BirchLane October 2008
Thursday, October 30, 200
Light.
"Man reading should be man intensely alive.
The book should be a ball of light in one's hand."~Ezra Pound
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Ancestors. My friend Christine Valters Painter asked people on Monday to post poems honoring their ancestors to her blog. I posted
the poem below.
Mary Queen of Scots
It is rumored from whom
I am descended, it says here
Questa famiglia originaria della Scoizia
E nobilissima in molte citta,
Ed e divisa in molti rami
The Barone family, my family
Originated from Scotland
Mary’s son King James VI of Scotland
Became King James I of England
King James great grand daughter married
The King of Itlay
It is noble in many cities and
Is divided into many branches it
Had many fiefs and illustrious men in court
In the magistrature, in the army
And in the church it was
Conferred high chivalrous honors and
Was vested with the holy orders
Of Malta from the 15th Century
It includes, as branches, the Counts
Of Casola and the Marchesi di Liveri
The title was granted in 1710
To the celebrated literary figure Domenico
Director, San Carlo Opera, Naples
Praised even by Giambattista Vico
In an assembly of praise of him
Made by the Academitrician in 1735
The family is listed in the Registry of Neopolitan
Feudal families and numbered among
The patricians of the Republic of Marino
The Republic was represented in Lisbon
By the Court of Casola and Marchese di Liveri
By Napoleon Barone son of Marchese Pasquale
Who had as his grandmother Maria Filomarina
Of the Principality of Bocca
Title to Alfrede Domenico Barone
Held from 1869-1952 also as the Count
Of Casoli in the Registry of Nobility
Melchizadek descendant of Pasquale
And likewise Alfred my father
Or so the story goes there is
A castle and a title
Or at the very least a story
That belongs to me in Italy
I write to know
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Mittineague Park. I went to Mittineague Park today; twice--in the rain
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sylvia Plath. Today is her birthday. She wrote
"Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise."
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Rivers and Tides. This morning I went for a walk in the park.
Photography by Bruce Barone
Photography by Bruce Barone
Photography by Bruce Barone
Photography by Bruce Barone
Photography by Bruce BaroneSaturday, October 25, 2008
The Park.
Photography by Bruce BaroneFriday, October 24, 2008
Cold Morning.
Photography by Bruce BaroneThursday, October 23, 2008
Danielle.
Photography by Bruce BaroneWednesday, October 22, 2008
Church.
Photography by Bruce BaroneTuesday, October 21, 2008
The Creative Economy. Tonight Susan and I went to a presentation on "The Creative Economy" and the revitalization for downtown Springfield.
And then this Charles Simic poem:
Grandmothers who wring the necks
Of chickens; old nuns
With names like Theresa, Marianne,
Who pull schoolboys by the ear;
The intricate steps of pickpockets
Working the crowd of the curious
At the scene of an accident; the slow shuffle
Of the evangelist with a sandwich board;
The hesitation of the early-morning customer
Peeking through the window grille
Of a pawnshop; the weave of a little kid
Who is walking to school with eyes closed;
And the ancient lovers, cheek to cheek,
On the dance floor of the Union Hall,
Where they also hold charity raffles
On rainy Monday nights of an eternal November.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Walking. After working for a few hours editing photographs from Hannah's wedding, Susan and I went for a walk.
Walking out the driveway we turned right. And then left. Right. And then left again.
Photography by Bruce BaroneSunday, October 19, 2008
Newburyport.
Photography by Bruce BaroneSaturday, October 18, 2008
A Visit with Darlene.
Photography by Bruce Barone.Friday, October 17, 2008
The Bride Gets Ready.
Photography by Bruce Barone. Bride. Hannah.Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Bride's Hair. Hair and makeup by Erin of Style on Location.
Photography by Bruce Barone.Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Autumn Leaves.
Photography by Bruce Barone.Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Contemplative Bride.
Photography by Bruce Barone.Monday, October 13, 2008
Autumn Landscape.
Photography by Bruce Barone. Granville, Massachusetts.Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Wedding of Hannah & Israel. One of the last photographs I took at the wedding of Hannah and Israel today was a self-portrait.
Photography by Bruce Barone.But let's start at the beginning of this glorious day; a beginning begins somewhere and today it began at their apartment in Troy, New York.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.Saturday, October 11, 2008
Forest Park.
Photography by Bruce Barone.
Photography by Bruce Barone.Friday, October 10, 2008
Painting the Walls Red. Benjamin & Moore "Poppy."
Photography by Bruce Barone.Thursday, October 9, 2008
Kicking The Leaves. A favorite poem from Donald Hall, "Kicking the Leaves:"
Photography by Bruce Barone.Kicking the leaves, October, as we walk home together
from the game, in Ann Arbor,
on a day the color of soot, rain in the air;
I kick at the leaves of maples,
reds of seventy different shades, yellow
like old paper; and poplar leaves, fragile and pale;
and elm leaves, flags of a doomed race.
I kick at the leaves, making a sound I remember
as the leaves swirl upward from my boot,
and flutter; and I remember
Octobers walking to school in Connecticut,
wearing corduroy knockers that swished
with a sound like leaves; and a Sunday buying
a cup of cider at a roadside stand
on a dirt road in New Hampshire; and kicking the leaves,
autumn 1955 in Massachusetts, knowing
my father would die when the leaves were gone.2
Each fall in New Hampshire, on the farm
where my mother grew up, a girl in the country,
my grandfather and grandmother
finished the autumn work, taking the last vegetables in
from the fields, canning, storing roots and apples
in the cellar under the kitchen. Then my grandfather
raked leaves against the house
as the final chore of autumn.
