Prism VI

Sixth of a serie of twelve simulated "prisms". The end turns better, I guess.

[...]
How oft have I laid fold from fold
And peered into my mind—
To see of all the purple and gold
Not one gleam left behind!
[...]

George MacDonald, "The Prism" (sixth stanza).

Prism V

Fifth of the serie of twelve prisms.

[...]
For still, outside the nursery door,
The bright persistency,
A molten diadem on the floor,
Lay burning wondrously.
[...]

George MacDonald, "The Prism" (fifth stanza).

Butterfly born from a dream

Inspired by a post by Dzeni that I happily Stumble'd Upon.
Orange is my favourite colour, it means -depending on its context- a spiritual search for the infinite, enthusiasm, happiness, determination, and a thirst for action. And the butterfly, you already know, its metamorphosis represents emergence, regeneration, rejuvenation, awakening -and commonly- a resurrection into a life condition that is free of material concerns.

Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

Zhuangzi (莊子), "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly".

Red and blue and blue and red

If you are one of those, like me, who can't take a side on red or blue, this is for you. :-) The image is simply red and blue and blue and red, but not red or blue nor blue or red, nor only red and blue, nor only blue and red, but just red and blue and blue and red. So that's the name.

By the way, have a nice innocents' day.

Ethereal Blue

Woke up today after a God-like voice spoke to me directly from the sky of a dream and shocked me to wake, like I told in the previous post. The first thing I did after getting out of bed was turning the TV news on, and walked to the bathroom; at middle way, I stopped when my blood froze by hearing that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated after returning to Pakistan and days before the elections. Just went heavily disheartened and silent for some hours. Had no thoughts in my mind. Nothing.

Turned on the computer, started rotating images like I do to ease my mind, and this was the first that bloomed, a simulated flower again, and when I saw it, I thought "Ethereal Blue... what an irony... however it is the opposite of Earth-like Blood Red, and represents my state of mind... and possibly represents her too. OK".
And that's what my morning was...

Abstract Nº 30

An abstract and a dream:



That's the abstract, and this is a dream from last night:

I was in a open field of wheat, looking at one dutch windmill. The windmill was going away so I thought "I must be running backwards really fast, but I don't feel like moving the legs". Then I turned around and saw the back of a woman, dressed in white, clothes waving in the wind, she was walking and had her arms open, like caressing the wheat. But she was going away fast too. So I looked at my feet, and they were going away too, everything was going away, exactly like a camera constantly zooming out, then I thought: "Ooh, the universe is expanding!", immediatly, a male voice from the sky almost screamed: "You're wrong!", and I woke up.

Prism IV

[...]
But ah, when for her prisoned gems
She peeped, to prove them there,
No glories broken from their stems
Lay in the kerchief bare!
[...]

George MacDonald, "The Prism" (fourth stanza).

Christmas colours

Just twirled some red and green, only to justify posting this poem today, one of my all-time favourites, no matter if it is Christmas time or not. My christmas dedication for everyone. Enjoy the poem, please; it is such a strong beauty...

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Lord Alfred Tennyson, "Ring out, wild bells".

Prism III

[...]
Deftly she folded up the prize,
With lovely avarice;
Like one whom having had made wise,
She bore it off in bliss.
[...]

George MacDonald, "The Prism", (third stanza).

Prism II

[...]
Small, flitting hands a handkerchief
Spread like a cunning trap:
Prone lay the gorgeous jewel-sheaf
In the glory-gleaner's lap!
[...]

George MacDonald, "The Prism", (second stanza).

Prism

EDIT: Please excuse me everyone who got a Hallmark e-card twice from me. The server sent the first attempt _very_ late!

I have a simplistic serie about, somewhat, simulated "prisms" (yes, another thing about colours). It will start today and will end on the first days of january. On the meantime I'll plan something to create from ideas, or will try to create something out of inspiration, to post later.
The serie has a subtle evolution, and each of the ten images will have the companionship of one of the ten verses of "The Prism" by George MacDonald.

On middle january I'll take one to two weeks of deserved vacations. However, I'll try to post anyway, because I like it. ;-)

Happy holidays everyone!

A pool of broken sunbeams lay
Upon the passage-floor,
Radiant and rich, profound and gay
As ever diamond bore.

