Quote

A great line from Dorothea Lange: "A camera is an instrument to help people see without a camera."

And then I thought hey, you could insert the word "poem" for the word "camera" and it works just as well.

The Lange quote is from this Dyer book. Great photo book by a non-shooter.

First poem I read in 2011:

Seeing the Year Out

Want to know what the passing year is like?
A snake slithering down a hole.
Half his scales already hidden,
How to stop him from getting away?
Grab his tail and pull, you say?
Pull all you like--it does no good.
The children try hard not to doze,
Chatter back and forth to stay awake,
But I say let dawn cocks keep still!
I fear the noise of watch drums pounding.
We've sat so long the lamp's burned out.
I get up and look at the slanting Dipper.
How could I hope next year won't come?
My mind shrinks from the failures it may bring.
I work to hold on to the night
While I can still brag I'm young.

Su Tung-Po

This is the earliest I have ever started wanting it to snow. A few friends in far-off, more easily romanticized parts of the country have already had theirs, and even though a fair number of our trees are still what you would call "pretty" with color, I think we need to get on with it. It feels like we are behind here, which we usually are.

And I keep saying the last lines of this Michael Burkard poem to myself and to Catherine:

A star reports
to another star.

Reading lines like this that are pretty but removed feels a little like looking through a window at snow.

Ode to the Maggot

Instead of grading papers tonight, I made this.

Windows movie maker is a real pain to use. I wonder what else is out there.