"Beginners" by Denise Levertov

“From too much love of living,
Hope and desire set free,
Even the weariest river
Winds somewhere to the sea--“


But we have only begun
To love the earth.

We have only begun
To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?
-- so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?
-- we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision

how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.

Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet--
there is too much broken
that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.
_________________

I heard Frances Moore Lappé recite this at a lecture broadcast by UCTV.

Zhang Huan

I had seen one of Zhang Huan's Ash Head sculptures at a show at the Hudson Valley Center-Contemporary, in Peekskill, NY called "Origins".

I looked him up on the web and found that he also creates drawings with incense ash.





I think it's interesting how the materials add to the meaning.

Visit to the MOMA

The MOMA was not designed for the type of crowds that arrived on December 30th, 2009. Where some major museums - esp. in NYC can accommodate large amounts of people waiting in line INSIDE - just trying to pay - this was not the case for the MOMA. The line of people outside was 2 blocks in the cold. And the line just to check coats was 45 minutes. Certainly this building - which was just re-done - could have been designed better.

But once a person got past all that - it was fine (except that I suspected that the number of people in the various galleries exceeded the posted limits for each).

One thing I wanted to see were the large Monet paintings. I had thought from the exhibition description that there would be more large ones - the ones on loan from the MET were not that great. But the MOMA's were nice to see. Agapanthus

The Bauhaus show was interesting. Especially the design lessons - colors and glass grids - and weavings.

It was also interesting to see the general collection. There was now a whole room of Jackson Pollocks. The MOMA got rid of one of his large ones and got a different one, instead (I think I liked the other one better).

A nice collection of Rauschenberg's.



I didn't count how many Picasso's there were - but it seemed like more than necessary. Multiple rooms. To the point where it seemed that it would have been nice to see some work by some other people.

They could have had more art by women, for example. There was a Frida Khalo, a Louise Bourgeois, Meret Oppenheim's Object, but overall - art by women was pretty scarce.