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EmunahArak
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Interests: books: wistful ones; stories: woven, providential ones; people: complicated ones; kittens: orange Mary & Martha ones; experiences: new, intriguing ones; travels: fresh oxygen, undiscovered ones.
Expertise: mental health, being ridiculous, being avoidant and self absorbed.
Occupation: Other
Industry: Medical
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
7/19/2004
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| They say that women change: 'tis so: but you
Are ever-constant in your changefulness,
Like that still thread of falling river, one
From source to last embrace in the still pool
Ever-renewed and ever-moving on
From first to last a myriad water-drops
And you- I love you for it - are the force
That moves and holds the form. -A.S. Byatt, from Possession 
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somewhere i have never travelled - e.e. cummings
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| | somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
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| Look Out O’er the Hudson
So then the guy said to me, he said,
"You can't park that here."
“Why not,” I said, "I'm following my intuition,
and it has no structural boundaries."
What he didn't know was the way
the ocean waves under the dock
rocked and nurtured me,
the same way my mother nursed me
before she died.
The long blue convertible crashed
through the rickety boards
on the dock anyway,
a long deep fall,
with me in it.
So I swam,
with surprisingly few wood splinters,
even though they yelled at me
with the piercing voice of searchlights.
As I disentangled my ankle
from the rear-view mirror,
kicked off my shoes,
the fog on the harbor enveloped me --
washing me toward the island,
to the place I know.
I heard a siren,
and some laughter,
and the foghorn.
But I was beyond the buoys,
underneath the wind...
untouchable.
I woke with a fist full of crab grass
and my hair spread around
underneath my head,
a pillow from the sand.
I sat up in my dreadfully stiff Calvin Kleins,
and noticed the glittery shore...
glittery like a starfish had blessed it
and then repented.
Tripping along,
and letting the high tide sweep over
my already-salty feet,
I breathed.
"Breathing," I thought,
"is a quiet cup of coffee in the city,
or a night of floating with the tide
as a rhythmic blanket."
I guessed that this time,
maybe the last time,
I'd opted for the latter.
Shielding my eyes from the morning,
I looked searchingly toward the crag
that was not too far inland.
Herein lies my adventure.
I hesitated.... | | |
| AURORA BOREALIS
Last night at two,
You were warm and chill together
In the silent dark,
Hung with a stop-light red sky
In patches and trails
From a shout bouncing back,
From bony birches and my crackled throat,
Astonished.
It could have been wavering,
Undulating twilight clouds,
But too late for such an ink-well sky.
Dark-room, photo-negative, red-light
Versions of our hands, intertwined,
And stretched out overhead –
With such angular color patterns,
So that I can peek through the
Blurred geometric shapes
Of chiffon silk banners
Hanging from the church’s ceiling,
At the altar.
It must have been the additive light,
In the darkness of all the streams crossing,
Converging overhead,
Making the Red Top so shocking,
The swinging trapeze under the Big Top,
A meteor shower in the desert,
Spraying blood clear
From horizon to horizon...
And a whim to sleep on the lawn.
Ten minutes later, back outdoors,
Cozied in blankets and tea,
I saw instead a clear and colorless sky…
Like the Seraphims had kissed it,
Then repented as soon as I turned indoors.
Or maybe, maybe they themselves
Had been ignited red,
Overcome by Being
In the Presence of the Holy,
And fell from the Throne Room
Through the atmosphere –
For just a moment.
What else could make
Such crimson streaks of atria
Plummet to the earth?
Their recovery must have been quick,
And still covering their eyes with one pair of wings,
Used the other two pairs
To jet themselves back,
To lay prostrate
Underneath the train of the robe
That fills the Temple –
Booming:
“Heaven is my throne, and Earth is my footstool;
Where will my resting place be?”
By the time I stepped back out,
Even the trail of smoke they had left
Was gone.
