3.29 Stan and Anne's (draft)

29 March 2020. Stan and Anne's.

I'd drive by, every now and then--it seemed by accident, and then suddenly you remember--Stan and Anne's. Their apartment in the building on Berryman Street, downstairs, behind the fence. Generic. We'd see them there for the parties--crowded, talkative affairs--a room full of writers. Floyd Salas holding forth in one corner--Floyd, the boxer--and where I first encountered George Oppen, his craggy granite presence. Anne's novel was still in the drawer--the first vampire book, and her bedroom walls were covered every inch with pictures of formula racing cars...

Here Stan is holding Mouse, their daughter. An uncharacteristic pose for a Texan--the tenderness--but that was part of him, too. Along with a narrow-eyed brio. Mouse became ill, a long struggle--we all went through this with them. Experimental treatments, finally to no avail. One night in a bar near Pleasant Valley and Piedmont (not far from the clinic). Diamond shaped panes of glass...a door with an arched top...

Stan wrote us a letter at the end of his own time--I need to find it. Longhand, on a blue-lined legal pad, the sheets torn out when he'd finished. A testimony and a good-bye, so much like him. But what I remember most was one intense poem--the image involved a goose. He was reading a lot of Suzanne Langer in those days, and her basic, straight-forward intensity very much encouraged his own. We were at Cody's, upstairs, the rows of bookshelves pushed aside to make a space--how Stan planted himself, the narrow way he could lean forward on a line, the emphasis in his voice. And especially, the last two lines,

What frightened me was not the goose,

but the gooseness.

_____
  
We lost Stan in 2002. He was always an independent figure--erudite but country, articulate but resolved--as if fate would bring on those Texas plains wind storms no matter what. He never seemed to be a part of any group--especially in the poetry world, how many writers identify. A school of one, and he lived his life that way. Anne offering a parallel with her ever-expanding imagination. After one of those parties, at 3am, I remember a can of beer, on the edge of the side table, next to the couch, dripping onto the floor... They offered us the couch at one point, not long after--it's been in the living room here ever since...

3.28 evening shots

3.28 Gil's

28 March 2020. Gil's.

Two elephants, side by side, in an Albany shop window. One of those places I grew up with, so no wonder it feels so familiar. The intricate brickwork of the facade--a local tradesman, my guess--someone who enjoyed the possibilities of a limited repertoire. Wooden moldings, enameled many times over--currently a pale green, but you really don't notice this in the evening light. There's a lot of stuff in there--I used to think antiques, but I see that it's really a furniture repair. The elephants are in front--at least for now--and they've caught my eye on every walk. Additional light. Whoever placed them anticipated this, splayed slightly--they're made of bronze or brass, with a high polish, trunks raised in some kind of imagined elephant way--idealized into curves, but its the legs that are the least naturalistic--after all, how could a brass elephant truly represent their kind?

The time C and I were walking together at the San Diego Zoo. The elephants, organized into a show, moving in file, around and around in an open space near where they lived. Their cages, I mean. Visitors standing nearby, just outside the perimeter, children especially, the show hosted for them. You take this in all at once--first, the excitement because of the size of the animals, and their aliveness--but with trainers nearby--with their metal-tipped poles--the picture changes. And then the hobbling chains--not too prominent. (Am I misremembering this?) We stood to the side, happy and sad. More sad really, for there was nothing to be done. I watched one of the creatures draw near--we somehow recognized each other. I made a small wave...

C says the elephant knew--she could see it in his eye...

3.26 Tony, Cinde and Mauricio

 

































26 March 2020. Tony, Cinde and Mauricio

The three of us--not yet quite photographed, so I'll write from the drawing itself. (The sunlight beautiful this morning, but illuminating my table so strongly that the lights and darks overpower the image.)  Feels very much as if should use this time to write--the sunlight, even with a cloud now passing high overhead. But just for a moment... Now the golden sunlight again!