[...]

George MacDonald, "The Prism", (first stanza).

Prismatic flora

This is the end of the serie of simulated flowers. It would have been better if I'd have been more focused on the symbols, or clearer on the posts, but I was going through a process too. Some works end up interesting, so I feel accomplished.
This last image would be like a compendium. Better be like a brief manifesto, of why my road through colour; will use the words of Chesterton for that.

On must we go: we search dead leaves,
We chase the sunset's saddest flames,
The nameless hues that o'er and o'er
In lawless wedding lost their names.

God of the daybreak! Better be
Black savages; and grin to gird
Our limbs in gaudy rags of red,
The laughing-stock of brute and bird;

And feel again the fierce old feast,
Blue for seven heavens that had sufficed,
A gold like shining hoards, a red
Like roses from the blood of Christ.

G.K. Chesterton, "Art colours".

Magenta flower

Well, this is for me, because I like it.
Magenta, white, and green, real colours in nature. Each "petal" is made by an unreal cut, each cut seems to me unending in its trace, it creates eternal curves, and each petal is slightly differently coloured.

White is not a colour but it contains them all, green is the common in nature, and magenta is the "non-green", a negative of green in colour theory, since it contains all radiations of red and blue and none of the green spectrum. With the years I found a pattern in my obsession with magenta, cyan and yellow: The three are substractive primary colours. Interesting how the mind works.

All of the above is symbolic for me. The whole in the white, the opposite forces in the green and magenta, and the eternal way of the sojourner in the neverending curves.

Aside the digression, this is a dedication for Mage, the paria colour which gives the contrary on nature.

So happy birthday to me, but right now, continuing with the same kind of thoughts -giving the contrary on nature-, would be an excelent time to stop the biological clock; as Groucho Marx said: "If you keep having birthdays you'll eventually die." :-)

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

I beat and pound for the dead,
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

Vivas to those who have fail'd!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!
And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself", part 18.

Seven petals

Seven tiny petals in the center. Runnerfrog wanted to make this gift to his favourite vardøger, Cristian René (or viceversa), for his birthday -tomorrow; with a couple of tender words as a dedication: "Learn, bastard".

If you set out in this world,
better be born seven times.
Once, in a house on fire,
once, in a freezing flood,
once, in a wild madhouse,
once, in a field of ripe wheat,
once, in an empty cloister,
and once among pigs in sty.
Six babes crying, not enough:
you yourself must be the seventh.

When you must fight to survive,
let your enemy see seven.
One, away from work on Sunday,
one, starting his work on Monday,
one, who teaches without payment,
one, who learned to swim by drowning,
one, who is the seed of a forest,
and one, whom wild forefathers protect,
but all their tricks are not enough:
you yourself must be the seventh.

If you want to find a woman,
let seven men go for her.
One, who gives heart for words,
one, who takes care of himself,
one, who claims to be a dreamer,
one, who through her skirt can feel her,
one, who knows the hooks and snaps,
one, who steps upon her scarf:
let them buzz like flies around her.
You yourself must be the seventh.

If you write and can afford it,
let seven men write your poem.
One, who builds a marble village,
one, who was born in his sleep,
one, who charts the sky and knows it,
one, whom words call by his name,
one, who perfected his soul,
one, who dissects living rats.
Two are brave and four are wise;
You yourself must be the seventh.

And if all went as was written,
you will die for seven men.
One, who is rocked and suckled,
one, who grabs a hard young breast,
one, who throws down empty dishes,
one, who helps the poor win;
one, who worked till he goes to pieces,
one, who just stares at the moon.
The world will be your tombstone:
you yourself must be the seventh.

Attila Jozsef, "The Seventh".

Amber petals

George Sterling knew how to say that we are easily fossilized, in the flower of fate, into the amber petals of our customs.
I don't like talking of myself in this blog, gives me a brain-freeze each time :-) However, although it is one of my artworks, felt pleased with the final result of this image. The extremely long serie of simulated flowers that started with the spring, is coming to an end with the last day of spring in the south too, on december 21st. It is also for me a way to be forced to move on, -this poem expressed the core of it very well, -to be forced to find inspiration out in the cold, and move out of the creative block, out of the "fossil resin". Good luck to me from then on. :-) I like the minutes I spend here.

