Nature Insight: Fruit-fall-ness

When the leaves turn colors the wind turns cold and brings them down. But I’ve already raked that over, finding fruit among what’s fallen.

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

More Musing Music

...suddenly unable to hold off the invasion of a single violin.

    Tis a strange kind of igno’rance this in you!
That you your victories should not spy,
Victories gotten by your eye.
That your bright beams, as those of comets do,
Should kill, and know not how, nor who.

from ‘The Innocent Ill’
 a poem by Abraham Crowley (1618-1667),
put to music by Pietro Reggio (1632-1685).

     His fingers found their tension and touch, rolling an introduction into a breathless pulse, smeared arpeggios giving pause as a singer came into the light and performance, carrying a lute and lovely tune. The lyrics were in English though his intonation was not, his voice giving him beauty he never had and youthfulness that denied his graying face. His eyes were downcast, his mouth wet and a little whiskered, his wandering back and forth courting romantic notions he seemed too reserved to pursue.
     Music came down from the gallery too, in the long shimmering phrases of viols, treble and bass, sublime and subdued, individual but uncompetitive in contrast and counterpoint, the pulse of their playing like inhaling and exhaling. Certainly Donatella breathed easier, unfolding her hands and closing her eyes, almost unconscious of where she was though she did realize her mother softly humming a harmony all her own.
     The viols were slowly persuasive, the audience surrendering to their calm and melancholy, even Albrici joining the passive resistance to more sound than expression. It seemed their victory was imminent, that they had conquered the field and could continue unguarded, but without more power were suddenly unable to hold off the invasion of a single violin.
     It irrevocably broke the consort, twisting and turning and working itself into a manic mastery, its bow slashing so every listening heart bled. Sudden remorse was just part of the act but affecting all the same, nothing but pretension wrong with its performance, not a sound that wasn’t beautiful despite its arrogance, such difficulty created and brilliantly overcome.

 Copyright © 2011 by DM Denton
All Rights Reserved

Writing note: The excerpt above is from my work-in-progress novel, ‘She Shall Have Music”, sequel to the completed (not yet published) ‘A House Near Luccoli’©.

Please check out my previous Musing Music post.

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Nature Insight: Simply Raking

The light was low,

shadows soft,

layers of leaves

gathered

with my thoughts;

no wind

to blow

them away.

1. Out of clutter, find simplicity
2. From discord, find harmony
3. In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity

Albert Einstein, Three Rules of Work

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Nature Insight: Crocus at Last (and Forever)

Colchium Autumnale

There is a memory here, planted moments before it was too late.

It’s not what it seems. These are not the spring variety, waking from frigid dreams, wooed by what is to come, green showing warily yet buds often opening too soon.

These are not flowers fraught with anticipation. They’ve already been revealed, lost their clothes in the crowd, withdrawn to regrow and regroup before winter. These latent lilies are a law unto themselves, having done it all before, bending this way and that, exploding unashamed into sunshine and tears, inviting their withering surroundings to dance before the mystery of dying.

For here is immortality.  Everywhere.  And so the generous age offered a handful of corms for drilling into years she might or might not have ahead, too deep to be forgotten.  

Writing note: The autumn crocus actually isn’t a crocus—it’s in the lily family (crocuses are in the iris family), flowering in the fall. Autumn crocuses send up their leaves in the spring but they die back by summer, the flower stalks rising and blooming quite indecently in fall. Some common names are: naked ladies and mysteria. Mine were given me many years ago by an older neighbor friend of my mom’s, Sue Drilling, a farmer’s wife, who was fiercely independent as well as extremely intelligent and artistic, living alone into her 80’s (no one knows for sure, as she would never tell her age…) in a large Frank Lloyd Wright style house where she had a very wild but wonderful perennial garden. The new owners have since dug it all up and replaced it too neatly with shrubs and lawns, less to care for and enjoy.

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Poem: Yeats Warned Me

 

As I grow older
I become
lost in youthfulness.
The sky draws darker
reclaiming
starry innocence
while water
at its deepening
appears less troubled,
and leaves fall
fast into winter
full of sleep
yet not so gray as
the sun comes closer.
Most poets
love the shadows deep,
pilgrim souls
the wandering days
changing everything
and nothing.
But Yeats warned me
of regret,
so I’ve been waiting
and expecting it
as prickly
as the thistle down
and out of
time for murmuring
how love did escape
to will more
of life in its wake.

