When Buildings Swirl Before Sunrise

 

It was a cold morning, a few hours ago. As usual the internal clock of my dog dictated that we go downtown before sunrise.

And in the dark, I saw a man struggling to walk. My dog recognized him and walked to greet him.

Over the years we have met this gentleman and his dog around the Court House. We have had a few conversations and our dogs socialized happily. This time he hardly looked at Ziggy but starred at me with an empty look when we got close.

“Good morning” I said, “I have not seen you for a long while. How are you?”

With that empty look, he replied “Do you really want to know?”

He looked unkept and his gait had changed.

“Let me sit down, everything is shifting around me.”

He slowly lowed himself and sat on the street curb.

“Everything is moving, shifting around me. This is the second time this happens to me. The tree trunks are moving, the buildings are not the same as I remember.”

So I sat next to him.

“I have Alzheimer’s and my balance is bad. It is a strange feeling when nothing is the same as it once was. You have noticed how difficult it is for me to walk now, yes?”

I nodded.

“Do you know if the Solid Rock is open? I need to eat something.”

He was asking about the kitchen where food is offered to homeless folks of the city.

“It is too early” I said. “Why don’t you sit down a little longer till they open.”

Ziggy was trying to get his attention, but he never looked at him.

“Time is shifting too. It now has an oval shape.”

… He looked like he had been on the street for a while. And he seemed lost yet his speech was fine and I could follow his rational and almost cohesive reasoning. I recalled that he was a professor once, and that we had shared discussion about poetry during our previous meetings.

“Should I call for assistance?” I asked.

“No, no need. I will figure things out. I am sure somewhere; someone knows what is happening to me. But I have no idea.”

Then he looked at me and drew a slight smile on his unshaved face.

“We will meet again on a better day,” he promised.

Photo taken with a Yashica Lynx 14e in Zagreb, Croatia

 

October 27, 2023

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023

 

PS/ I have written about this gentleman here  https://vahezen.blogspot.com/2023/05/love-is-rider-who-breaks-us-all.html

Love is Stumbled on Through Loving

 

I did not feel like reading poetry this weekend. The world was not a loving place this week.

But I wanted to read. So I went to a French translation of Dante’s “La Divine Comédie” and started at the beginning with “L’enfer”.

But could not continue for long.

Then I recalled that the once forgotten English poet, William Blake, was also an engraver who was working on illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy as his last work before his death in 1827. So, I opted to read pages from Blake remembering a statement of him that had stayed with me during any creative process I spent my past 50 years in pursuit.

He said:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Perception, consciousness and apprehension. Over the years, I have considered these dimensions as the three legs of the stool upon which an artist rest, and where a scientist aspires to distill all complex questions faced.

Yet, the doors of perception are often closed, locked tight, or turned opaque. But when cleansed or open, thinking that through these doors the infiniteness of everything can be experienced is perhaps what Béatrice showed to Dante after his descent to Inferno and passage through the terraces of Purgatorio.

So, I leafed through some of Blake’s poem. To my delight, given my initial inclination to read Dante, I found a poem I had not read before entitled “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”. At first lecture, it seems an abstract poem or series of thoughts. Until one gets to the line

“Roses are planted where thorns grow”

I stopped for a while thinking about that line. Was Blake looking though the cleansed doors of perception? Or was he lamenting upon human nature?

Perhaps the answer is in the following stanzas:

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river, and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

These almost sound like what Virgil could have said to Dante during his descent to hell. And secretively, I found the short poem by Blake more to the point, faster. How delightful was his choice of the poem’s title!

 ... I did not feel like reading poetry this weekend, but I did. Perhaps in hope of that infinite Blake was urging us to discover.

October 15, 2023

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023

Arizona High Desert Morning

 

Bent and broken

The morning driped its dew

Upon dirt and over the rays

Ready for another cactus to flower

 

And creosote filled the air

With the smell of rain

While sage brush painted the sound

Of a damp desert silent in morning dew

 

Bent and now bright

The high desert will soon offer shade

To rabbit, hare and rattle snake

Under the wings of owls and hawks

 

And I sit alone

Next to thornless honey mesquite 

Searching for my soul

Grateful and in peace

 

Bent and dreamfull

 

October 5, 2023

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2023