.
Cherry blossoms in rain: photo by Steve Gravrock, 6 March 2011
Lots of
wind and rain
the most fragile
cherry blossoms
the thinnest
rhododendron petals
not even wrinkled
Rain on rhododendron: photo by Robert Lz, 30 April 2005
Rhododendrons in rain: photo by ironacres, 17 May 2010
The sandpiper
all alone, usually
runs with a cloud
alone today, eating
sea-bugs -- where does he
live at? Where are his books?
Western Sandpiper, Cattle Point, Uplands, near Victoria, B.C.: photo by Alan D. Wilson, 2007
Philip Whalen: April Showers Bring Rain? 7:iv:65 (excerpts)
9 comments:
Breathtaking! Thank you.
And thank you, Vincent.
I love the way Philip feels his way into that sandpiper with two questions:
where does he live at? Where are his books?
The essentials.
His books! His books! Where are his books. That's my favorite line too. He must have forgotten them at the sandpiper library. Along with his glasses.
Yes, and perhaps he's hunting for a lost contact lens there in the tidal flats. But even a blind sandpiper would probably be able to detect the presence close-by of those enormous tasty-looking banana slugs. And once he turns up that contact lens, being a properly literary sandpiper, he will be able to consult a book, and look up "banana slug", and put two and two together. Lunch!
So he's also very good at math. Ah, these sandpipers, they have it all.
Well, it's now being contended here that what he needs is not math but botany and biology, because those things I have called banana slugs are not animal but vegetable. Some form of seaweed perhaps?? And the Sandpiper would know that, without requiring even simple addition.
But even if seaweed, still succulent enough, for lunch, at the Sandpiper Cafe?
Having now sought professional counsel in the matter, I reckon he's definitely after something a bit daintier than a monster banana slug or monster seaweed.
A group of Sandpiper scholars, applying themselves to their studies.
The sandpiper hasn't forgotten his books--he's just browsing through the Nature section of his library--good reads make for eclectic morsels.
(BTW, "please prove you're not a robot" wants me to type in "nature ngistIr" so here goes!)
Vassilis, is it not curious that in recent weeks the google word verification idiot machine has taken to requiring that instead of laboriously sorting out and typing in two bits of gobbledygook, one now need merely type in one perfectly plausible word of English, accompanying a sole dollop of gobbledygook...?
(The minute you start to suspect the lab pixies of developing symptoms of considerateness and/or reasonableness, then you know: You ARE a robot!)
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