TC: James Schuyler: December

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Hanging Christmas decorations in Providence, Rhode island: photo by Jack Delano, December 1940
 

........................................................................Il va neiger dans quelques jours

........................................................................FRANCIS JAMMES

The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound,
this morning was reared into place at Rockefeller Center.
I thought I saw a cold blue dusty light sough in its boughs
the way other years the wind thrashing at the giant ornaments
recalled other years and Christmas trees more homey.
Each December! I always think I hate “the over-commercialized event”
and then bells ring, or tiny light bulbs wink above the entrance
to Bonwit Teller or Katherine going on five wants to look at all
the empty sample gift-wrapped boxes up Fifth Avenue in swank shops
and how can I help falling in love? A calm secret exultation
of the spirit that tastes like Sealtest eggnog, made from milk solids,
Vanillin, artificial rum flavoring; a milky impulse to kiss and be friends
It’s like what George and I were talking about, the East West
Coast divide: Californians need to do a thing to enjoy it.
A smile in the street may be loads! you don’t have to undress everybody.
..................................“You didn’t visit the Alps?”
..................................“No, but I saw from the train they were black
..................................and streaked with snow.”
Having and giving but also catching glimpses
hints that are revelations: to have been so happy is a promise
and if it isn’t kept that doesn’t matter. It may snow
falling softly on lashes of eyes you love and a cold cheek
grow warm next to your own in hushed dark familial December.


James Schuyler: December, from May 24th or So, 1966

Ice skating in Rockefeller Center, New York, New York: photo by John Collier, December 1941

TC: That time of year

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Boy beside store window display of Christmas ornaments: photographer unknown [Jack Delano?], December 1941 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Delmore Schwartz: The Winter Twilight, Glowing Black and Gold



That time of year you may in me behold
When Christmas trees are blazing on the walk,
Raging amid stale snow against the cold
And low sky's bundled wash, senseless as chalk.
Hissing and ravenous the brilliant plant,
Rising like eagerness, a rushing pyre
(As when the tutti bursts forth, and the chant
Soars up -- hurrahing! -- from the Easter choir).

But this is only true at four o'clock,
At noon the fifth year is once more abused,
I bring a distant girl apples and cake,
Pictures, secrets, lastly my swollen heart,
Now boxed and tied by what I know of art
-- But as before accepted and refused.



Delmore Schwartz: The Winter Twilight, Glowing Black and Gold, from Vaudeville for a Princess and Other Poems, 1950

Boys looking at store window display of toys: photographer unknown [Jack Delano?], December 1941 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

William Shakespeare: Sonnet 73: That time of yeeare thou maiſt in me behold

William Shakespeare: Sonnet 73 (1609 quarto)

That time of yeeare thou maiſt in me behold,  
When yellow leaues, or none, or fewe doe hange  
Vpon thoſe boughes which ſhake againſt the could,  
Bare rn'wd quiers, where late the ſweet birds ſang.
In me thou ſeeſt the twi-light of ſuch day,  
As after Sun-ſet fadeth in the Weſt,  
Which by and by blacke night doth take away,  
Deaths ſecond ſelfe that ſeals vp all in reſt.
In me thou ſeeſt the glowing of ſuch fire,  
That on the aſhes of his youth doth lye,  
As the death bed, whereon it muſt expire,  
Conſum'd with that which it was nurriſht by.
   This thou perceu'ſt, which makes thy loue more ſtrong,
   To loue that well, which thou muſt leaue ere long.

