Gitali 7

Rabindranath Tagore
translation by, Brother James

Why keep me happy?
Rather keep me in Your embrace

Let my happiness go up in flames,
Let the earth slip away from beneath my feet!
Then You'll hold me tight.

You'll pick me up and rock me,
rock me in those arms of Yours

Let the deluge rage
where my hut lies!

If You set me adrift,
I don't want to be rescued.

I give in,
My fear is gone.

Your victory, of course, is my victory-
I surrender,
and so I'll possess You.

Broken Glass, Blue Potty and Toes Meet Escher

The detritus from a scuffle between my two oldest sons. Jensen pushed Pruitt up against a big sliding glass window and it left the sill, landing on the veranda below. Pruitt was a bit shook up and our guest house bill was a bit larger than usual but there was no blood.




I have been asked to do some interior design on a flat which will be living space/guest house. I really liked the blue potty and don't think I will need to paint it.




As a kid I was enamoured with Escher and tricks of perception . . . okay, okay, I am still a kid. This handsome floor paves the entryway into the aforementioned apartment. I may turn it into a psychedelic breakfast nook.

Night Flash

After a sweltering day I was lying sultrily on my bed longing for relief when what should appear but a cool wind, thunder, and an amazing display of electric illumination (the poetic equivalent of lightening). I hastily arose from my inert position and fumbling, grabbed for my camera and proceeded to take (no joke) over 65 pictures to try to capture this enlightened moment. Of course I could never capture the profound and moving depth of the moment's beauty, but this picture comes pretty close.

Dhaka Sightings

I went to Old Dhaka and took too many really bad pictures and this is all that survived my unscrupulous deleting frenzy. I took the picture of the sculpture below so that next time I went to old Dhaka I would have my bearings. It''s not unsightly and actually quite beautiful compared to some I've had to look at recently. I really need a polarizing filter. . . I hate a washed out sky.




Why are Hindi movie posters so fascinating to me . . . and to most artsy westerners for that matter? The picture was quite awful even though I upped the contrast, but all that aside I still like it.




For this picture I was sitting on the back side of a horse-drawn taxi in the middle of a traffic jam. Unfortunately this rickshaw driver had some phlegm that was not cooperating with my photo opportunity. Looking at it closer . . . maybe he was getting ready to spit at me . . . hmmm . . .

Water Boys

My sons . . . I am speechless.

Nodir Paray (At the River's Edge)

Fishnets strung out on bamboo spikes at the river's edge




Fish traps . . . a functional beauty all their own . . . especially in multiples . . . out of the water






giving center stage to a fun, little, "taken for granted" plant at the river's edge.




grass glorious grass. in Bangla it is "ghash". The word sounds as the thing itself sounds in the wind. It sounds like it feels between your toes. It sounds like it smells unless their are too many cows around. It goes much deeper than onomatopoeia . . . believe me.

Recycle

From a stack of sweetened condensed milk cans. . .




. . . to the knife. . .



. . . to mosquito coil holders




And of course you can't forget the beautiful wall display of hand tools!