Nature’s hardest hue we’re told
Evening gold gives way to pink and blue
And orange and purple boldly take their place
to fill the sky with blended shades and sell until we’re sold
The fact that Nature has a lot more shades
Than what the poet talked about back then when he started this whole hue-holding discussion.
81 frames.
3 comments:
MamaM made a superb comment back when we first discussed that poem.
People will think Chip posted this... Oh look, he did.
Six version of the poem exist the first three lack any reference to Eden but do include a line, "In autumn she achieves a still more golden blaze but nothing golden stays."
Well.
Fine. Another reference to another of Nature's golds. The golden leaves of autumn in those fortunate places that have those typed deciduous trees. (In Colorado I was surprised to learn they make a BFD about Aspens changing. A single species. Turns gold. So, gold patches among the dark green pine. Nice color pattern there but not that much to it compared with the blazing fall colors of Frost's Northeast.
And I mean blazing. It's extraordinary. Red orange yellow green gold blends, browns the whole bit. Colorful! Not just gold.
No, what this means, a better interpretation, the one that I'll stick with, is the golden light of morning. Nature's first light in the morning is gold so that even a green leaf lit by oblique morning light is gold but only for a moment, it changes to green within moments. The color of light cast by morning light does not hold.
I watch a lot of sunrises. I record them. Annoyingly, I make time lapses from them. The first morning light is a poet's gold.
And that's over everything. Not just the gold streaks in the sky at sunset like this. Not just the gold leaves of autumn among all those other colors. No. It must be the exceedingly temporary golden cast to the evanescent quality of morning light particularly attractive to photographers who wake up before sunrise to be there when it happens day after day after day.
This poem was written in black ink and calligraphic pen with a flat nib. When held steady at an angle the chiseled edges leaves attractive artistic lines that vary thick to hair thin depending on the angle of the stroke so that thin lines and thick lines are parallel because the pen is held at steady angle while forming letters. It is a very attractive handwriting on thick white paper, a thoughtful handwritten card to me for my birthday from a man ten years younger than myself.
Give me a moment and I'll recall his name. Starts with D. Art dripped from his fingertips. Whatever he did was art. Paint a wall: art. Repair a sidewalk: art. Construct a fence: art. Make a little cake: art. Sit down and write a birthday card: art. His life went like this: art art art art art art art art art art art art art .
Then he died. And he was mad as hell that he did not make it to thirty. Now that I'm thinking on it, D-something, I will remember your name and recite a vocal invocation to you because you were fierce. Creative. And fun. You need to be remembered. By name.
He was also a bit macabre this way. He collected dia de los muertos statuettes and little painted wooden vignettes with skeletons and Halloween type subjects except Mexican style. And poems about golden lit things not being able to stay.
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