May 29th, 2005

Bowing to Basho, the 17th century Japanese master and author of that often quoted pond/frog haiku, Furuike ya - Kawazu tobikomu - Mizu no oto (translated by Allen Ginsburg as The Old Pond - A Frog Jumps In - Kerplunk), I pull-start my irrigation pump and startle a frog, Kerplunk / Six horse Honda / Furuike ya.

The sprinkler drops hit the dry earth in barely audible thuds, making puffs of red dust; but when the soil muds, they splat. There are many sounds here, and many ears, making many voices. Voice is sound issued with intention, or sound heard with question. Silence is unknown; it is simply wanting one voice, perhaps the voice of breath or traffic or reverie or your lover's laugh, to over speak the others.

On the porch in the evening, the croak of the frogs in the pond speaks to me; of what, I don't know; but it doesn't matter, beauty is never understandable. Oil is beauty's antagonist, very understandable, quantifiable by damage and scarcity, hence priceable. The kerplunking frog abhorred the oil voice, that internal combustion roar and I loathe the sound of human country life, the neighbors' lawn mowers (and my irrigation pump) whirring in the distance. This flaming petroleum voice is Manhattan's auto screed; but I rarely notice it, being distracted there by the flow of human beauty and human flaw as it entangles me, espouses me by mutual and counter opinion to my fellows, to us, lost in our own words. Here, with the voices of the frogs, the crows and the raindrops pattering the leaves, rustled by the wet breezes, all in concert for the splendor craving ear, oil heckles.

Seated in my study, the warm breeze pushes through the open front door making it creak like someone entering and I look up, feeling presence but seeing no body, amused to be startled. Last summer, an intern asked me, in great seriousness, if the house was haunted and I tossed the question off with a smile saying, only by us; but I do remember that question when the air moves. Wind is always a stranger, coming from elsewhere, voicing question, then whipping and whining and softly subsiding, its answer as plain as its question.

This morning, a fog lays on the farm, taking away my retreat into distance, taking away the ability to divert my ever dialoging self with view; fog suspends, mystifies the visual. As it burns off, I see the mountains again, falling away from me, timidly peaking through the valleys of mist, as Hokusai would have carved this ukiyo-e, this "picture of a floating world", this voice into a wood block and printed it for us to see our world with his voice; and I am silent, the perfect bow.

Eugene Wyatt