In ancient Greek the semantic ideas of crisis and decision were expressed by the same word. We don’t have to make choices because there is a crisis. A crisis evidences itself precisely because a need for a decision exists. A crossroads has been looming for some time and coming into focus…

A poem begins to fashion itself, secluded
Certainly one of us was noticing
But it can never enter the physical
Someday our vivid larynx will be godly
We will speak things into creation
But veils of time shield us that future
And this by wise design and good reason:
We are far from the requisite moral purity

A calm lake might wait forever for some pebble
Only then can actual ripples radiate landwards
No human verse may cross the material boundary
Poems dwell only in the possibility spaces
This law confers safety and a kind of freedom
Don’t loiter there coveting an actuality
It will enwrap you in a thicker fog of pathos
But press one finger into earthly soil — thou art pebble

_______________________________

_______RS

Image : detail from a 1904 painting by Theodore Kittlesen of a water Nix tending over its pond and subordinate nature spirits. In Norwegian nature spirit lore, a Nix (called Nokken in Norwegian) is assigned to watch over every body of water. When anything disturbs the surface, it commands myriad tiny nature spirits to travel outward in concentric circles to counterbalance the physical intrusion.

Music : a truly beautiful, simple and somehow profound composition from a 1973 recording by Oregon entitled “Song For A Friend”. I could never escape the perception that the two entwined biographies forming the subject of this piece had experienced a deeply riveting seperation either through an unexpected death or tragic misunderstandings. Yet, in all scars are concealed seeds. How impossibly eloquent music can be! Only two instruments, an acoustic stand-up bass and a classical guitar. I love the way, around 2:45, the roles suddenly reverse in a burst of praise and optimism, the bass dropping from melodic lead to chordal background while the guitar melody soars in spurts for awhile, before the tune returns to the original haunting structure for the final minute or so. A very good friend of mine and I used to go to a tiny Greenwich Village venue known as Cafe Wha to listen to this band. I was maybe 20. They were so unknown that we could sit literally eight feet away from them, an unraised stage, and simply be mesmerized watching them create, while sipping on tamarindo drinks. Oregon blossomed on the scene like a gust of fresh air in the early ’70s at a moment when the popular contemporary music scene was beginning to noticably descend from its spectacular creative fecundity of the sixties, as money forces extended its talons more forcefully into the arts culture. In my view. They defied description and were four virtuosos and multi-instrumentalists, and each member composed. A kind of acoustic classical/jazz band with wildly inventive tendencies. Musical equivalent of poignant watercolor paintings. Loved them.

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