave; Milosz ponders the same phenomenon:

All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.

Is.

Esse.

*****************************
Less seriously, how about that merged book syndrome? Are you familiar with the Merged Book Contest at Laugh Break? It's silly, I know, but also very literary and very funny. Don't forget that even very serious Emily Dickinson allowed for a bit of nonsense:

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown —
Who ponders this tremendous scene —
This whole Experiment of Green —
As if it were his own!

(Rewritten by Roald Dahl (1916 - 90) as:
"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest of men.")
On the one hand, the kings and wise ones are allowed some silliness; yet, how appropriate that Dickinson (1830 - 86) should conclude her poem with a warning against the foolishness of placing ourselves at the center of the universe. To bring this essay full circle, Sartre (1905 - 80) advised similarly in the opening paragraphs of "Why Write":

"But if we know that we are directors of being, we also know that we are not its producers. If we turn away from this landscape, it will sink back into its dark permanence. At least, it will sink back; there is no one mad enough to think that it is going to be annihilated. It is we who shall be annihilated, and the earth will remain in its lethargy until another consciousness comes along to awaken it. . . .

One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world" (Sartre).

As Milosz (1911 - 2004) says in his poem above, we strive to name the world, the spring landscape, the green experiment: "repeating only: is!"

************************************

and lastly,

some vocabulary words

in esse (in es′ē): in being; in actual existence

as opposed to

in posse (in pä′sē): in possibility; only potentially

as in

a posse ad esse: from possibility to reality

and a poem

Esse & Posse
The groan of fallen Hosts; a torrid glare
Of cities; battle-cries of Right and Wrong
Where armies shout to rocking fleets that roar
On thundering oceans to the thundering shore,
And high o'er all-long, long prolonged, along
The moaning caverns of the plaining air,-
The cry of conscious Fate. The firmament
Waves from above me like a tattered flag;
And as a soldier in his lowly tent
Looks up when a shot strikes the helpless rag
From o'er him, and beholds the canopy
Of Heaven, so, sudden to my startled eye,
The Heavens that shall be! The dream fades. I stand
Among the mourners of a mourning land.

Sydney Thompson Dobell (1824 - 74)

*******************************

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, April 14, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

and my previous Czeslaw Milosz posts
on The Quotidian Kit:

Czeslaw Milosz February 5, 2011

Bridge of Air February 6, 2011

Haiku For The Family January 24, 2010

The Mystery of the Matryoshka: Within Within Within

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Largest ~ Elegant Renaissance Maidens ~
Smallest ~ Very Tiny Little Red Riding Hood and Alice in Wonderland ~
~ Gifts from my friend Marietta. Thanks Et! ~
A couple of months ago, my friend Gabrielle left a couple of mysterious facebook messages. First, there was:

Did you know that your brain contains atoms that were once part of Albert Einstein?

Then a couple of days later:

I just want to let all of you guys that you're leftover stardust! I love you guys! So go be an amazing leftover star!

After that one, I just had to write back and ask her:

Q: Gabi, Have you been reading "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man - in - the - Moon Marigolds"? I love that play!

A: By Paul Zindel? No, I haven't read it, but I should! I'm actually doing my physics homework right now. I am not a nerd . . . okay maybe a little! I've always found it fascinating that we're interconnected through a bunch of atoms. It's just more evidence that we're all part of one big picture. I'll definitely have to read "The Effect of Gamma Rays."

Ah ha! Physics homework! That explains it!

However, you can see why Gabi's posts made me think of Paul Zindel's play, in which the main character, Tillie delivers the following cosmic explanation of her science fair project. Tillie's stirring science fair speech never fails to give me goosebumps! She is a girl of such true vision, and one of my all time favorite literary heroines:

"For one thing, the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds has made me curious about the sun and the stars, for the universe itself must be like a world of great atoms . . . But most important, I suppose, my experiment has made me feel important--every atom in me, in everybody, has come from the sun--from places beyond our dreams. The atoms of our hands, the atoms of our hearts" (101-02).
(See my book blog Still Not Too Late: April 29, 2009)

Not long after my chat with Gabi, another friend had a great passage to share at our First Friday discussion group. But first, she said, "Do you have one of those Russian nesting dolls that we could look at?" Do I? I have big ones, little ones, authentic classics, cheap imitations, storybook characters, cats, Santas. And that's just for a start. I ran a got a few sets, and my friend Nancy read aloud:

"Keep in mind, as you pray and meditate, that the God inside of you is more powerful than anything else in the world. The entire cosmos is imprinted on every atom of your being. . . .

