Truth shall make you free

CHICORY MENOROTH

There were Goulds for 150 years

plowing granite outcrops

in New Hampshire.  Topsfield

nurtured them, with jagged shears,

thick brambles, frozen lakes.

They strove in relative

obscurity – no live

broadcasts, no edited remakes.

Live Free or Die.  The grumpy stoic

emits a little light,

no less – the gift outright

be given back (one life, unique).

An intuition of soul liberty,

that’s all – that one might have

life in oneself, to serve

& swerve again (Boethian quiddity);

that conscience might arise like spring

in blustery New England –

a crocus prancing gold

before snow melts; your being

perfect, in a sense (meek master

of your own ramshackle

chicken-yard, O Jacqueline).

You glimpse them off the highway – chicory

menoroth, maybe – glimmering

remote star-woodcuts,

lamps over lonely fields...

just rightness in your bones (beaming).

2.8.16

Here is a cluster of Index labels under the subject : Henry (label : subject/Henry).

I haven't linked to every term in the numerical series for some of these labels (i.e. criticism2, criticism3...), but only to the initial term (i.e. criticism). (See Index for more on this.)

Related topics (there are others) : breakdown, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry's books, Shakespeare...

from Joseph Conrad's Nostromo :

Charles Gould walked rapidly round the table, and, seizing her hands, 
bent down, pressing them both to his lips. Before he straightened himself 
up again to his full height she had disengaged one to smooth his cheek with 
a light touch, as if he were a little boy.

 
"Try to get some rest for a couple of hours," she murmured, with a glance 
at a hammock stretched in a distant part of the room. Her long train swished 
softly after her on the red tiles. At the door she looked back.

 
Two big lamps with unpolished glass globes bathed in a soft and abundant light 
the four white walls of the room, with a glass case of arms, the brass hilt of 
Henry Gould's cavalry sabre on its square of velvet, and the water-colour sketch 
of the San Tome gorge. And Mrs. Gould, gazing at the last in its black wooden 
frame, sighed out--

 
"Ah, if we had left it alone, Charley!"

 
"No," Charles Gould said, moodily; "it was impossible to leave it alone."

 
"Perhaps it was impossible," Mrs. Gould admitted, slowly. Her lips quivered a
 little, but she smiled with an air of dainty bravado. "We have disturbed a good
 many snakes in that Paradise, Charley, haven't we?"

far left : my great-great-grand-uncle, Gen'l Delos Sackett [Mexican War veteran. Founded town of Las Cruces, NM, with rawhide-rope survey. Photo at battle of Antietam.] His descendant, my grandmother, Florence Ainsworth Gould, was born on the 4th of July, 1900.]

Me back from the national midriff, busy, busy. readin' Stephen Greenblatt's fascinatin' Will in the World (Shacks-pear biographie). Will's (& his father's) coat of arms:

"Gould, on a Bend, Sables, a Speare of the first steeled argent. And for his creast or cognizaunce a falcon, his winges dispplayed Argent standing on a wreath of his coullers."

Gould, on a bender. Sweet old Will - always thinking of me!

Saw the film Pollock on video. Tom Waitts song at the credits:

"On his hand, he wore the ring of another.
The world keeps turning, the world keeps turning."

sad, sad movie. (but this song was even sadder.) great how he tried to re-enact the painting.

a film about the painter being filmed in the act of painting. yes. (Everyman is the vanishing point of every Scripture.)

A little weird to watch, in that Ed Harris in this film looks exactly like my brother Bill, and acts a little like my brother Mike. (see here Mike's cover for Nedge #5, which I think is a little masterpiece.) (while we're at it, here's his cover for #2. not bad either, Clem)

more Dove Street:

3     
                     Omnia enim universalia, generalia atque specialia in  
                     te Iuliano iulianizant  [All universals, generalities, and 
                     specifics julianize in you, Giuliano]      
                                              – Nicolaus Cusanus


 
A faint gray pencil-sketch   my mother made   decades ago
floats in a blue corner:  two redhead brothers   like twins
almost an octave   Guillem & Giacomo   sit   parallel
each sketching (right-handed)   intent   upon   blank white

 
& Gong Xian   abandoned the field   and the fugue of war
(a change of ancient dynasties   Ming for Shang)
trailing retreat   transmuting each desire
(only flickers   of black horsehair)

 
the Yellow Mountain was   left to your imagination
in grey-black flecks   and war and peace   the blank
spaces   the crooked lightning paths   left up to you
(your willing hand   your loving heart   your sight)

 
Leonardo drew (lefty, mancino) the faintest of red lines
beneath the leaning eyes of Mary   bending down
(seraphic)   toward the babe:   his notes
a kind of mirror-writing (all’ebraico)   with “tired hand”

 
And in the wintry womb   the gray-black limbs
iterate (tired, crooked) against the snow   a backward trail
or trial   a coiled, cold metal spring or   trapper’s guile
(elusive prey   grey shadow   fleeting   glimmering)

 
low cooing   from a frozen eave or   looking-glass
intones an octave   twinned in unison   (some mournful-
silver marriage rite):  a thread of golden lightning
through an ocarina   to a painted ear (and scandalized)

 
announces stormy weather   thunderstorms and   thaw
across the mountains   where waterfalls   rush
past banks of cedars, reeds   (your brush with
fate   by horsehair   led you   here)

       
                                   2.20.04