 William Shakespeare: Sonnet 73: That time of yeeare thou maiſt in me behold, from 1609 Quarto

Christmas trees and wreaths in store window display, photographer unknown [Jack Delano?], December 1941 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)



Shoppers walk through fake snow on Oxford Street during a traffic-free Christmas shopping day in central London: photo by Olivia Harris/Reuters, 24 November 2012

TC: Waning Crescent Moon

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Yumiharizuki (Bow-shaped moon), from Tsuki nijūhakkei no uchi: 28 views of the moon: Hiroshige Ando (1797-1858), [185-, printed later] (H. Irving Olds Collection/Japanese Prints and Drawings, Library of Congress)

Later the light
spike heel hoof
click
of the California mule

Deer
cantering
up the middle
of Colusa

In deep night
under a waning
crescent
moon

Bird flying with faint crescent moon in background: artist unknown, between 1870 and 1920, from series of illustrated sheets (Japanese Fine Prints, Library of Congress)



Red sun surrounded by feathers above the ocean: artist unknown, between 1870 and 1920, from series of illustrated sheets (Japanese Fine Prints, Library of Congress)

The thin gold shaving of the moon floating slowly downwards had lost itself on the darkened surface of the waters, and the eternity beyond the sky seemed to come down nearer to the earth, with the augmented glitter of the stars, with the more profound sombreness in the lustre of the half-transparent dome covering the flat disc of an opaque sea.  The ship moved so smoothly that her onward motion was imperceptible to the senses of men, as though she had been a crowded planet speeding through dark spaces of ether behind the swarm of suns, in the appalling and calm solitudes awaiting the breath of future creations.
Joseph Conrad: Lord Jim, 1900

TC: Now She Dwells Here

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Old growth European Beech forest, Biogradska National Park, Montenegro: photo by Snezana Trifunovic, 2007

It was the work of fortune

which brings joy and not pain only.

But can a winged thing become less?

She lived on E. 75^th Street

to speak plainly.

I mean: in the divisiveness of love

two people pass through

the same instant separately

for all their awareness sighs

for life and not for each other

but in doing that it does.

(1968)

TC: (Re)Possession

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Rainy Night: Charles Burchfield, 1918 (The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.)

 

 
He creeps round the eerie empty houses at night
the cry of a lost soul illuminating a late window
on foreclosure and dispossession

The night stalker
alone, driving for hours through abandoned
neighborhoods, senses a curious

elation -- calmed for once, for once feeling almost
at home -- as though the light left on in 
the vacant house had been lit

there for a ghost -- for him, alone -- 

Untitled 2152, 1998: photo by Todd Hido (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 2524, 1999: photo by Todd Hido (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 1968, 1997: photo by Todd Hido (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 1922-c, 1997: photo by Todd Hido (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 2312-a: photo by Todd Hido, 1999 (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 1738: photo by Todd Hido, 2003 (Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York)


 
Untitled 1726: photo by Todd Hido, 1996 (Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York)

Untitled 1975-1-a: photo by Todd Hido, 1996 (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 2376: photo by Todd Hido, 2000 (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 3510: photo by Todd Hido, 2008 (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 2077: photo by Todd Hido, 1998 (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 1154-a: photo by Todd Hido, 1998 (Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York)

Untitled 8350: photo by Todd Hido, 2009 (Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York)

White curtain in warm light: photo by Christoph Michels, 2006

Half million dollar house under foreclosure, Salinas, California: photo by Brendel, 13 February 2008

TC: 1968

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Die Schiefe Ebene der Szalajkabahn in Ungarn: photo by E. Scherer, 2007
 

All the while I was
being numbered and
stored by history
as an example
of something
as flat and thin
as a picture
in a textbook
or an image
on film
I remained under
the illusion I was
merely living

Goldfinches: photo by Monster 2000, 2008

TC: On the Beach

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The storm has ended and death steps back
Into the waters once more.  All our troubles
Are behind us once and for all.
The moon looks down in single glory.
The apocalyptic view of the world
Supposes things do not repeat themselves.
But they do.  And they do.  And they do.
The sky clouds up.  A new storm comes on.
Apocalyptic thinking presumes
All this has never happened before
And will never happen again. I know,
As the moon beams down on the photo-plankton,
All this will never happen again, too.
Wisdom is cold and to that extent stupid.




Brighton Beach, Melbourne, after the storm: photo by Beau Wade, 2003