Photographs by Avedon
This was written in a friend's home in the Berkshire Mountains, on a Saturday morning, a few years ago. Up early, I went exploring their bookshelves and found a book of Richard Avedon's photographs of average Americans out west. Google "richard avedon photos of the american west" - then read the poem. Please, for without seeing the faces, for this will make all the difference. In the Berkshires, it is always chilly there, even in the summer sun. This and other obscure references are better detailed in the notes.
Join my warmth and
my chill,
as the nine o'clock sun,
a 45 degree steeplechase
warms,
but still not
strong enough
to dispense
the lingering,
residual, remaindered,
breezy chill
of the prior eve,
that hides in,
emanates from,
the shadows
of the
deep wooded hillocks
of the
Berkshire Mountains.
Join my warmth
and my chill!
Upright jolted,
head kicked awake,
entranced and revolted,
excited and repelled,
emotive, yet, stilled.
For oh so casually,
this heroic city dweller,
brave and fearless
bookshelf explorer,
retrieves a book,
to find a new route
thru time and space
to the center of his brain.
Photographs by Avedon,
of my fellow Americans,
the Have Nots,
his "Havedons"
of the
American West.
These uncommon people
with whom I share
uncommonly little,
these drifters, the carneys,
the would-have-been cowboys,
busted blackjack dealers,
rattlesnake gut n' skinners,
coal and copper miners,
the hay truck drivers,
dirt so deep in
their pores ingrained,
colors and bloodies their souls,
browns their veins,
are the ones that
too oft,
go off first to
fight wars
in my name.
Photos untitled,
words unneeded.
In this far corner of our
shared contiguous space
called the
United States of America,
top of the line here
would be
insurance agents,
secretaries and maybe even,
the waitresses.
But their eyes,
oh their eyes!
Words I do not own
to fair share with you,
the clarifying gaze
of measured dignity and
immeasurable ache,
heritage pride,
heretical heartbreak,
that marks and unites
these disparate and dispirited
vessels of humankind.
Disjointed,
the noon suns finally,
raises my body temperature
browns my surface...
Yet, nothing eradicates
this ******* chill
in my soul
or calms my consternation,
as black and white
eyes discolor
my comfortable existence,
as I ponder
Avedon's words:
All photographs are accurate but none tell the truth
Pass over,
pass by,
The Evil Son at Passover
asks ever so sly,
what have they to do with me?
It is the Sabbath.
We luxuriate in our rest.
Rest is the greatest luxury
What is this Sabbath?
Heschel's cathedral -
existant both
in space and time,
and one enters
when and where
one can.
Do my distant,
(both in space and time)
American cousins
share my Sabbath?
Are they allowed
this luxury,
or is it endless exertion,
severity and deprivation,
all and every day
of their lives?
Constant risk every day.
Who cannot fail to see the
precipitousness of life
edged in the lines of their
hearts and minds?
Day to day hardens them
and teaches the
discipline of
severity unended.
Is the prudence of
self-forgetfulness,
their morning bitter pill
they must swallow
to carry on?
Among the resolutions
I need
to claim a
life fulfilled is this:
How to end this poem,
close this can of worms,
accidentally kicked open.
Will sunset end these
troubling questions
of which you have
your own,
more personal variations?
(what about the ...)
Perennials flower everywhere,
in Auschwitz,
along the Tigris,
even in Kabul and Somalia,
along the highways
that lead
to the mecca of
Las Vegas.
Perennials flower everywhere.
In warmth and cool,
in time and space,
they flower in my heart and
my brain and in
my prayerful tears.
flowing down my cheeks,
as I lay me down to sleep,
to dream these of
impoverished words
Havdalah^^ thoughts,
separations celebrated.
Distinctions noted,
even celebrated tween
holy and common,
light and dark,
Sabbath and
the six weekdays
of labor,
between sacred and secular
and
between me and
my American Brothers
of the American West.
I know
just one thing
to be true:
The Sabbath Cathedral is
open to all,
whatever day
you choose to
abide there
I await you,
my American cousins,
with wine and bread
and the
holy of holiest words
of comfort and sooth.
I will wash your feet and
lay you down to
restful sleep
in the
Sabbath Cathedral
in my heart.
Together,
at last,
we will be joined,
in warmth and chill.
August 29, 2010
Lanesboro, Mass.
----------------------
* "In The American West" by
Richard Avedon
** many of the phrases in this stanza were taken from an article "The Few, The Proud, The Chosen" in Commentary, September 2010
^ Abraham Joshua Heschel, a modern Jewish Philosopher. Elegant, passionate, and filled with the love of God's creation, Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath has been hailed as a classic of Jewish spirituality ever since its original publication-and has been read by thousands of people seeking meaning in modern life. In this brief yet profound meditation on the meaning of the Seventh Day, Heschel introduced the idea of an "architecture of holiness" that appears not in space but in time Judaism, he argues, is a religion of time: it finds meaning not in space and the material things that fill it but in time and the eternity that imbues it, so that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals."
^^ Havdalah is the ceremony to celebrate the end of the Sabbath, and realize the distinctions between the holy day and the workweek, the day and the night, light and day...
