Good morning, world--

Coughing the dark to bits means rolling out of bed and having time to watch the sun leak into the late-winter, early-spring sky. A wan sunrise over Sleeping Lion (or whatever it's called. Lying Lion? Meatloaf-position Lion?) Kingfisher tower just an admonitory finger from the shallows of the lake. Chill northern birds attempting with faint cries to rooster the sun into its proper place. Everywhere, a summer craving. The whole world bent on a desire for sun's bright roistering.

New online:
Last night: "The Fugitive Light" at qarrtsiluni 
In the past week: "Sakura" at International Arts Movement's The Curator
Also: chapter one of A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage at Scribd

Marly at "The Curator" of International Arts Movement

Photograph courtesy of Young Tran of San Francisco, California
 and sxc.hu. Find Young Tran's photographs here.

Not only is it launch day for A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage (first chapter here), but I have something special up at The Curator, a magazine of International Arts Movement. Today's issue contains pieces related to the celebration of a long-ago gift of cherry trees from Japan to the states--the same cherry trees in bloom along the tidal basin of the Potomac in D. C.

Makoto Fujimura, nihongan artist and founder of IAM, asked me for a poem on the cherry trees, so mine is very much an occasional poem written to fulfill a request related to a particular event, the gift's centennial. (Thank you, Mako!) The poem is in six parts:

Sakura
1. As Far as East from West
2. Self-portrait as Dryad, no. 9
3. East to West to East
4. The Dryad in Cherry-Blossom Time
5. Riddle
6. Tree Spirit Song

Read it here.

Wikipedia, cherry blossom: the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese Cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is sometimes called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら.)

Also up: "Ito Jakuchu: the Preserved Colors of Independence" by Makoto Fujimura, on the Ito Jakuchu exhibit, Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings at the National Gallery; Joshua Bengston's poignant "Waiting for Blooms" photographs taken at Hiyoriyama Park in Ishinomaki City.

Art: on being asked

WONDERING

This morning I wrote a five-part sequence of poems in answer to a request for a poem on a very particular subject (also from this morning) from Makoto Fujimura for The Curator, a magazine of International Arts Movement. And I'm thinking about the power of asking--the power of a commission, whether paid or unpaid. Right now my friend Clive is going hammer-and-tongs in answer to a request to illustrate Stravinsky's The Soldiers Tale for a live performance, and you can page through the vigorous, bold results at his Artlog. He just finished fountaining-up images for my upcoming book, The Foliate Head. Why are requests so inspiring? I never use "prompts," although they appear to be quite popular if one can judge by the web. (I don't have anything against them; it just smacks of school and assignments to me, and I refused to let either have much to do with poems.) But a request is definitely a kind of effective prompt--a grand sort of prompt.

Is it because most art types (not musicians and singers, not dancers) are by necessity so solitary in our work, and in our dour, crazy moments fabulate that we are abysmally alone in the writing room or studio and nobody cares about our work (not that such an idea should matter a whit) or bothers to purchase and peruse it and so on? So that a sign of affection from the outside world has the ability to make one toss the "to do" list (however interesting, however pressing) straight over one's shoulder? I don't really think that's the answer... Not sure what is! Newness? Sparking a thought? Whimsical and rather irresponsible behavior? Whatever it is, I like it. Probably that's partly why I like The Lydian Stones. It's fun to ask.

Update: Clive's answer in the comments is more solid than my rather frivolous post!

* * *

WONDERING SOME MORE

While I was looking at The Curator--or maybe at the IAM site--I stumbled across a link to the most common five regrets of those in hospice or palliative care, as collected by a nurse. And I'm thinking about what my regrets would be, were I to tumble down the basement stairs (always a danger, as the dog bolts into me fairly frequently, and she is big, and I am not especially so) and land on my noggin this afternoon. If you feel like telling me yours, I might well tell you mine... if I figure them out. Still meditating the question. Update: Beth Adams responds.

AND A THIRD THING

Why is this post so very parenthetical in mode? Tell me that.