"The Bones of Agamemnon are a show!"
And only yesterday I held in hand
That fossil resin from the Baltic strand—
The Miocene in mimic afterglow;
And there, distinct from mandible to toe,
Perfect as on the day when last he crawled,
An iridescent beetle widely sprawled,
Caught in that golden gum so long ago.

On some fine morning of the perilled Past,
He had gone forth so bravely (say, alone,
On his adventure), thorny and cuirassed,
Eager, perhaps, to win a scarab-throne,
But found a fate not all unlike our own,
Whom custom's pale viscidities hold fast.

George Sterling, "Amber".

Nuclear flora

The image should have been more alike the nuclear sign, having only three petals, but that would have made it less floral, so it was an issue to solve; and I ended up preferring five.

Oh they're testing the bomb as I'm singing this song
They say not to worry cause nothing can go wrong
They're testing the bomb as I'm singing this song
They say not to worry cause nothing can

Sheldon Allan Silverstein, "Testing the bomb".

Flower of strange fluid

Dear soldier poet, and dear soldier,
For some reason I lack the writing and speaking accent for a truthful sounding assertion. Even though, I must try to reach you with this poem by a K.I.A. poet, plus sincere wishes of a 2008 without a war and finding you at home, and your mind clear of ghosts at day and night.

May you have rest in your time, and that bring you happiness, and enough inspired moments to write down your art, or just your life.

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
And by his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the fluies made moan.
"Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now…

Wilfred Owen, "Strange meeting".

Crystal flower

The name doesn't represents the image enough well as I'd like to.

"In the crystal of a dream, I have glimpsed / the Heaven and Hell that lie in wait for us"... Outstanding, unique. I've just intended a flower-like shape coming out of the penumbra, to represent the overwhelmed moment of the oneiric Revelation that involves ages and creeds. No-one has a clear idea how I utterly adore this poem (mostly in the original in spanish). But now someone has some :-)

The Inferno of God is not in need of
the splendor of fire. When, at the end of things,
Judgement Day resounds on the trumpets
and the earth opens and yields up its entrails
and nations reconstruct themselves from dust
to comply with the unappealable Mouth,
eyes then will not see the nine circles
within the inverted mountain, nor the pale
meadow of perennial asphodels
in which the shadow of the archer follows
the shadow of the deer, eternally,
nor the ridge of fire on the very lowest level
of the infernos of the Muslim faith,
antedating Adam and the Fall,
nor the violence of metals, not even
the almost visible blindness of Milton.
No fearful labyrinth of threefold iron,
no doleful fires of suffering, will oppress
the awestruck spirits of the damned.

Nor does the far point of the years conceal
a secret garden. God does not require --
to celebrate the merits of the good life --
globes of light, concentric theories
of thrones and heavenly powers and cherubim,
nor the beguiling mirror that is music,
nor all the many meanings in a rose,
nor the fateful splendor of a single
one of his tigers, nor the subtleties
of a sunset turning gold in the desert,
nor the immemorial, natal taste of water.
In God's infinite compass, there are no gardens,
no flash of hope, no glint of memory.

In the crystal of a dream, I have glimpsed
the Heaven and Hell that lie in wait for us:
when Judgement Day sounds in the last trumpets
and planet and millennium both
disintegrate, and all at once, O Time,
all your ephemeral pyramids cease to be,
the colors and the lines that trace the past
will in the penumbra form a face,
a sleeping face, faithful, still, unchangeable
(the face of the loved one, or, perhaps, your own)
and the sheer contemplation of that face --
never-changing, whole, beyond corruption --
will be, for the rejected, an Inferno,
and, for the elected, Paradise.

Jorge Luis Borges, "Of Heaven and Hell".

Fourteen

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon — his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, "I will put Chaos into fourteen lines".

Rainbow clouds Nº2

On remembrance of a personal day, December 13th, 1993, fourteen years ago.

On this long storm the Rainbow rose—
On this late Morn—the Sun—
The clouds—like listless Elephants—
Horizons—straggled down—

The Birds rose smiling, in their nests—
The gales—indeed—were done—
Alas, how heedless were the eyes—
On whom the summer shone!

