When winged thoughts take flight....

Lorel Kay, Mercury (for Owen, cross country runner)

@MASS MoCA: Owen, Mary w/ Sol Lewitt

Birches, New Lebanon Shaker Village

Xu Bing, Phoenix

Xu Bing, Phoenix

Xu Bing, Phoenix

When autumn leaves start to fall

 For Eva Cassidy's Interpretation of Autumn Leaves - click here

A sense of place...

Heidelberg

This topaz city,

Crystallized from green eddys

Of Neckar and forest,

Has sung songs

Not in "The Student Prince"

To two men of my house.

Step-sliding lullabys

And night drummings

Of terror to one;

Minor-keyed love lieder

And dissonant flute melancholies

To the next.

Die Hauptstrasse

Is torn up now

By Jackhammers

and great ditchdiggers,

Its rusty pipes

On the surgeon's slab

Like clogged veins

Of an old man

Who was not always kind

To his children.

Another Sense

Pain is the Other Sense.
The nerves for pain
Are everywhere,
Running brainward
Just as visual and auditory 
Neurons do.
Just as the nose and tongue
Sample and send
And the skin reads touch messages,
So the pain nerve ends
Send alarms--
Always alarms--
From inside and out.
"Help!   Get help!" they signal.

       No More War

        The usual five
        Paint the world for us:
        Fluttery colors
        And bursts of vivid light;
        Purple sounds
        And feathery wind caresses;
        Sweet perfumes
        That tempt our appetite.
        They show a knowable world
        Out beyond us.


But pain!
Knowing pain goes beyond
Self-preservation.
Only by embracing pain
Can we feel the hurt
Of the cowering child in the corner.
Only through our own pain
Is empathy
For the crooked man
Nourished.
Only with personal pain
Do we bond with the dying
And know our fate.

April 18, 2003