Under the Influence

I've been having a running conversation with Chaiselongue and Barrioboy about the ways we who follow each other on Blip influence each other, educate each other (in the sense of draw out what is in each other), and become part of each other's journey. I feel that about all the people whose journals I subscribe to. We all travel together, and a motley lot we are, too--and we could be MORE motley and I'd be even more pleased (don't get me started on who doesn't appear here, because I am often sad about that).

Specifically the issue of diagonals has arisen--our fondness for them. So today after I got my hair cut in preparation for the peace demonstration in D.C. (only six days off!), I went out hunting for diagonals.

I found a congregation of diagonals in this corner by the art museum, and I thought--as I did yesterday, with the artichokes--how much diagonal lines please me. In the case of today's shot, I'm grateful for the clutter of golden leaves that breaks up what might have been a relentless geometric arrangement. The value of the picture to me is first of all a delight in discovering how many diagonals I can fit into one frame; and also a mood--a quiet autumnal corner with its complicated dance of shadows.

Chaiselongue has mentioned a fondness for Emily Dickinson's poem, the one I'm calling Emily 1 below. Another Dickinson poem, which I'm labeling Emily 2, is bleaker. I've never been sold on Dickinson. Sometimes she gets it just exactly RIGHT as I think she does in the poem Chaiselongue likes; and sometimes I find her lugubrious, overly terse, depressing. Then I long for a dirty limerick so I can brighten up again. So I'm adding one of those at the end, courtesy of Abraham Verghese, whose Cutting for Stone I am currently reading with great delight.

Emily 1

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind--

Emily 2

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

Dirty Limerick
(courtesy of Abraham Verghese)

There was a man from Madras
Whose balls were made out of brass
In stormy weather
They clanged together
And sparks came out of his arse.