gazing at a picture

"I'm more in the mood for looking at things than for speaking" (1) 

 

Dionysus raised by Bacchantes 

" [..] The implicit response to Christianity  in pagan motifs is equally apparent in [...] depicting the infant Dionysus.[...]

[Christian echoes] in the redemptive role of Dionysus:  "Bacchus our lord shed tears, so that he might bring an end to the tears of mortals."

 Pagan gods had certainly not traditionally taken upon themselves the tribulations of mortals." (2)

(1) from "Pictured" by C.P. Cavafy

(2) from "Hellenism in Late Antiquity" by G.W. Bowersock 

 

lights in december (ctd)

lights in december

 

Here is November again!

Here is November again! November, with its lashing rains, its blazing yellows, its startling sunrays, its foggy forgiveness.




The dark & the rain now again envelope my morning & evening commutes – so I can walk invisibly , with cap turned on, looking up at lighted windows, wondering at the lives being lived there.

Now I can again gaze out of autumnal windows, at home, or traveling, peering through rain drops, watching the changing skies, the violently shaking trees.

And the autumnal park, how it is so yellow, how the wet tree barks are so shiningly black, and the yellow leaves so luminous. How a sudden sunray can set ablaze a wet wooden bench.