Sequel to Stairs

Nowhere-steps

Can become a bridge

To the upper hill,

To a fresh pea-gravel path,

To a new curved bench

Hidden among pepper tree feathers.

The view is wider up here

And contemplation is invited.

November 20, 1978

Happy birthday, Uncle Ron!

Ron's Birthday

by Mary channeling Lorel  

Hooray its Ron’s birthday,   he’s ninety this year.

For this grand fellow, let’s all give a cheer!

With his lovely Renate always there by his side

The brave two adventure this world far and wide.

Enchantments in Europe with old friends so dear

Weddings in villas, and fine music to hear.

Art is their passion, Ron’s a shrewd connoisseur

And quietly stylish, an elegant monsieur.

From work in the industry, now feet on the ground

In the vast field of botany his knowledge abounds.

With wide-ranging interests and a sense of “I can”

It seems that our Ron is a ...Ronaissance man.

This designer so keen made a most clever clock.

His gifts are abundant---and, yes, he can talk!

He’ll weave a good story, he’s a deft raconteur

You’ll learn something in listening, that is for sure.

With a twinkling bright joke or some thoughtful reflection

From a vast set of stories or deep introspection.

He’s seen much of living, the bad and the good

And spins out the wisdom--- ah, if all people could.

A husband and father and Opi and brother

Let’s now make a toast to this man like no other.

A good ninety years since the day of your birth.

You’ve enhanced life’s sweet flavor for us here on earth.

In celebrating Ron on his 90th birthday, 

shortly before Passover this year, 

we should not forget that Ron has 

combined luck with character and 

accomplishment to earn 

the wisdom of age.

One of Mom's bronzes - Kindertransport - 

serves as a reminder of difficult beginnings 

and the possibility of transcending them.

 

Tear down that wall, Messrs. Heisenberg and Einstein!

Mom wrote this as a writing exercise based on the theme of an "escape from Paradise".  She enjoyed, I think as much as anything, reading accounts of scientists  peering deep  into the recesses of the unknown. As she enjoyed the unveiling of mystery, so she enjoyed "having fun", too.

Choc-o-holic humor

Sooo, there is even a TED talk entitled chocolate covered broccoli on the web.  Like Mom's poem, it's not really about food.  

Mom gets all fired up about sculpture - at age 86.

Listening...

I like this relatively early poem of Mom's because it signals to me the attention and close observational skills she focused on the natural world.  I like to think, too, of how essential careful listening is to my own work in conflict mediation...  Mom listened carefully.  She looked closely.  She saw significant details.  She heard remote whispers. This close attention to the world was at the center of her life in science, her poetry, and her art.  She attended with similar care and love to her family.  Oh world, I will listen now all the more intently with Mom's ears, since I love you both.

Siegfried Kahn (September 1, 1881 - May 1, 1981)

One of Mom's earliest bronzes was of my Opa.  Here's her fairly recent recollection of the process:  Papa's face had intrigued me since I first met him, holding a yellow rose to give me.  Teacher Eda [Mueller-Westerhoff] insisted I try a couple of other busts before I tried his likeness.  I prepared a scaffold to hold the clay and got a cup of coffee ready to occupy him at the table in our kitchen.  He sat for 1/2 hour in our kitchen on Via Santa Teresa and I worked like mad to catch his essence.  When I tried to move to his back or side, he turned as if I were a photographer.  My German wasn't good enough to explain why I had to look at the back of his head.  Because the sculpture had  to look like him for him to like it, it did.  It was amazing.  Especially to me.  At a short second session, Eric explained to him that I needed a back view.  In that sitting, I felt satisfied with my work.  Under Eda's direction, I made a waste cast and from it a plaster head. Then I made a rubber mold from the plaster and had a foundry fabricate the bronze we have today.//When Papa died, we gave both to Mutti.  With her limited sight, pictures didn't evoke his presence the way the two sculptural portraits did.  She could pat his head and tell him goodnight.  She told me she liked the plaster better than the bronze because it was warmer to the touch.

In the Spring

.

As the ripples from a stone

 thrown into water

 So I make my own impression

on the world 

Lorel Lu Daus, Age 8