The quiet nonchalance of death—
No Daybreak—can bestir—
The slow—Archangel's syllables
Must awaken her!

Emily Dickinson, 194.

Lotus flower III

Mud fails to touch and soil its perfect hue.
A gentleman lives up to its proud name.
Wind wafts its scent on quiet moonlit nights.
Its wealth is purity, unmatched by all

Nguyen Trai, "The lotus".

3D abstract Nº28 (or Gate to the Green Hell)

[...]
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

William Blake, "The marriage of Heaven and Hell".



This is my abstract in 3D Nº 28, of a long serie of works with genetic algorithms in 3D. I'm creatively stuck in 3D much worse than I am in 2D. Poor, poor C. :-)
I uploaded this one by mistake, but before erasing it, I thought that may be it was its time to see the light, so left it here.
I use to name all my results in 3D as abstracts; but to me, this is the gate to the deep green hell :-P May be I shall rename it now that the image achieved its place between the rest.

Abstract Nº 29

A dream from some months ago:

I was a preteen in the dream, riding a bicycle, following a young girl, first twenties, on a bicycle too. The street was recently paved or about to be, covered with sand, was difficult to drive straight, but funny. She turned right, going out of the street with sand. The new street was upwards. She had her hair very long and black; her face was not clearly visible, as she was in front. The street was a dead end, she left her bicycle and trespassed a house by the side door, I did the same. She was walking fast and decided, from one backyard to another, jumping fences, and I followed. On the backyards I saw chairs, tables, hoses, toys, abandoned glasses of red drinks with umbrellas (?), and I felt very worried about being discovered trespassing, nevertheless I kept following her. Jumped another fence after the girl, then we passed below some weird backyard ceiling and I saw the shadow of a dog and jumped afraid to one side, but wasn't attacked nor heard a bark, so looked at the shadow and was a statue of a dog in bronze, a bulldog, in position barking, and made me laugh in the dream. When I looked, I lost sight of the girl, so I ran through several backyards until finding her, jumping another fence. The more fences we jumped the more precarious the situation and the landscape became; more weeds, and places seemed abandoned. This last fence was truly weak. Then the weeds became a forest, and inside the shadows, the dream turned into something I lost in the memory.

Unflowering explosion

Continuation and supposed end of the serie, started by slightly flowrishing, continued by definitively flowrishing, and by rather flowrished, and by interfered flowering. But now just a reminder of a time in hell that already passed.
Chaos, yes. Ugly, exactly, that's the point of it. It disgusts me the whole combo of colours and shapes in this one, and I was looking for that in it. Disintegration. And the end of the serie, and the cycle, as a catharsis. Goodbye to it. The good remains, the bad is discarded.

Couldn't choose between the song and the poem.

you shatter me
your grip on me
a hold on me
so dull it kills
you stifle me
infectious sense
of hopelessness and
prayers for rain
i suffocate
i breathe in dirt
and nowhere shines
but desolate
and drab the hours all spent
on killing time again
all waiting for
the rain

you fracture me
your hands on me
a touch so plain
so stale it kills
you strangle me
entangle me
in hopelessness and
prayers for rain
i deteriorate
i live in dirt
and nowhere glows
but drearily and tired
the hours all spent
on killing time again
all waiting for
the rain

The Cure, "Prayers for rain".

Heart, you are restless as a paper scrap
That's tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;
Saying, "She is most wise, patient and kind.
Between the small hands folded in her lap
Surely a shamed head may bow down at length,
And find forgiveness where the shadows stir
About her lips, and wisdom in her strength,
Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!"...

She will not care. She'll smile to see me come,
So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me.
She'll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me,
And open wide upon that holy air
The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,
Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.

Rupert Brooke, "Unfortunate".

Interfered flowering

A countinuation of the serie, started by slightly flowrishing, continued by definitively flowrishing, and by rather flowrished. Just a piece of museum now, only a souvenir of a rough time that already passed on. It is supposed to be an ugly looking image; hopefully more than the common here. :-)

[The song] 'I Me Mine' is the ego problem. I looked around and everything I could see was relative to my ego. You know, like 'that's my piece of paper,' and 'that's my flannel,' or 'give it to me,' or 'I am.' It drove me crackers-- I hated everything about my ego-- it was a flash of everything false and impermanent which I disliked. But later I learned from it-- to realize that there is somebody else in here apart from old blabbermouth. 'Who am I' became the order of the day. Anyway, that's what came out of it: 'I Me Mine' ...it's about the ego, the eternal problem."

