adoption

My daughter is coming home tomorrow with her husband, son, and new daughter from China. Bell Ji Fang is about to become come part of a vast and strange American family whose ancestors also came from other countries over the last 100-plus years. Many of these ancestors came here knowing little about the world they were entering, hoping that life would be good or exciting or just  different in some unimaginable way. She leaves a world of unarticulated memories behind her but probably memories that seeped into her senses and will on some nights in her life suddenly awaken her with sweetness, sorrow, or maybe fear and confusion. Maybe this is already happening; maybe it will happen when she is 16 or 33 or 80. Maybe one of these memories will give flesh to the young spirit she carries with her today. Maybe that spirit will yearn to go home, or maybe it will embrace her journey as her home.  Maybe she'll read this one day and think her grandfather was strange. Where could he have come from and where has he gone?

in the darkroom on the most beautiful day of winter

The idea of going into the dark to create art that is so tied to light sometimes seems strange to me although no more strange than recording images by exposing elements on film to light then bathing that film in chemicals then shooting light through that film onto chemically coated paper then bathing that paper in chemicals to recreate an experience/image/idea that occurred for  a fraction of a second & became something independent of the first experience, something the viewer might hang on a wall in a dining room, bedroom or bathroom or might wrap  shells in after a crab dinner. It's also odd that the chemical makeup of the film might produce an image in color or in black and white and that some of us have a strong preference for the black and white image. Last week, I was walking, looking for interesting light . I went into my usual start/stop mode of perambulation that I realize sometimes makes passersby nervous, particularly when I stop to look at something that looks like nothing. I was on a well-used jogging loop that had a winter marsh in the middle. I drifted into the marsh to check out the light and reflections on the water. A pair of mallards slid by, a female followed by her mate. There was little vegetation of color. The trees were on the verge of budding, and a few ground plants were just poking through the mud.  I wouldn't have seen the ducks except for the male's iridescent green head feathers. I imagine before he was chosen as a mate he probably flaunted those feathers  slicked back in what we used to refer to as a D.A. Now, they drew attention to both of them in the stickgrey marsh. The female looked like she would have been happier if he had maintained an unattached distance from her to avoid attracting a jogger's unleashed dog that might be lolling around in the mud while his owner was running in circles trying to set a new personal best for barkdust trail jogging.  I took a few black and white photos of them and went on my way. When I printed the photos, I had to look intently to find the ducks; the female and male were both near invisible due to the bare twiglike design and colors of their feathers. I wanted to go back and show the male the photo, so he might consider dying his green feathers or wearing branches and dead leaves on his head, the way some deer hunters around here do. I'd also tell him he could probably spend more quality time wading with his mate if he were less colorful. If she wasn't convinced that these strategies would make him less obvious, he could show her my black and white photos and tell her that people say the camera never lies.

I'm working on a series of poems that are companion pieces for photographs I've done. 

                                                   shooting the Tango Palace

in the window of the twilight Tango Palace

neon dancers

plug in            in the back a figure

bends    turns

the music up  an accordion

squeezes

the heart a shadow

in white Panama hat oils

knees hips slides

one leather sole across the wooden

glow of the dance floor

along the wall two

wary men watch 

me watch

them and below

the neon dancers a gray

striped couch where those

who know how

to tango

will drape

their ghost

bodies & those

outside will gaze

at the backs of beautiful

heads & imagine

transformed

faces & I

will lift

an eye

to catch

their light

first post

waiting for the chicken to roast al green on the box wine in the glass dog sleeping at my feet fog drifting across the hills northwest at its best in winter bless those who fear the sky the water the earth hiding its beauty bless the poor the hungry those without a place to rest their heads tonight i am the lucky dog the fortunate son the one chosen to be 

happy