peterography

The weather was beautiful as we left Bermuda. We had to spend a long time at the airport because the shuttle schedule from our resort was inflexible, so we sat in the airport lounge picking at an overpriced lunch and gazing sadly at the turquoise water and the sparking shoreline that we were abandoning.

US Customs has set up shop in Bermuda so travelers can be processed on their way out instead of on reentry to the US. I had tried to strike up a conversation with Customs Agent Dougherty because he looked sad. I complimented him on his luck at being assigned to such a pleasant duty station. He replied by asking me if I had seen the news about the recent murder on the island. “They told me this was a safe place with no crime” he added bitterly. I suggested he count his blessings - he could have been assigned to our destination, Boston, which lacks Bermuda’s climate but has many times its murder rate.

My biggest regret was that we weren’t on Bermuda for the fireworm mating. 55 minutes after sunset on the third night after the full moon in the summer, the females of the species Odontosyllis enopla rise to the ocean’s surface in the shallow waters of the reefs that fringe the island.   They swim in slow, sensual circles, glowing phosphorescently.  When the males see them they shoot like flaming rockets out of their burrows in the ocean floor and join the females in a passionate frenzy of flashing green sex.

Maybe next year. When I arrived home I found my poor garden dessicated; the squash leaves hung folded and limp; the tomatoes were wilted, but nonetheless held lots of bright plump red fruit. I gave everybody a big drink of hose water and a few hours later my garden had perked back up.

This is our anniversary. 22 years.

Our marriage is a free verse poem scribbled in the fractal geometry of coastlines, as salty and sparkling and stormy and enduring as the ocean. The South China Sea. The Great Barrier Reef. Huahine; the coral reefs of Bora Bora and Moorea. The Isle of Skye. Key West, Key Largo, and Long Boat Key. Miami Beach, Guadeloupe. Saint Martin. Kauai and the Big Island. Sanibel. The North Sea raging by the Ijsselmeer. Acadia. Montauk. The Gulf of Maine. Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Block Island. The Cape York Peninsula, Cape Ann, Cape May, and Cape Cod.

Time and again we’re drawn back to the sea. Whether it’s a luxury hotel with a view of the Sydney Opera House or a hot, cramped below-deck cabin in an old 3 masted schooner on Maine’s rocky coast, we require that transfusion of seawater. As weird and mysterious as the cross-currents of our own lives seem to be, we need to witness the greater mystery and deeper depths of the ocean. In church and synagogue they talk, they sing, they theorize; the ocean provides the practicum. All life came from the sea; sooner or later the good and the bad, the waste and the wonders and all of our sins flow back to the sea. Power, majesty, and awe. Reflection, contemplation and peace.

Years ago we were hiking by the Grand Canyon, in northern Arizona. It was a June day and we stopped to rest in the shade of a cliff when we glanced at the rock wall. It was festooned with fossils of sea shells and the skeletons of ancient ocean creatures. It didn’t seem strange to see this in Arizona, 7000 feet above sea level. It felt comfortable and familiar. I could almost hear the sound of surf.

My own mother was a farm girl from upstate New York who never learned to swim, whose parents were from landlocked countries, who had no special love of boats or nautical pleasures. She had lived briefly near Tampa as a young woman and often described to me the waterspouts she saw out to sea. She longed to return and finally did so when she retired after my father died. And when her time came she had her ashes scattered over the Gulf of Mexico. Some members of my family thought this was a bit odd, but it made sense to me. Walking the beach at Sarasota, collecting shells, she felt at peace; she felt at home.

Today, after a morning of snorkeling off our beach, where we saw squid and parrotfish, trunkfish and sergeant-major fish, we went to Horseshoe Bay and hiked to the east of the main beach, discovering smaller inlets and beaches guarded by great volcanic stones. We found a secluded cove all to ourselves. The waves crashed and rolled, thundering around the black rocks and shooting towering plumes of spray high into the air. Inside our cove, fresh waves from the ocean were met by the earlier ones echoing off the tall black stone walls, cascading and crashing into a swirling cauldron of bubbling, roiling seawater. But despite this, and with my wife at my side, I felt at peace there.