"You can think of the universe as a set of wooden Russian matryoshka dolls, with each doll having a smaller one inside of it. The entire visible universe is the outermost doll, and nested inside it are galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets -- right down to the smallest doll, which is you. But inside of you is an even smaller doll that somehow has the biggest doll inside of it. When you figure out this riddle, you will have discovered the key to your ascension!"

from Reincarnation: The Missing Link In Christianity
by Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1939 - 2009)

Talk about goosebumps! Naturally, as soon as I heard this, I had to share my favorite passage from The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man - in - the - Moon Marigolds, as well a quick summary of my recent conversation with Gabi. Atoms, atoms everywhere!

Little Ben with the Matryoshka Collection, 1997
Sam's Display of the Tiniest
I have collected many matryoshka sets over the years and have been given many as presents, especially when I was writing extensively about dolls and miniatures and the secrets of interiority. Most enlightening on this topic is Susan Stewart's book: On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Stewart's insight on the dollhouse -- "the house within a house" and even more so, "the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority" -- is equally applicable to the nesting Matryoshka / Matreshka dolls, stacked and nested so neatly within one another:

"Transcendence and the interiority of history and narrative are the dominant characteristics of the most consummate of miniatures -- the dollhouse. A house within a house . . . a space within an enclosed space . . . the locket or the secret recesses of the heart: center within center, within within within. The dollhouse is a materialized secret; what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority." (p 61)

The atoms of our hearts, the key to our ascension, the tiny doll inside of us that somehow contains the entire universe -- herein lies the mystery of the matryoshka. Within within within.

Egyptian Mummy Matryoshkas from the Museum Catalogue
and Giant Mummy Earrings from Von's

And My Book:
CREATED IN OUR IMAGE:
THE MINIATURE BODY OF THE DOLL
AS SUBJECT AND OBJECT

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, March 28, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

American / British / Indiana Gothic

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
You probably don't need me or Wikipedia to tell you that Grant Wood's American Gothic "is one of the most familiar images in 20th century American art, and one of the most parodied artworks within American popular culture. . . . one of the most reproduced – and parodied – images ever. Many artists have replaced the two people with other known couples and replaced the house with well known houses."

As you can see, this is just what my friends and I have done! First of all, in the picture above, my neighbors Katy and Peter got dressed up and posed in front of an historic Indiana frame house in our neighborhood. Then their talented daughter Emily took a photograph and added her own artistic finishing touches.

In the pictures below, I was photographing my British in - laws along with some gardening tools that they had been given on their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Inspired by that stark English sky, I suddenly had the idea to pose them just so and then juxtapose their photograph with the original.

Ron might have been having a little bit too much fun,
but Rosanne really caught the spirit!
British / American Gothic
The painting is also the inspiration behind a number of American poems, including

American Gothic
after the painting by Grant Wood, 1930

Just outside the frame
there has to be a dog
chickens, cows and hay

and a smokehouse
where a ham in hickory
is also being preserved

Here for all time
the borders of the Gothic window
anticipate the ribs

of the house
the tines of the pitchfork
repeat the triumph

of his overalls
and front and center
the long faces, the sober lips

above the upright spines
of this couple
arrested in the name of art

These two
by now
the sun this high

ought to be
in mortal time
about their businesses

Instead they linger here
within the patient fabric
of the lives they wove

he asking the artist silently
how much longer
and worrying about the crops

she no less concerned about the crops
but more to the point just now
whether she remembered

to turn off the stove.

by John Stone (b. 1936 - )
found in Where Water Begins, 1998


and this one by one of my favorite poets, William Stafford (click for a reading):

American Gothic
If we see better through tiny,
grim glasses, we like to wear
tiny, grim glasses.
Our parents willed us this
view. It's tundra? We love it.

We travel our kind of
Renaissance: barnfuls of hay,
whole voyages of corn, and
a book that flickers its
halo in the parlor.

Poverty plus confidence equals
pioneers. We never doubted.

by William Stafford, 1914 - 1993
in The Way It Is, 1999

Is it that we are reminded of ourselves when we see American Gothic? Or, as Stafford says, maybe our parents? Or, more likely, our grandparents or great-grandparents. Stafford hints at faith and endurance. Both poems express the sense we get when looking at the painting that life is just so daily, as indeed it is. Stone mentions patience and points out that even the things not visible -- the farm animals, the smokehouse -- would be mundane, entirely predictable. The worried thoughts within the minds of the farmer and the housewife are routine, quotidian.