Writing note: Here is the poem that prompted mine… 

               When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)  

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Musing Music

I’m an un-practiced musician. There grieves the piano, anticipation of my touch buried for now. A guitar excited me for a little while but was, after all, too difficult. There waits a harp, hopeful of my embrace again. My voice still sings, for an audience of angels if they’ve nothing better to do, or as I think I can put the passion I have for a career I never did into words.

And so often the fiction I write–out of history and imagining, love and disappointment, encounter and escape, silence and sound—is musing from and for music (melodious, melancholy, magical music), easier done for its company.

I share a little of my playing with words now, and will probably do so again later. 

   

     

“Musical” excerpt from A House Near Luccoli:

     What was he waiting for? The bow raised his right sleeve, turned his face away and lowered his chin, his own hair covering any expression of nerves. The violin bent his left arm, curling its hand, straightening his shoulders and curving his back so his hips disappeared and legs lengthened, butterfly knotted shoes closely parted like feet on a pedestal table. The slightly past midday sun was a spotlight on the terrace, his creamy coat and the crimson of Margherita’s skirt—no breeze or any kind of movement, not even a cough or whisper.
     Lonati stood and was told to sit down again. Alessandro was perfectly posed for a portrait or memory or the recognition of God, raising his sight, an aspiring suitor preparing to declare his intentions.
     Hands and laps held programs Donatella had duplicated for Una Storia del Cavalieri, Il Trionfo Erroneo di Amore. Alessandro wasn’t confident the Genoese elite would admittedly enjoy it. Unless he kept it at a distance in a self-indulged city like Venezia and accompanied by elaborate sets and costumes, effects and even dancing. There hadn’t been money or time for such an undertaking, so perhaps his hesitation considered how much depended on the manipulation of his music to refine and even refute the folly of its subject. Within moments of his bow sliding into sound a trick was also triumph, holding back impulse for contemplation and swashbuckling for delicacy, putting serenity in strings before the highs and lows of singers. Doriclea loved Fidalbo not Olindo and every note believed her until Alessandro played with them, Lonati following in friendly imitation, the castrato coming forward. Eventually the continuo slowed everyone, underscoring virtuosity and relieving it too if not for long. The principal of obstinato was practiced for connection and contest, a single motif tossed around in slightly different versions like a rumor or hope of one, voices and instruments in competing agreement.
     Alessandro was master of entertaining and editorializing, stealing the show without taking anything from the roles of lovers and go betweens, spoilers and servants—giving character to their romance, farce and delusion. He stood apart from the ensemble with nods for their faithfulness, or squints and frowns for what he hadn’t thought of. Less and less he was concerned with an audience irrelevant to his sense of achievement or regret, artistic isolation suiting him as much as flamboyancy.   

 Copyright © 2010 by DM Denton
All Rights Reserved

Link to my previous post Words and Music.

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

The Liebster Blog Award

Image courtesy of Google

Such a sweet surprise
in this blogger’s
widening skies–
having landed on
a post of Bodhirose
how kindly
she did propose
I accept
the Liebster award,
not for a moment
to hoard
but sooner pass on
to bloggers
of which I’m fond:

Laurel’s Reflections http://laurelsreflections.wordpress.com/
Becoming Herself http://becomingherself.wordpress.com/
Lost in Thought http://lostinthotphotoblog.wordpress.com/
Absurb Old Bird http://absurdoldbird.wordpress.com/
Sparkle Me Zen http://sparklemezen.wordpress.com/
Ai.Me.Be. http://aimebe.wordpress.com/

  This grateful post
encourages all
to make the most
of the links above–
spreading appreciation,
goodwill and love!

Please pay Bodhirose http://bodhirose.wordpress.com/ a visit as soon as possible.  I’m very grateful and flattered to her for this recognition!

For those receiving this award, there are a few rules:

• Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
• Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog (I did 6 because I just had to!).
• Copy and paste the award on your blog.
• Have faith that your followers will link to other bloggers.
• And most of all – blog to your heart’s delight!

Liebster means beloved in German. The goal of the Liebster Blog Award is to spotlight well deserving blogs so that others may also discover them.

No need to pass this on if you do not want to.  To borrow directly from Bodhirose, “I always feel that these awards are meant to be an honor and not a bother.  I am grateful for being acknowledged and hope you are too.“

Sharing our true selves is a wonderful thing…