Saturday, October 29, 2011

Windows again (looking out)


Isn't it our geometry,
the window, the simplest shape 
effortlessly drawn around
our enormous life?


The one you love is never lovelier
than when you see her 
in the frame of a window,
made nearly timeless.


All risks are done away with.  Being
stands at the heart of love,
with just this small surrounding space 
of which you are master.

(Rilke, Windows III )
~


It's enough that, on a balcony
or in the frame of a window
a woman hesitates ... 



                ... to be
the one we've lost
on having seen her once appear.



And if she should lift up her arms,
a delicate vase, to tie her hair:
how much our loss
gains sudden emphasis by that
and our misfortune brilliance!


(Rilke, Windows I )

~

(Looking out from a Costa coffee shop in Cambridge, thinking I'd been lugging the camera about but not taking many photos, so decided I'd try a bit of street photography through the windows.  Kind of thing when Jean does it it looks full of mindfulness and atmosphere and possible meaning, when I do it it just looks like mucking about pointing the camera at random, which it is.  But as Rilke keeps saying, things seen through a window...

The only person I reckon is really recognisable is my sister, drinking her coffee, so I hope this doesn't offend anyone's sensibilities on matters of privacy.)

12 comments:

the polish chick said...

i really love that second last one. it would make a fantastic framed shot in a loft apartment, all moody, post-modern, poetic, blurred and making all sorts of statements about time, the fragility of our passage through same, the gaze, the true self vis a vis the public facade and all sorts of other pretentious muckety-muck. well done!

Dale said...

Lovely, photo and text (which I didn't know)!

(But "master"? Surely not! "Servant" would be optimistic :->)

Jean said...

I love the photos - they seem mysterious and allusive when they're someone else's view, of course. And this translation is a on ongoing joy.

Zhoen said...

Windows - useful for what isn't there.

Catalyst said...

Oh, privacy . . shrivacy! They're great pictures.

zephyr said...

i beg to differ, Lucy. these are marvelous!! Street photography is so challenging and these are so...rich. Perfect with the
words but even more evocative. Kertesz comes to mind.

J Cosmo Newbery said...

Bruce stole my comment.
I feel violated now.

Fire Bird said...

I like the blurry, random, spontaneous feel of them

Anne said...

I love your photos, and I love Jean's photos and I love that they are different. You each use photography and poetry and prose to convey your own unique vision of the outer and inner worlds. There is beauty, mystery and a bit of melancholy both in your work and in Jean's. How I wish I could do that!

HKatz said...

when I do it it just looks like mucking about pointing the camera at random, which it is.

Too self-deprecating!

I love these. They all suggest stories, character, and certain moods. And I enjoy how you presented them with Rilke.

Dick said...

I hope that that Rilke guy was duly grateful for having his words so finely embellished. I think he might have commented at least!

YourFireAnt said...

Lovely, Lucy. Just beautiful. The words along with photos.... All of it.

T.