Found some drawings my father had made, there in a drawer under his worktable in the Oceanside garage. On Walters scratch paper, a number of sheets, held together with a rubber band. I remember first looking at them--it was the same day we saved the carved mallet, which I treasure--I've drawn it here before. The drawings were a surprise--I never knew he did this. Tentative, in a way, but also strong. Exploring ideas for his sculpture. What struck me was the combination, of course--the tentativeness was not how I thought of him--but he'd never had instruction, and so felt that his efforts were each one somethig new, to be hinted at or discovered, rather than dashed out with brio. (He had plenty of brio in the right situation, of course!)

Now, several directions possible. Bonnard, for one--the small scraps of paper he'd carry in his coat pocket on walks in Le Cannet. Noticing a new motif. Jotting it down in one of those rapid notations (I don't want to say sketces, because the word always lessens. And those small drawings of Bonnard's--and the way they fueled the paintings--he once said that if he could remember the motif, he could work on a painting for twenty years...

My drawings here somewhere in between the two, no doubt. My father and Bonnard. Two kinds of tentativeness, for different reasons, towards different ends. Two kinds of tenderness...
_____

The sculptures themselves were beautifully strong. C has two of them in San Diego, on the shelf under the bedroom windows. We see them each morning...

3.25 Deer with Plum Branch

25 March 2020. Deer with Plum Branch.

The word for today--frescor. Popping up on the screen each morning--I always forget they'll be there. Freshness. A reminder. Chosen by some anonymous host from the dictionary world, to educate.  Or entertain. Or spread around at least. But there's too much spreading around--the tiny invisible not-quite-alive bits of matter that can carry us all away... The song came before, of course. They always do. Rastaman Chant. A dream of Zion...

One bright morning, when my work is over
Man will fly away home...

Is it better that Zion remain a dream? Perhaps. Wrote to Duffy, the neighbor, "my salvation home," not knowing quite what I meant. Always best--when the meaning comes before the sense. Describing a cherished garden in San Diego. Then C told me, just last night, Adam and Gen--the neighbors there--have it. We knew instantly what that meant. (Gen returning a week ago on a flight from Spain... )

But in the next moment? What feelings? A weight, just beginning--a new layer in the story...
_____

The deer's back legs are remarkably strong. No wonder they can leap as they do. To get this right you'd have to go running in a field...
____

Afterwards she read to me, from Out of Africa. Our beautiful time. The ornery old Dane who lived his last months on the farm. Or Dusk, the Scottish Deer Hound. Or Lulu, the baby forest antelope. And all the beautiful descriptions of Kamante. His letter, much after. "We all know you remember us..."

Which in Africa means, of course, "We all remember you..."

3.23 Turoń (test)

23 February 2020. Gasmask and Trees. Graphite on paper.

The gas masks showed up as I was hunting for images of the Turoń. Life-protecting, but lethal in their own way. As always with Soviet-era production, the materials and assembly were astoundingly crude--so basic and direct, the mind of the military engineer unveiled--each part connecting to the next in the most literal way. You feel you know everything about how they work, just by the way they look. And, because of this directness, they could be manufactured in great number.

Like the story of the T-34, the Soviet tank that won the war. Produced en masse in makeshift factories behind the Eastern front--again, with the most basic production requirements--crude but remarkably strong, like so much else that came out of the Soviet effort. They rolled west by the thousand.

A German battle report: "He (the T-34) drives through our line like an impregnable prehistoric monster..."
_____

But today? That haunting quality is still there, in part from the passage of time. As with  everything else from another era--we become aware of its aura. (Walter Benjamin's definition-- the qualities of an original at a certain distance.)
_____

And the trees? A respite, no doubt--our backyard, bushy and overgrown, the leaning trunk of the olive, seeking sunlight, or the dense green ivy along the fence. And one of the neighborhood deer just came into view--always at the right moment. I know they know...

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