Bermuda is a tiny speck of former vulcanism dusted with sand and fringed with coral reefs, isolated in the Atlantic ocean a thousand miles east of the Carolinas. I’m watching the sun set from the Pompano Beach Club, high on a cliff on Bermuda’s west coast as I write this. I’m listening to classical music on KUSC , thanks to the world wide web, and it cuts out from time to time, thanks to the resort’s rather creaky internet connection. I’m sipping a 12-year old Macallan.

Moments ago I tried to connect to one of the “stations” I’m training at Pandora, only to be politely but firmly told that my IP address had spilled the beans about my location on Bermuda and their lawyers regreted to inform me that their service is only available inside the United States.

The sun is disappearing behind some clouds slightly above the horizon.

After I made some inquiries last week at Pandora about why they don’t do classical music I received a remarkably detailed email from Etienne Handman, COO of the Music Genome Project. He described the theory and goals of the Project - the heart (DNA?, brains? foundation?)  of Pandora. I sent him a skeptical response. I send everyone a skeptical response. Why do I do that?

The sun has emerged from beneath the clouds and is racing to the horizon. The rest of the sky, and the ocean below it, is gray.

I should have at least acknowledged what a remarkable thing is it to create personal radio stations, or I should say “radio stations” by proposing a musician and having it -Pandora - the Box, I suppose - play other music with what it guesses are the same “genes”. The listener dismisses some offerings, accepts others and trains it that way. I’ve created a “Moby” station; my wife has created a half dozen stations ranging from Celtic harp to Radiohead.

The sun has set. I toasted the last of the sun with the last of my Macallen.

Today we snorkeled from a boat chartered by the resort - it was excellent. Then, having not got our fill of boats we rented a battery-powered pontoon (I’ve been writing too much poetry - I almost spelled it “pantoum”) boat and tootled around the ocean near here. And then, after a hot sit on the beach, we decided we hadn’t had enough of snorkeling either and snorkeled some more around the rocky breakwaters here.

It’s 4 PM in Los Angeles. There’s a 2 vehicle accident south of Santa Monica. KUSC is about to play something by Bach conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisc. I’m about to have dinner at Ocean Grill, high over someplace in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

After I dispatched the groundhogs some of my zucchinis recovered. We had a few with our dinners and we let others grow into bats while we were on vacation. I love zucchini and have never been tempted to leave a surplus on my neighbor’s porch. There’s actually a holiday set aside for this, Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night, established years ago by a Pennsylvania talk show host, Tom Roy. But I spent Friday night making zuchnini Parmesan (think eggplant) while watching the Patriots play the Buc’s in a preaseason game. Football is the only TV I watch so my set hasn’t been on since February and it’s always a moment of great anticipation to see whether my TV will start again in August.

But I digress (what else is new?) - our raspberries are done; we still have blueberries; the tomatoes are finally turning red - I planted them late this year - and we harvested enough basil recently to make a nice batch of pesto. Our pears and apples should be ready to pick in a couple of weeks.

The big news is the butternut squash. My garden is terraced and the bottom, widest, longest terrace is devoted to the squash. But my squash has dreams of empire. It outgrew its terrace weeks ago, spilling down over the path I use to maintain my deer fence, and poking tendrils through the fence seeking Lebensraum on the other side. To the north it has climbed over the terrace walls and onto adjacent plots, a raging green ocean, a rising tide of solar-powered plantness, high on chlorophyl and looking for a fight. Yesterday I managed to push it out of my blueberries, but not without a struggle and I’m sure it will be back. Meanwhile I’ve conceded the zucchinis’ patch since they’re almost done for the season anyway. But that’s where I draw the line. Really.

Wellfleet was beastly hot, and Aunt Sukie’s B&B had only a box fan in the window. At night I turned it up full blast and lay on top of the covers, naked, sweating myself to sleep. My wife curled up under a sheet next to me. Usually it would cool off a bit around 3 or 4 AM and I covered myself with some bedding in time to protect the sensibilities of the guests who would gather on the deck outside our open windows for breakfast in the morning.