George Harrison.

All through the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Now the frightened are leaving it
Everyone's weaving it
Going on strong all the time
All through the day
I me mine

I me me mine
I me me mine
I me me mine
I me me mine

All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
No one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through the night
I me mine

George Harrison, "I me mine".

Flower of ten petals (and II)

I always felt extremely thankful to Donald Justice for having written this poem. Unfortunately this companionship doesn't looks like a flower. Well, I've done worst.

Late arrival, no
One would think of blaming you
For hesitating so.

Who, setting his hand to knock
At a door so strange as this one,
Might not draw back?

Donald Justice, "To A Ten-Months' Child".

Flaming lotus

Lotus flower, symbol of the purity of the soul into the material world. Flames, symbol of the spirit in action, to improve the material world. And the red lotus, symbol of the love and compassion for others. All, hopefully, in one flaming lotus.

How many times, like lotus lilies risen
Upon the surface of a river, there
Have risen floating on my blood the rare
Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.

So I am clothed all over with the light
And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;
Till naked for her in the finest fashion
The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.

And then I offer all myself unto
This woman who likes to love me: but she turns
A look of hate upon the flower that burns
To break and pour her out its precious dew.

And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain,
And all the lotus buds of love sink over
To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover,
Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.

D.H. Lawrence, "Lotus hurt by the cold".

Flower of the night sky

(For Cristina B.)

In this night sky, the moon is the capitulum, and the blue petals twirl around.
I want that no harm never happen to anyone. I want so much.

They sleep within. ...
I cower to the earth, I waking, I only.
High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely.

We have slept too long, who can hardly win
The white one flame, and the night-long crying;
The viewless passers; the world's low sighing
With desire, with yearning,
To the fire unburning,

To the heatless fire, to the flameless ecstasy! ...

Helpless I lie.
And around me the feet of thy watchers tread.
There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head,
An intolerable radiance of wings. ...

All the earth grows fire,
White lips of desire
Brushing cool on the forehead, croon slumbrous things.
Earth fades; and the air is thrilled with ways,
Dewy paths full of comfort. And radiant bands,
The gracious presence of friendly hands,
Help the blind one, the glad one, who stumbles and strays,
Stretching wavering hands, up, up, through the praise
Of a myriad silver trumpets, through cries,
To all glory, to all gladness, to the infinite height,
To the gracious, the unmoving, the mother eyes,
And the laughter, and the lips, of light.

Rupert Brooke, "Sleeping out: Full moon".

Red flower

I owe this to Giovanni. Was mostly inspired by him: this has some deepness but it's not joyful (surprise, surprise) ;-)



I can't explain the obscure symbol I attach to the red twirling petals (Well, I can, like always could, but, don't have the clarity in my mind to translate it into words right now; not these days), however it exists. It is strongly attached to the topic of the poem. The topic was selected minding Giovanni's deep care about human soul, but the topic is one of my taste and selection. So everything has a working sense, the twirling, the colour, the poem... it is me who can't be clear these days.
I've always been attached to this poem; it has, included around, some of my child visions of sadly joyful attachment to war, during the Malvinas/Falklands conflict. Henry Van Dyke did it perfectly in his quoted poem related to the first world war.

Even in the simplicity of my results, the prompting artworks has been Multiplier and Swirling, by Giovanni Rubaltelli. So thanks.

In the pleasant time of Pentecost,
By the little river Kyll,
I followed the angler's winding path
Or waded the stream at will,
And the friendly fertile German land
Lay round me green and still.

But all day long on the eastern bank
Of the river cool and clear,
Where the curving track of the double rails
Was hardly seen though near,
The endless trains of German troops
Went rolling down to Trier.

They packed the windows with bullet heads
And caps of hodden gray;
They laughed and sang and shouted loud
When the trains were brought to a stay;
They waved their hands and sang again
As they went on their iron way.