But the night was infused
With their fallout particles,
And aching for you
Is where I’ll be,
Next time the Seraphim take a sky-dive
--EAR | | |
| My review of Over the Rhine posted on the OTR Orchard:
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Washington D.C. show at The Birchmere - June 8, 2006
SET LIST:
1) Latter Days (from Good Dog Bad Dog)
2) I Want You To Be My Love (from Drunkard’s Prayer)
3) Born (from Drunkard’s Prayer)
4) Lookin’ Forward (from Drunkard’s Prayer)
5) What I’ll Remember Most (from Ohio)
6) I’m On A Roll (new song)
7) Entertaining Thoughts (new song)
8) I Don’t Want to Waste Your Time (new song)
9) Linford Piano Solo (possibly a variation of “I Should Have Kept Going”
from I Don’t Think There’s No Need to Bring Nothin’ but he
played it after talking about Unspoken Requests)
10) Little Did I Know (from Drunkard’s Prayer) – included a lengthy
instrumental with a piano solo, then some guitar & drums.
11) Trouble (new song) – Karin talked about this being inspired by Linford’s
sexy five o’clock shadow. She mentioned that she has been calling
him “Mr. Smart Parts."
12) Firefly (from Drunkard’s Prayer)
13) Show Me (from Ohio)
14) Drunkard’s Prayer (from Drunkard’s Prayer)
Encore:
1) Cruel & Pretty (from Ohio)
2) When I Go (from Films For Radio) – included a guitar solo by Rick Plant,
who has released children’s album “The Mud Cakes.”
Over the Rhine created some beautiful spots of time* this evening, stirring and absorbing. The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA is just a short distance from Washington D.C. proper; HEM opened the show at 7:30, and Over the Rhine was playing by 9:15. The Birchmere’s music-hall ambiance references a German beer hall with its long tables and large plastic pitchers, but the stage offers a more jazz-like scenario, faux brick and alley windows painted onto the back wall. HEM’s set was nice, though fairly mediocre, and rife with some pitch problems from their beautiful red-haired lead singer. I did love seeing the string bass and the mandolin put to such lovely use, however.
The Over the Rhine show sweetened as it progressed. Karin’s vocals seemed a little clipped in the first couple of songs, but then she relaxed into the lilting, mesmerizing voice that I know. As always, the most fun elements of the show were when Linford gave a glimpse of his crazy-brilliant thoughts and stories. (Is everything that man says poetic?) He talked about the blind piano player at his church as a child, and how drawn he was to learn the magic of all the keys and pedals. One of his solo piano albums is titled after the occasional “unspoken request” by which someone in the church would ask for prayer. Linford also showed his versatility tonight by playing bass guitar and acoustic guitar as well as keyboard. Both Karin and Linford’s comments from stage were more personal than those of previous concerts I had attended. They spoke about their own process of writing songs, and about their marriage. In talking about creating “I’m On A Roll,” Linford mentioned the girlie lyrics of the verse he wrote, and said: “It’s fun to write for a girl.” Karin then teasingly indicated that Linford is masculine, too. “He did used to play hockey.” Linford: “I used to be a right-winger.” Karin: “Times have changed.”
The most magical moments of the show were “This is What I Remember Most” and “Firefly”, the latter with Karin on keys. These are the delicious and haunting moments that separate Over the Rhine from other bands, and make them so magnetic. It’s no surprise that my friend’s baby in utero could be felt moving during the show; I’d like to think it was from prenatal exposure to Over the Rhine, but I suppose that’s a little silly. It’s also no surprise that Drunkard’s Prayer was recently one of the top 20 albums in New Zealand, and that OTR was recently invited to the White House. Their brilliance elicits recognition.
OTR also did several new songs, which I was excited to hear. Apparently Karin & Linford will be recording a new album soon, which follows their prolific pattern of the last several years. Karin quipped that they are “not working through any marital, financial…or any other kind of trap” so “it’s going to be a happy record.”
* William Wordsworth, from “The Prelude”:
”There are in our existence spots of time
Which with distinct preeminence retain
A fructifying virtue, whence, depressed
By trivial occupations and the round
Of ordinary intercourse, our minds –
Especially the imaginative power –
Are nourished and invisibly repaired.” | | |
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