We’ve been coming to Wellfleet for so many years now, staying at Aunt Sukies or renting a house on the beach, that we feel no pressure to have goals or an agenda. The B&B faces the water across a salt marsh which is crossed by a narrow boardwalk. We spent lots of time on the beach reading - my wife was under the spell of the last Harry Potter novel and I was reading Don’t Stop the Carnival by Herman Woulk. I also passed the time transcribing comments on my poems from the workshop. Once in awhile we ventured into town to go to galleries or to eat - on Friday we had dinner at Winslow’s Tavern and on Saturday we ate at the Bookstore Cafe. Both times we dropped over $100 - I can’t believe what it cost us to eat on this trip.

On Friday we attended a concert in Wellfleet by the Borromeo String Quartet, joined by Jon Manasse, clarinet, and Jon Nakamatsu on piano. We heard Tennebrae by Golijov, the Piano Quintet in G by Shostakovich, and Mozart’s Quintet in A Major (K581). The Shostakovich is one of my favorite chamber works and they played it very well. The Golijov was interesting - it was perfectly accessible and pleasant, unlike much of the academic and clanging work of many contemporary composers, and it certainly had its moments, but it seemed to meander a bit and would have made good background music for something. I made a note to check out more works by this new composer. The Mozart was competently played but I’m not a big fan - I find Mozart a bit dainty and courtly and can’t help thinking about powdered wigs and ruffled sleeves whenever I hear it.

For me the workshop dribbled to a close. A couple of poets left this morning. We managed to find time to read and critique two more poems in today’s session, helped by our reduced numbers and a five minute quota on the last set of poems.

On Thursday night we had the opportunity to do a very brief reading for the FAWC community – but my wife had just arrived on the fast ferry from Boston and we were shifting our quarters to Wellfleet so I decided to spend the evening with her instead of taking part. This elicited surprise bordering on shock from some classmates. I don’t know why – no one had ever suggested participation was expected or important. By contrast, in last year’s Paris workshop, when I read at Shakespeare and Company, it was made crystal clear to us that this was an honor we were fully expected to take advantage of. (we were also allowed to read a lot more poems).

The workshop included a 20 minute one-to-one personal consultation with Major Jackson but I turned mine down - I couldn’t think of anything to ask to unlock the secrets of poetry in such a short conversation and although some people like to use these opportunities to ask about MFA programs or how to impress publication editors, I don’t see what those things have to do with writing poetry.

After the last class some of the students and Major went to Pepe’s for lunch but I went back to Wellfleet - sometimes I’m happy to sit around and shoot the shit when there’s shit to be shot but this wasn’t one of those times and I just wanted to see my wife after our days apart.

Last night at the FAWC Major Jackson gave an outstanding reading of his works -  funny, poignant, touching and rich and satisfying in its complexity.    His is a fascinating story and it was his interview on NPR’s Radio Open Source that prompted me to take this workshop.    Here is a link to Major Jackson’s website.

Our workshop continues.  Two of my poems have been read and critiqued - Poet Laureate and Just Stop It.   The former enjoyed limited benefit from the comments because of the problem I mentioned in the last entry - everyone went down a rat hole of what they thought I intended and made suggestions about how to do that thing better, but it wasn’t what I was trying to do!   In today’s reading of Just Stop It Major corralled the classroom swerve and I got outstanding and very useful feedback.

There are interesting questions raised by this problem.   At my company, where I work as a design engineer, we accept the idea that successful products are market-driven.   We begin every product with a detailed market analysis and as we discover more about what the customers want we alter our designs accordingly.    That’s the way to sell products.  I know artists who do the same thing - one fellow member of the Arts League of Lowell loves to paint nudes but seldom does so because there’s little market for them.   And I know at least one poet who pays minute attention to what the editors of her target journals are looking for - the better to get published.

But I proclaim that I’m the artist here and I want to write my poems and paint or photograph my subjects.  My goal in any class or workshop is to make my art, but learn to make it to a higher standard.    This position is hardly without controversy - going back at least to Pollock there has lately been a reluctance for visual artists to try to “control” their art but, instead, to allow it to emerge and develop a life of its own.  And in literary theory a similar development has arisen from hermeneutics as authors despair of controlling the meaning of their work - indeed, in some quarters even the effort to exercise control is seen as an expression of some sort of patriarchal or imperialistic hegemony.    No one in this class has suggested such impure motives but in general I’ve received pushback at many times in recent years when I seek to capture my own visions and call them mine.