No shadow fell on the smiling land,
No cloud arose in the sky;
I could hear the river's quiet tune
When the trains had rattled by;
But my heart sank low with a heavy sense
Of trouble, —I knew not why.

Then came I into a certain field
Where the devil's paint-brush spread
'Mid the gray and green of the rolling hills
A flaring splotch of red,—
An evil omen, a bloody sign,
And a token of many dead.

I saw in a vision the field-gray horde
Break forth at the devil's hour,
And trample the earth into crimson mud
In the rage of the Will to Power, —
All this I dreamed in the valley of Kyll,
At the sign of the blood-red flower.

Henry Van Dyke, "The Red Flower".

Crystal petals

Well, my apologies again; I confused glass with crystal. I'm a mess lately.

As in a clear glass
I want to see her, I feel;
I would meet my darling;

As a belt of jewels,
My enduring love
Grows lusher now.

Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro, poem named after the first line.

Abstracts Nº 26, 27 & 28

We seek in art an image of eternalization. If for a brief moment our spirit finds peace and rest and assuagement in the contemplation of the beautiful, even though it finds therein no real cure for its distress, it is because the beautiful is the revelation of the eternal, of the divine in things, and beauty but the perpetuation of momentaneity. Just as truth is the goal of rational knowledge, so beauty is the goal of hope, which is perhaps in its essence irrational.

Nothing is lost, nothing wholly passes away, for in some way or another everything is perpetuated; and everything, after passing through time, returns to eternity. The temporal world has its roots in eternity, and in eternity yesterday is united with to-day and to-morrow. The scenes of life pass before us as in a cinematograph show, but on the further side of time the film is one and indivisible.

And how is this individual essence in each several thing—that which makes it itself and not another—revealed to us save as beauty? What is the beauty of anything but its eternal essence, that which unites its past with its future, that element of it that rests and abides in the womb of eternity? or, rather, what is it but the revelation of its divinity?

And this beauty, which is the root of eternity, is revealed to us by love; it is the supreme revelation of the love of God and the token of our ultimate victory over time. It is love that reveals to us the eternal in us and in our neighbours.

Is it the beautiful, the eternal, in things, that awakens and kindles our love for them, or is it our love for things that reveals to us the beautiful, the eternal, in them? Is not beauty perhaps a creation of love, in the same way and in the same sense that the sensible world is a creation of the instinct of preservation and the supersensible world of that of perpetuation? Is not beauty, and together with beauty eternity, a creation of love?

This suffering gives hope, which is the beautiful in life, the supreme beauty, or the supreme consolation. And since love is full of suffering, since love is compassion and pity, beauty springs from compassion and is simply the temporal consolation that compassion seeks. A tragic consolation! And the supreme beauty is that of tragedy. The consciousness that everything passes away, that we ourselves pass away, and that everything that is ours and everything that environs us passes away, fills us with anguish, and this anguish itself reveals to us the consolation of that which does not pass away, of the eternal, of the beautiful.

And this beauty thus revealed, this perpetuation of momentaneity, only realizes itself practically, only lives through the work of charity. Hope in action is charity, and beauty in action is goodness.

Miguel de Unamuno, "The tragic sense of life", Chap. IX (Faith, Hope and charity).

Frozen flowering

Finally will present my apologies for three things: creative block, the low quality of work related to that, and the lack of silence :-) I keep forcing myself to post every day even knowing of the block, and this worsens the block and also drives more readers away than the silence. The punishment of being attached to post daily is only mine.
I've been hearing of a cruel autumn on the north, as it has been here before on the south too.
The creativity in me, or the growing in the blog -the ability to link minimal interesting ideas has been going from understandable to obscure, then to none, as the winter in the north is freezing nature.
So I'm caught in a frozen flowering; while the sun of springtime is burning like if it was summer here at town. Too many worries, may be.

Spring stars glitter in the freezing sky,
Trees on watch are armoured with frost.
In the dark tarn of a mirror a face appears.
Time is moving through displacements.
Hungrily the blind earthworm burrows
Deeper into its night. Surely
Heaven must ache with all its vacancies.
A dog’s howl is thrown up like a rope-trick.
It is an hour for prayer without words.

James Phillip McAuley, "Winter morning".