Night Sky

Milky Way viewed from Death Valley
Mikly Way viewed from Lava Beds National Monument

Photographs by the Night Sky Team

"We human beings lose something of ourselves when we can no longer look up and see our place in the universe."

David Crawford of the International Dark-Sky Association, from a must read article on light pollution and the efforts to keep the night sky unimpaired in our national parks.

A Dahlia

Un Dahlia

Paul Verlaine

Courtisane au sein dur, à l'oeil opaque et brun

S'ouvrant avec lenteur comme celui d'un boeuf,

Ton grand torse reluit ainsi qu'un marbre neuf.

Fleur grasse et riche, autour de toi ne flotte aucun

Arôme, et la beauté séreine de ton corps

Déroule, mate, ses impeccables accords.

Tu ne sens même pas la chair, ce goût qu'au moins

Exhalent celles-là qui vont fanant les foins,

Et tu trônes, Idole insensible à l'encens.

Ainsi le Dahlia, roi vêtu du splendeur,

Elève sans orgueil, sa tête sans odeur,

Irritant au milieu des jasmins agaçants!

There is no satisfactory English translation of this poem (at least not that I know of), which reminds me of how impossibly difficult to translate from one language to another. Verlaine's description of a dahlia, the metaphoric flower-woman, is full of rancor. The poem reflects Verlaine's bitterness in the failure of his relationship with his first love, Elisa. His barely contained misogyny is projected into nature, into the guise of the dahlia, an opulent beauty without perfume.

I like the alternating tercets addressed to the courtisan/woman (1 and 3) and to the flower (2 and 4) an interesting structure, something that the two translations I read completely ignored.

The world is so vast

Wild lupines, Norfolk, Connecticut
Frangipani tree, Key West
Palm Beach
Bay Bridge, San Francisco
São Paulo
Paraty, Brazil
Ipanema, Rio de Jainero
Paraty, Brazil
Paraty, Brazil

"I must leave the bonds that kept me confined, and move elsewhere. Move on, move on, move on. Move like the waterfall, like the ocean waves, like the birds at down, like the light at sunrise. That is why the world is so vast, the earth so extraordinary, the sky so infinite... That is why the call of death is nothing but the same call to change one's abode."

Rabindranath Tagore, "Travel"

This is how I used to feel when I was young. I lived in different countries, made my home in different continents, always moving on. Now that I am older, I want to attach myself to a small piece of the earth, to cultivate my garden, and to find what T. S. Eliot so eloquently calls "a still point of a turning world." But the life that I have carved out for myself keeps me moving. These are just some of the places I've been in the last couple of months.

The re-enchantment of flowers

I've been too busy to post anything lately, but here is a blogpost about me on Martha Stewart Weddings website.

Paraty, Brazil

Paraty viewed from the seaA small island in the bay off Paraty

Restaurant by the water
Swimming spot surrounded by islands that are kept as nature reserves

Horse- drawn carriage

The church Santa Rita at sunset

Paraty is a lovely colonial town on Brazil's southeastern coast, the Ilha Grande Bay. It's surrounded by mountains and the sea. Founded in 1531, the town was a busy port in the 18th century, when ships filled with gold sailed regularly from Paraty to Portugal. Today, the town is a national historic monument and the buildings strictly preserved.

The sea around Paraty is pristine and dotted with hundreds of small islands. The emerald green water is great for swimming, and the islands are lush with vegetation. Ferns, plants, and even fruit-bearing trees grow out of the rock outcroppings. It is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

Nothing is so beautiful as spring

At last a sunny day, which makes me think of the first line of Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem, "Spring." I also like this from the same poem: "The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush the descending blue; that blue is all in a rush with richness."

Indeed, the descending blue.

Spring in California

I just returned from having spent ten days in California. Every year since my father's passing away, I go back there in early April to be with my family on the anniversary of his death. I find myself in the same place, at the same time, where everything seems the same but nothing really is. The same flowers bloom - my father's lilacs and peonies, roses in the neighbor's front yard, the dogwood in my sister's garden - but I see everything through the prism of his absence. Every flower I marvel at is another flower that my father will never see.

The days hurried past and here I am back in my own home. The strongest memory I've carried back with me is an afternoon spent alone with my oldest brother. The two of us picked oranges and sat talking under the grapefruit tree. There is much that separates us, but we are bound, as if by an invisible thread, by the things that our father taught us. As I sat there with the warmth of the sun on my back and my brother's voice filling the space between us, I felt my father's absence and presence all at once, and it made me more happy than I had been in a long time.