I
The desert
So full of
life even in the space around the plants and all that prickles our tender
buttons – Buttons pushed I listen to you tube about Stein - I have a hard time
reading her work but listening to people reading her and speaking about her work then
she gets to me, through to me. So the desert becomes my cultural landscape with
its loose arrangement of life and lifeless – both as good, as necessary,
open, dangerous, fractured in grandiose unity. Desert is a word, a word
pointing to sand rock plant and the size of land. Can the word paint or point, refer,
represent, not yet I know the names of all the rocks and all the tints of beige
rust brown... Stein get very close to representing through her words.
II
Desert Dry
Dry raging
floods have passed, disturbing, changing, sifting grains of sand. Desert is a
language I don’t fully know nor understand. I know not fully in my foolishness
cactus, cat claw, mesquite rosemary, Joshua tree, creosote, shifting sands,
rocks, dead branches supporting life, yet I have my garden weeded on the edge,
branching off of thoughts dead ends, barbed wire concentration camps. Tracks,
traces, tramping of feet, paws, always change changing and dangerous beauty not
reflecting in dry raging living. The separation of being alive in an alive
changing place – standing still alive in an alive changing place – wandering
thoughts among the standing still. Buttons pushed should be joyful – fearless,
light, befriending slipping shadow – in the desert- not through the desert,
over, next to --- just in the desert is a home –
III
Desert days
The long
days of friends, talk and walk relentless repetition of 23 years, two ears.
All town yard sale- bought a peace sign made by a city hippie, signaling,
signing my intent. In this small town no treasure hunt, no treasures to be
found but sharing, but loneliness on the dry air. Books, reading, absorbing
Modpo 2014, drinking it all thirstily, parched as I am. Where is the world – In
a book, in Tender Buttons – under desert blues and skies – No color but rock
and sand under cerulean skies, sands sifting lies –
IV
The desert
Dan knows
a bit about water, water pipes and repairing. He knows all about the civil war – traces his
heritage back to decorated men and mostly unknown women – women giving birth
after seven months, burying husbands and children. He knows about black powder,
Harley’s, selling his to stay afloat - - - floating desert, mirages of
trembling sun of airy words which don’t want to settle, sink in, in the soul –
His loneliness pointing at drowning in dry sand.
V
Desert night
The dark
inhabitance of desert nights. Stars. The sun reflecting on the moon and the
dark inhabitance of timid thought spreading, spreading in dark drunken flow.
The secret plenitude of the loneliness of words when Stein's difference is
spreading in sound, accent, un-pointing to reference or meaning yet meaningful
– Desert my abstract painting, un-resembling. Words embracing a dry wash.
VI
Not resembling
The desert
is the desert, not resembling anything but itself. This is occupation. My
occupation, deranging, pitting word against object. The desert distance separates,
rearranges, reappearing strangely orderly, in its permanence of occupation. The
Dickinson desert gathering paradise... for occupation this, decidedly different
than Stein. Gertrude Stein gets an inspiration – This – This is – This is sand,
circling in the wind, wind circling sands. This is – this is morning – this is
evening – here is sand - where is the sandman.
So much
depends upon a dry wash
Flowing
Flooding
So I am
sand
The
difference disappearing
in a grain
of life –
VII
Influence
Influenced
by Dickinson and Stein after looking at the desert for 23 years, noticing its
rhythmic changing work of water and wind, of time passing into now again – The
desert always differentiating in its collapsing washes, the mysterious lake
after the monsoon in the repetitive rearrangement of the element of wood-herbs-sand-stone-plant-bone. The
desert, a home for now, changing me as I write about the flow rearranging
grains of sand.
For lack
of words of gratitude,
Annmarie
Sauer
Thuesday
October 7
Modpo 2014
