My Heart is Laden
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
 | Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 4 September 2024
|
With Rue My Heart is Laden – A.E.Houseman
With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.
Today is September 4, 2024. It is a lovely sunny day but
as always my heart is melancholic as I remember my Rosemary gone on December 9,
2020. I especially remember her and not quite smile when I see the wonderful
English Rose, Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ that blooms and blooms in my back lane
garden.
It was almost recently that I began to connect our roses
with the fact that Rosemary’s name is about a rose.
I found myself forced to scan the blooms and fortunately
I knew of this lovely poem by A.E. Houseman that fits the bill perfectly.
Ever since many, many years ago when I first heard Gerry
Gilbert read his poetry and a tad later Susan Musgrave, I have been keen on
poetry. From those two I went back to Argentines Jorge Luís Borges, Julio
Cortázar, Alejandra Pizarnik, Alfonsina Storni and the Americans Emily
Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost and many others. I found it
fun to combine my plant scans or photographs with the poems of the above.
Somehow after 28 years of blogging I have memorized many of them.
My absolute favourite is a line from the Borges poem La
Lluvia that cannot be properly translated:
Le
reveló una flor llamada rosa
Y el
curioso color del colorado.
Here is all of it:
La
lluvia – Jorge Luís Borges
Bruscamente
la tarde se ha aclarado
Porque
ya cae la lluvia minuciosa.
Cae o
cayó. La lluvia es una cosa
Que sin
duda sucede en el pasado.
Quien la
oye caer ha recobrado
El
tiempo en que la suerte venturosa
Le
reveló una flor llamada rosa
Y el
curioso color del colorado.
Esta
lluvia que ciega los cristales
Alegrará
en perdidos arrabales
Las
negras uvas de una parra en cierto
Patio
que ya no existe. La mojada
Tarde me
trae la voz, la voz deseada,
De mi
padre que vuelve y que no ha muerto.
Mujer
Sunday, September 01, 2024
Desde que
mi Rosemary falleció el 9 de diciembre del 2020, mi interés por las mujeres se ha
disipado a un mínimo. La única mujer que me interesa está muerta.
Ahora veo a
las mujeres en una forma objetiva, sin olvidarme, que en un charla que presencié
con Rosemary hace muchos años en México, el antropólogo Santiago Genovés nos dijo, “No nos debemos olvidar
que la objetividad es un invento subjetivo del hombre.”
En los años
1962/63, en la Mexico City College en CDMX, mi profesor de filosofía, Ramón
Xirau, me convirtió al platonismo. Sí existe la perfección en su mundo de ideas. Lo que nosotros vemos de esa realidad es una mal copia.
Soy un fotógrafo
que por muchos años se especializó en el retrato. Ahora he seleccionada tres de
mis retratos de mujeres, que al verlas a la vez, de alguna manera representan la
perfección platónica de la idea de una mujer.
Para mí, la
letra Mujer, de Agustín Lara acompaña a perfección estos tres retratos.
Y claro
la memoria de mi Rosemary en mis entrañas es perfecta.
Mujer –
Agustín Lara
Mujer,
mujer divina,
Tienes
el veneno que fascina
En tu
mirar.
Mujer,
alabastrina,
Eres
vibración de sonatina pasional.
Tienes
el perfume de un naranjo en flor,
El
altivo porte de una majestad.
Sabes de
los filtros que hay en el amor
Tienes
el hechizo de la liviandad.
La
divina magia de un atardecer
Y la
maravilla de la inspiración.
Tienes
en el ritmo de tu ser
Todo el
palpitar de una canción,
Eres la
razón de mi existir, mujer.
La
divina magia de un atardecer
Y la
maravilla de la inspiración.
Tienes
en el ritmo de tu ser
Todo el
palpitar de una canción,
Eres la
razón de mi existir, mujer.
Not Alone on My Birthday
Saturday, August 31, 2024
 | August 31, 2024 photograph by Ian Galsworthy
|
Being alone on my birthday is saddening. That was almost
the case this year. My eldest daughter Alexandra had a dental implant on
Thursday 29th, and on Friday and Saturday (my birthday) she was not
well. She was cared for by her sister Hilary. I was resigned to spending the
day without company. At 4:15 I went out for a walk with Niño and ran into my
neighbours Ian and Kathleen Galsworthy who were walking their dog Chunky. They
wished me a happy birthday and invited me for dinner. I declined but added that
tea would be fine. They told me to come back at 5:15. They had set up a table
in the garden and on it was a small chocolate cake with a candle. Imagine this pleasant
surprise! Their daughter Isobel who is about to go to study in Wales was present. I had good company.
At his point I would like to stress that through the years I
have photographed many of our family birthday parties. But Ian’s photograph is
my first for blowing a candle.
Thank you Kathleen and Ian. Isobel good luck in Wales.
A Strawberry Daiquiri for my Birthday
Friday, August 30, 2024
 | 30 August 2024
|
I recall a drunken birthday that happened many years ago
when we were living in Burnaby. My Rosemary had gone to visit her mother in
Brockville. I was on my bed on my birthday feeling very sad and lonely. I
called up a friend. All I got was an answering machine so I sang “Happy
birthday to me…” and hung up. I went downstairs and put some strawberries in a
blender with some lemon juice and lots of rum.
On the bed I was really feeling no pain, but I did hear the door
downstairs and Rosemary said, “Alex I did not want you to be alone on your
birthday so here I am.” She came up and saw me in my condition on the bed. Her
only comment was, “How could you do this?”
After all these years that have passed by I am now able to
smile and only wish I could hear Rosemary open the door. It is not my birthday tonight. But it could happen tomorrow.
This Upgraded Century Will Move Us Forward
Thursday, August 29, 2024
 | Alexandra Waterhouse-Hayward - 1978
|
There are words that when I hear them said or see them in
print annoy me to no end.
Award-winning, at the end of the day, move forward, 99.9%
pure, and those overused stunning and iconic.
I particularly despise the word upgrade which invariably
means that whatever it is, it will be more complicated.
In this 21st century photographers and phone
photographers have abandoned the concept of Rembrandt lighting. Most Vermeers
are painted in window lighting that show of the same one side of face light and
the other dark. My portrait of Alexandra is an example of Rembrandt lighting.
What particularly upsets me is that the technology of the
last century has been abandoned for the “better” technology of this one.
My mother used to tell me that anything framed is saved. In
a frame going down my stairs I have these double portraits (they don’t both fit
at the same time on my scanner) of 1978.
I went to visit a friend in San Francisco and I took with me
an 8x10 print of my Alexandra in which I used Kodak b+w infrared film. Walking
on Market Street I passed a place that made T-shirts. I walked in with my 8x10
and they made a T-shirt using a Xerox machine. Part of the output were these
two lovely prints.They were about to throw them away but when I asked they gave
them to me.
I think they are special. In this better and upgraded
century I could not have stuff like that done again.
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