Yet life can also be so surprisingly strange, so Gothic, like that window. The house may look ordinary, but the window does not. In the middle of my farmyard, here's art! Inside my house, here's a tapestry! Inside my barn, here's a perpetual Renaissance!

!How cute is this?
My older sister & brother dressed up Grant Wood Style!
1955 or so

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, March 14, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

You might also enjoy my previous posts on the poetry of William Stafford:

9 January 2010
26 February 2010
11 June 2010
18 November 2010

Cold Morning Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Happy Valentine's Day:
"Come and sit by my side if you love me!"

**************************

"Look around you, look up here
Take time to make time, make time to be there
Look around, be a part
Feel for the winter, but don't have a cold heart"

lyrics from "Lady"
by The Little River Band
**************************************
I first discovered the poems of Naomi Shihab back in 1975, in a publication called Power: Personal Reflections by Youth for Youth. My friends and I enjoyed subscribing to this little St. Louis - based poetry magazine and ordering gift subscriptions for each other every Christmas. Although Naomi didn't know it, I was her groupie in those days and copied all of her work into a notebook that I kept throughout high school and college. The following cold morning poems have long been among my favorites:

#1
I would be no one.
I would have no head, no hair, no comb.

I would be the thin mist in the air of a cold morning;
I would rise and disappear early, before the sun
and the noisy streets and everyone moving.


I would hum and greet you when you awaken,
with no words, no face, no promise but my love,
like a river.

I would be here, be here, be here invisible, forever --
when all the braver ones have gone to hide --
when all these tears have years and years been dried.


#2
It is a new day, chill and icy like a cold, sharp, knife.
It is a new day in a long line of new days in a life.

OH! OH! OH!

I walk in wonder to watch
The bundled people in the early light returning with nods
A morning hello

And to think we felt alone all night.


Now, I think I might read this second poem somewhat differently than I did back in the years when I was first such a fan of Naomi Shihab's youthful poetry. More often than not, the "bundled people" do not respond with a nod or a morning hello. No acknowledgement whatsoever of your shared humanity on this planet. Life can seem so harsh, making it through the maze of obligations and errands, dealing with this conflict or that, so many daily unpleasantries. Then, as evening falls, home at last to the inner sanctum of family, friends, and loved ones. Such security!

And to think we felt alone all day!

Home Sweet Home
Here is one more "cold morning" poem, written some twenty years later than those above. This one carries a more somber tone, a sense of loss, and a bit less certainty that all is now or ever will be right with the world:

Snow
Once with my scarf knotted over my mouth
I lumbered into a storm of snow up the long hill
and did not know where I was going except to the top of it.
In those days we went out like that.
Even children went out like that.
Someone was crying hard at home again,
raging blizzard of sobs.

I dragged the sled by its rope,
which we normally did not do
when snow was coming down so hard,
pulling my brother whom I called by our secret name
as if we could be other people under the skin.
The snow bit into my face, prickling the rim
of the head where the hair starts coming out.
And it was a big one. It would come down and down
for days. People would dig their cars out like potatoes.

How are you doing back there? I shouted,
and he said Fine, I’m doing fine,
in the sunniest voice he could muster
and I think I should love him more today
for having used it.

At the top we turned and he slid down,
steering himself with the rope gripped in
his mittened hands. I stumbled behind
sinking deeply, shouting Ho! Look at him go!
as if we were having a good time.
Alone on the hill. That was the deepest
I ever went into the snow. Now I think of it
when I stare at paper or into silences
between human beings. The drifting
accumulation. A father goes months
without speaking to his son.

How there can be a place
so cold any movement saves you.

Ho! You bang your hands together,
stomp your feet. The father could die!
The son! Before the weather changes.

from Fuel

all poems by Naomi Shihab Nye (b 1952)
Contemporary Palestinian / American Poet

A few more of my Naomi Shihab Nye favorites from the mid - 1970s appear in previous posts:

"Now"
Intellectual Cup of Lyrics (November 4, 2009)

and

"My Cat" & "Feeding the Cat"
Quotidian Cat (November 6, 2009)

and one more

"Spiritual Journey"
can be found in the right hand column of mantras on
The Quotidian Kit:

"Where are you on
your spiritual journey?"
you ask, your sharp eyes
thumbtacking the question
on my heart.

What can I say?
I am somewhere beyond "go"
I have not stopped.

Years have shown me
the idea of travelling
is a game we play with ourselves
to pretend we're not home.

ANYONE HOME?SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, February 28, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com