Redirect to Collectages

Too busy this past weekend in the city and right now with end of semester chores to post much, but check out Nicole’s Collectages blog: as a further installment of her “Spring Meditation Places in NY,” she has just posted the narrative of our Saturday excursion with visuals into the depths and heights of Staten Island. Not a place I ever knew well, or felt specially attracted to — though I can’t set foot on it without thinking of my old departed friend, the poet Armand Schwerner. He must have known the Tibetan Museum, but not sure if the got to see the Chinese Scholar’s house which opened the same year he died, 1999. Here’s poem from his Selected Shorter Poems:

the way up is the way down
with some material from Robert Kelly and Ted Enslin

so often
as if earth had a trachea
full of dust
I envision my sons Adam and Ari falling through the street

‘as if earth had a trachea’
that was your phrase but
I envision my sons Adam and Ari falling through the street
that wasn’t what you had in mind?

that was your phrase but
I was drawn to an image of falling;
that wasn’t what you had in mind
father?

I was drawn to an image of falling—
the way up is the way down—
father
did you used to have such pictures?

the way up is the way down
so often
did you used to have such pictures
full of dust