One November I drove up from college to see them.
We pulled big rakes, as we did when we hayed in summer, pulling the leaves against the granite foundations
around the house, on every side of the house,
and then, to keep them in place, we cut spruce boughs
and laid them across the leaves,
green on red, until the house
was tucked up, ready for snow
that would freeze the leaves in tight, like a stiff skirt.
Then we puffed through the shed door,
taking off boots and overcoats, slapping our hands,
and sat in the kitchen, rocking, and drank
black coffee my grandmother made,
three of us sitting together, silent, in gray November.3
One Saturday when I was little, before the war,
my father came home at noon from his half day at the office
and wore his Bates sweater, black on red,
with the crossed hockey sticks on it, and raked beside me
in the back yard, and tumbled in the leaves with me,
laughing , and carried me, laughing, my hair full of leaves,
to the kitchen window
where my mother could see us, and smile, and motion
to set me down, afraid I would fall and be hurt.4
Kicking the leaves today, as we walk home together
from the game, among the crowds of people
with their bright pennants, as many and bright as leaves,
my daughter’s hair is the red-yellow color
of birch leaves, and she is tall like a birch,
growing up, fifteen, growing older; and my son
flamboyant as maple, twenty,
visits from college, and walks ahead of us, his step
springing, impatient to travel
the woods of the earth. Now I watch them
from a pile of leaves beside this clapboard house
in Ann Arbor, across from the school
where they learned to read,
as their shapes grow small with distance, waving,
and I know that I
diminish, not them, as I go first
into the leaves, taking
the way they will follow, Octobers and years from now.5
This year the poems came back, when the leaves fell.
Kicking the leaves, I heard the leaves tell stories,
remembering and therefore looking ahead, and building
the house of dying. I looked up into the maples
and found them, the vowels of bright desire.
I thought they had gone forever
while the bird sang I love you, I love you
and shook its black head
from side to side, and its red eye with no lid,
through years of winter, cold
as the taste of chickenwire, the music of cinderblock.6
Kicking the leaves, I uncover the lids of graves.
My grandfather died at seventy-seven., in March
when the sap was running, and I remember my father
twenty years ago,
coughing himself to death at fifty-two in the house
in the suburbs. Oh how we flung
leaves in the air! How they tumbled and fluttered around us,
like slowly cascading water, when we walked together
in Hamden, before the war, when Johnson’s Pond
had not surrendered to houses, the two of us
hand in hand, and in the wet air the smell of leaves
burning:
in six years I will be fifty-two.7
Now in fall, I leap and fall
to feel the leaves crush under my body, to feel my body
buoyant in the ocean of leaves, the night of them,
night heaving with death and leaves, rocking like the ocean.
Oh this delicious falling into the arms of leaves,
into the soft laps of leaves!
Face down, I swim into the leaves, feathery,
breathing the acrid odor of maple, swooping
in long glides to the bottom of October —
where the farm lies curled against the winter, and soup steams
its breath of onion and carrot
onto damp curtains and windows; and past the windows
I see the tall bare maple trunks and branches, the oak
with its few brown weathery remnant leaves,
and the spruce trees, holding their green.
Now I leap and fall, exultant, recovering
from death, on account of death, in accord with the dead,
the smell and taste of leaves again,
and the pleasure, the only long pleasure, of taking a place
in the story of leaves.Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Fear No Evil.
Photography by Bruce Barone.Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.Tuesday, October 7, 2008.
Mountain Top. Today I went to the mountain top. I went to the mountain top to photograph the valley below for Wistariahurst Museum. In Holyoke, Massachusetts I climbed Bray's Tower at the mountain top and photographed the landscape below. There was the town of Easthampton and Eastworks, where I once lived.
Photography by Bruce Barone.I walked up the road a few miles to Goat's Peak and looked out at The Oxbow.
Photography by Bruce Barone.How long ago did I stand here at Goat's Peak in winter and photographed myself?
Photography by Bruce Barone.I turned around and saw a blaze of birch trees.
Photography by Bruce Barone.I stopped at the pond at the bottom of Mt. Tom. A man was fishing. I photographed the trees.
Photography by Bruce Barone.I headed over to Skinner State Park.
Photography by Bruce Barone.The fertile valley:
Photography by Bruce Barone.Beautiful in all directions; north, south, east, west.
Photography by Bruce Barone.Monday, October 6, 2008
Angels. At a cemetery here in West Springfield I walked between and among the gravestones. Names. Names. Names. There buried a relative of Susan's and other were buried, too.
Photography by Bruce Barone. Angel.
Photography by Bruce Barone. Angel.Sunday, October 5, 2008
Sacrament of Praise.
Peter Quince at the Clavier
Wallace StevensIV
Beauty is momentary in the mind --
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.Saturday, October 4, 2008
A Leaf.
Photography by Bruce Barone. Autumn. Leaf. New England.Friday, October 3, 2008
A Path.
Photography by Bruce Barone. Autumn. New England. Train Tracks.Thursday, October 2, 2008
Prayer. One for my sister. One for a friend.
Photography by Bruce Barone. Ocean Rock Sculpture. New England.Wednesday, October 1, 2008
October.
Photography by Bruce Barone. Pumpkin Field. Autumn. New England.BirchLane.net
Bruce Barone specializes in portrait photography and wedding photography, fine art photography, nature photography, and editorial/documentary photography throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York City, the United States and internationally.
