The Haze of Passage— At the West End Gallery
A Cabin in the Clearing
MIST
I don’t believe the sleepers in this house
Know where they are.
SMOKE
They’ve been here long enough
To push the woods back from around the house
And part them in the middle with a path.
MIST
And still I doubt if they know where they are.
And I begin to fear they never will.
All they maintain the path for is the comfort
Of visiting with the equally bewildered.
Nearer in plight their neighbors are than distance.
SMOKE
I am the guardian wraith of starlit smoke
That leans out this and that way from their chimney.
I will not have their happiness despaired of.
MIST
No one – not I – would give them up for lost
Simply because they don’t know where they are.
I am the damper counterpart of smoke
That gives off from a garden ground at night
But lifts no higher than a garden grows.
I cotton to their landscape. That’s who I am.
I am no further from their fate than you are.
SMOKE
They must by now have learned the native tongue.
Why don’t they ask the Red Man where they are?
MIST
They often do, and none the wiser for it.
So do they also ask philosophers
Who come to look in on them from the pulpit.
They will ask anyone there is to ask –
In the fond faith accumulated fact
Will of itself take fire and light the world up.
Learning has been a part of their religion.
SMOKE
If the day ever comes when they know who
They are, they may know better where they are.
But who they are is too much to believe –
Either for them or the onlooking world..
They are too sudden to be credible.
MIST
Listen, they murmur talking in the dark
On what should be their daylong theme continued.
Putting the lamp out has not put their thought out.
Let us pretend the dewdrops from the eaves
Are you and I eavesdropping on their unrest –
A mist and smoke eavesdropping on a haze –
And see if we can tell the bass from the soprano.
Than smoke and mist who better could appraise
The kindred spirit of an inner haze.
— Robert Frost, 1962
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Don’t have a lot to say today. Just wanted to show the piece at the top, The Haze of Passage, which is part of my current show at the West End Gallery. As this this 20″ by 20″ canvas started to morph into being, it instantly filled me with the feeling of heat and haze. The kind that slows down movement and thought.
We’ve had some hot and hazy days here recently though nothing to compare with other areas of the country. These days always feel draining for me and leave me feeling as though a bit of that haze has settled in my brain.
It all conspires to remind me of the poem above from Robert Frost, A Cabin in the Clearing. I can imagine the haze here comprised of mist and smoke– perhaps from Canadian wildfires?– gathering around the Red Roofed houses to discuss our fate, to wonder if we knew where we were or where we were going. Perhaps, as its final line alludes, they can see the haziness of our minds in such times?
Hmm. Let me think on that while I share a new song, Yet to Be, from a favorite of mine, Rhiannon Giddens, accompanied by Jason Isbell. It seems to fit the theme here.
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Redtree Times 