Sunrise, Tuesday, 19 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Southwest Mountains from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sunrise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sunrise out of me.

                                                                   – Walt Whitman

Sunset, Sunday, 11 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

A note on how e-mail and, perhaps even more than that, Facebook, have altered the playing field for writers. “West Hollywood,” a poem from 1982 that I posted the other day, originally had two exclamation points that were very important to the piece – but my spouse observed, and I realized she was right, that these would not register the same way now. I took them out.

Exclamation points are now anything but exceptional in everyday communication. I started adding them more and more to my own e-mails, simply from the awareness that without them most of my correspondents might think what I was saying sounded flat, cold or even angry. They’re almost useless!

We agreed Walt Whitman might have a tough time if he were writing today.

Sunset, Friday, 17 July 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

There was a confusion of thunderstorms on the horizon – at least two framing the view – and the mountains were obscured. I had thought of saving the following for another time, but then I wanted something more suitable specifically for sunset, not just for my current Albemarle County location. The following lines meant a great deal to me growing up.

From Walt Whitman, Song of Myself.

And I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.