Le Nuage Noir, 2002
—Paintings by Miquel Barceló
—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
NOT YET SPRING
Not yet spring
by the Frog Pond
frozen by ice
the secretive wind blurring
me from the mountain air
by my bird-fed sparrows
watching at a distance
when the sun in equal shape
bows near the sky cloud
stopping over the country store
for a blueberry muffin
by the Vermont lake
and later near my telescope
at my evening watch
hearing noise
in a barn full of kittens
the breeze on the porch
from my old poetry house
whirls up the yellow kites
in an open-questioning ease
to rotate in a frosty breath stupor
when the cold snatches
my knotted red scarf
and the words of my mouth
cry out among Elm leaves
wishing for crickets to sound
dreaming of a peaceful hearth
mending all of us by the fireplace
in this cross-country season
of my reliving youth now
in the identity of a guest visitor
from the quiet of a ski resort
as dogwood will soon emerge
with its leafage of my musing.
ATWOOD'S FUGITIVE SPRING
Margaret Atwood
lost herself
in new lilacs
by the woody banks
of the Charles River
on a faceless day
telling us again
of her new projects in words
that as your fingerprints open
from solitude
for ideas in this company
of wellspring poets
arriving like portraits
of metallic hosts
in a metamorphosis of time
to take our shares
into an abolished kingdom
embracing petals
to open us up to anything
even nature's thorns
through nature's bird circling
by snow paths of coming back
a taxi ride by the Harvard Club
after an award ceremony
with customary worth
bartering for warmth
to enclose your parting glances
by the Evergreen trees in the yard
with an understanding camera
matching up a photograph
of a nameless March at noonday.
Self-Portrait by Boat, 1984
PROUSTIAN SPRING
Paris let me laugh after
again watching the plays
of Racine as in my youth
along the riverbanks,
recover me from exile
when the world
wears a sardonic smile
of Jean-Paul Belmondo
in Breathless
wanting to embrace
to say yes to the darkness
in the last seat
at the orphaned metro
the Seine implants my heart
with the new wave of thanks
holding up red roses and wine
for a double feature
waiting for Renoir's
Diary of a Chambermaid
to begin its showing
knowing I have a chance
to play out with friends
in my emptiness of a game
by the backgammon tables
along with the good company
of students with their backpacks
who ride by in yellow motor cars
one of whom knew me
offering this poet a day out
of connected nostalgia
that still stays with me
with my evidence of memory.
3 Tomátiques, 1994
CARTOGRAPHY
The map is of a surrealist
you may not yet know him
from Adam by the closeness
of his walk returning to his roots
like a nameless plant of manna
the poet has returned to visit
a favorite painter Miquel Barceló
born on his birthday Jan. 8, 1957
yet he wanders in a nature preserve
with the turning of bed foliage
searching for a place to stay here
more quiet in a head-rest
than a Sunday morning bluer-
than-this-island Majorca's sky
you enter the museum
at the doors holding
a nature meeting
with la palma birds
of Serra de Tramuntana
in a daytime of escape
at a sleepless mountain peak
of an itinerant dream vision
by this well traveled soul known
only to a perpetual rumor
of his bite on the apple
with an itinerary as he tells
of his ancestors’ exile
finding a snake in the field
who will answer to the holy light
even with a smattering
of the Spanish Juan de la Cruz
knowing that this March earth
survived every winter storm
until now by the hallways
of the climbers moving through
the joyful warming
at city gate fountains
with watercolors of Barceló
illustrating Dante's poetry
of his Divine Comedy
will soon witness buds in the trees
for my words are from wellsprings
of an original heart and tongue
along the sunshine at noon
and rise to speak of love
into shadows of flickering stars
covering all the mysteries
by celebrating with a guitar solo
and sung with a bird chorus
dispersing tunes to the earth
filled with stardust of geography
that is always over us.
Mayurca (Island of Mallorca), 2010
ALBERT GIACOMETTI'S GIFT
Standing next to stone
knowing your fingers
carried off memory
in hands circling
from blocks of the edges
of the raucous past designs
subject to padded form
moves on the edges
drawing our breath away
overwhelmed with metallic
tools of safe-kept secrets
only artists surmise
in shadows thinking itself
of ashen shadows
in a thought in millennium
tones in a body's space
reduced to bare the nerves
and webs to scintillate reality
to his fans’ surprise
from straddling spinal columns
of a surgically pressed pitch
destined to be immortal.
Barceló's Painting on the Ceiling of Room XX, 2008
UN Headquarters, Geneva
WHAT WOULD WHITMAN SAY
Walt sleeps on a train
making sure the snow is over
and Mayakovsky wants
his glass of tea,
there are a bunch of informers
inspecting his green card
whom the Devil tunes up
like nervous cats
with two round sleepless eyes
in the hysterical round-up
from my borderline heaven-dream
hearing the last whistle go off
as two children run away
to search for blue fish
in the icy waters off the Cape.
La Table du Marché, 1988
Today’s LittleNip:
I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
—Walt Whitman
_____________________
Our thanks to B.Z. Niditch for today’s fine breakfast of poems! For more about the contemporary artist, Miquel Barceló, see www.donquijote.org/culture/spain/art/painters/miquel-barcelo or www.widewalls.ch/artist/miquel-barcelo/. To see a slideshow of Room XX in the U.N., go to
www.foxnews.com/photoessay/0,4644,5715,00.html/#/photoessay/imag /1118081403_M_111808_ceiling-jpg
—Medusa, reminding you that this week's Seed of the Week comes with a prize—send poems, artwork and/or photos about Silence to kathykieth@hotmail.com before midnight this Sunday and receive a free copy of the newest WTF!
Miquel Barceló