Vermeer: The Milkmaid, c. 1660

Evening also breaks

Another cold morning, though not as cold as yesterday. The duck pond is free of ice, but barely; the surface ripples thickly as if it had thought to freeze but hadn’t quite made up its mind before the dawn broke. Now the sun filters weakly golden through the leafless crags of trees like a bit of tarnished jewelry, diffusing around the broken lines of branches, emphasizing their nakedness without clarifying their geometry. At least the world survived another long night. It usually does.

I have often felt that I could tell the difference between sunrise and sunset only by the light, but I have never been able to convince myself rationally that this is so. If I were stuck down in some unknown spot on the globe at one or the other time of day with no compass or geographic bearings and had to guess in an instant whether the sun was coming or going, could I? I think I could, but perhaps that’s only a conceit. The sun would appear the same distance above the horizon, its light falling at the same shallow angle, filtered through the same branches. I can’t think of any physical evidence of its movement without simply waiting to see what happened next.

Then again, a few of the Dutch masters seem to have been able to capture the difference without resorting even to painting the sky, so maybe there is a difference too subtle and complex for words. I’ve always thought that even in this interior scene Vermeer perfectly captured the light of early morning:

Vermeer: The Milkmaid, c. 1660

It couldn’t be any other time of day, could it? But maybe I only sense that because she’s a milkmaid and she’s just finished milking. Or maybe I’m full of crap and Vermeer had in mind something else entirely.

This morning, in ay case, gives the lie to all that. The orange light filtering through bare trees makes me think of sunset. Too orange, perhaps, or too wistful seeming for dawn. For a moment I can’t be sure. It could be morning with the day still to come and a bit of warming but clouds over the horizon; it could be evening before a long frigid night but stars ready to shine brilliantly and dinner waiting inside. For a moment time hangs in the balance. Then I dump the food in the chickens’ bowl and get on with the day.

Redistricting and electoral fairness: the view from Eno precinct

As if the election wasn’t annoying enough, I got redistricted this year here in North Carolina. I haven’t moved, but I’m in a completely different congressional district — or, rather, I will be when the 113th Congress convenes in six weeks or so. I wasn’t nuts about my future-former representative, and I like the new guy considerably less, but in the big picture, it doesn’t make much difference, because they’re both in Congress now, and they’ll both be in Congress come January.

But in the bigger picture, redistricting seems to have made a heck of a difference. Republicans won 9 of North Carolina’s 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives this month. Combined with the state’s vote for Romney, a newly elected Republican governor, and a re-elected majority in both houses of the General Assembly, North Carolina looks like a very red state, yes? In fact, Democrats won a majority of votes cast in North Carolina Congressional elections this year, even while winning less than a third of the available seats. Welcome to the wonderful world of partisan redistricting.

Details, research, and some history after the jump.

The angry poet lashes out at his solicitors on election day

Damn you, sirs! My vote is not my voice!
—He cried in futile fury at his email—
As if for quadrennia I silent slumbered
And woke to make myself a number!
A vote is a mere puny choice
Of wan capitulations offered retail:
But my voice is the howl of the lonely wind
Failing to sway the barren trees;
The echo of a squirrel’s endless chatter,
The dove’s meek coo, the storm’s great clatter,
And the hum of a thousand angry bees
That dance in the air with a single mind.
My voice is the song of a crosscut saw,
The crash of canopies rent and torn,
And the requiem for a single leaf that falls
Alighting soundless on the forest floor.
My voice is the horn that blaring saves
The sinking ship from the roaring waves!
The laughter of children in spring-clad sun
And the sigh of a dandelion scattering its seeds!
My voice is the voice — the voice — the voice of a man who needs
A good stiff drink. —And so he had one.

Cheap poetry, October 22–31

(Mental note:) To remember, on some soggy distant morn
This peering over moss, together bent
And an olive tendril in your gentle hand

These autumn days flee into the bluing sky
Like bubbles from the hands of laughing children,
Their coruscation bursting in our grasp.

Closeted in darkness deep
While tiny families mourn and weep
Death purrs upon a quilt, asleep.

Limits and conscientious consumption

At some level it remains inconceivable to me that slavery still exists in the world. And so it was that, a decade ago, when I read news reports about “human trafficking” in the global chocolate industry, I assumed that this problem had been “taken care of.” But of course it hasn’t, because our boundless need to consume—even something as ultimately trivial as chocolate—trumps everything.

On fallen leaves

A carpet of decay, as finely woven
As any ancient treasure dearly bought,
And lovelier for being more ephemeral:
All the artisans of Kublai Khan
In all the workshops of a mythic continent
Could not invent geometry so fair
As seven fallen oak leaves. Yet no one sees,
So none stand guard to make me wipe my feet
Before I walk on it.

Cheap poetry, October 4–16

Its ruby goblet dry, the summer flies
On wings that beat the hastening pace of time
But pauses here for one last sip. Remember
Well this welcome banquet. Come again.

You lie! My thoughts cannot be captured:
They prowl the woods on padded feet
And saunter boldly down the street
(And sing a polyphonic suite)
And fly away in rapture.

Summer is a most untidy guest

Summer is a most untidy guest,
A vacation rental every landlord dreads:
Crumbs all over the floor, attracting pests,
Insects and mice of which we can’t be rid
Without some icy extermination. Look
At all this filth! This vile disgusting mixture
Of excrement and dirt in every nook.
Cobwebs stringing sticky from the fixtures.
And the clutter! The crap he collects, like some fanatic–
Pine cones, bird bones, leaves in piles ascend
Like unread magazines all stuffed in attics
Of trees. And at the season’s withered end
He packs his bag, drives off, skips the scene,
Leaves no forwarding address. Expects the chill
Wind and rain of autumn to sweep it clean.
I shouldn’t have to put up with this. Still–
Without him, it’d be awfully quiet round here.
I guess we’ll have him back again next year.

Boycotts, action, and penance

What I would suggest, therefore, is this: Whenever you sign a boycott or a petition, any time you email a corporation or a Congressperson to ask that they change their own behavior or force a change in someone else’s, first think of five things that you could have done, relative to the same issue or a closely related one, in the past month, but did not do. Then think of one thing that you could do, and do it. The five things ensure that you don’t get to feel self-righteous about your action; the one ensures that you take personal responsibility for the issue.

Cheap poetry, September 26–October 2

From his hands a melody unfolds
That flits like butterflies through hastening crowd
Seeking stillness on which to alight.

Summer’s fire sags like an overripe peach
And bursting on October’s horizon, splatters
Cool evening across the sky.