Rock & Roll Farm

Monday! Apr 26 2004 // 11:54 am //

time

I’ve been visiting friends in Kalamazoo for the past two days. M invited me to meet and spend time with JD, and I’ve had a great time here. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Kalamazoo in the past and I’ve found that I like it a great deal. As JD said last night, it’s a big sleepy town, and I like sleepy towns. Last night we took a walk in the rain, and stopped in front of the Kalamazoo Intstitute of Arts to watch a sort of perpetual motion sculpture. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of public art I’ve ever seen. I’ve always had a strained relationship with public art, as the idea makes me happy but the execution is most times ugly or inaccessible. This sculpture had specially weighted arms at the top of a tall pitchfork-like structure. The arms spun slowly as the wind blew, and caused the sculpture to spin at its base, making the arms at the top spin in different directions…and the whole thing just keeps going. Every few moments the balance of the weight would make the sculpture pause, and it felt like you were seeing a new sculpture every time. The configurations were endless, and it seemed random and choreographed at once. I tried to memorize the name of the artist, but it didn’t work. My apologies. If I come across it again, I’ll update. *update* The name of the artist is George Rickey, and you can read about him, and a sculpture just like the one I saw here

JD has a book of Jorge Luis Borges poems, and he showed us a poem last night that I’ve had a hard time getting out of my head. I want to post it here in its original Spanish, and then a translation by W.S. Merwin.

El sur

Desde uno de tus patios haber mirado
las antiguas estrellas,
desde el banco de
la sombra haber mirado
esas luces dispersas
que mi ignorancia no ha aprendido a nombrar
ni a ordendar en constelaciones,
haber sentido el circulo del agua
en el secreto aljibe,
el olor del jazmin y la madreselva,
el silencio del pajaro dormido,
el arco del zanguan, la humedad
—esas cosas, acaso, son el poema.

The South

To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars,
from the bench of shadow to have watched
those scattered lights
that my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations,
to have heard the note of water
in the cistern,
known the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle,
the silence of the sleeping bird,
the arch of the entrance, the damp
—these things perhaps are the poem.