- Rainey steps back into the spotlight,
- bright dots of sweat
- shining on her clear skin.
- She cues the combo
- and moves into the mike.
- The set is half done,
- Ellington, Loesser and Kahn
- the elegant fabrics
- she’s laced in, around and over.
- Now it's a Lazy Afternoon
- and the beetle bugs are zoomin
- and there's not another humin in view.
- She soars and dives,
- gravels a high note
- and Janis is here—
- Drops like a cut-cabled elevator
- to press a deep, low phrase
- straight into your chest,
- invoking Morgana, Nina and June.
- Incantation,
- Communion,
- Transubstantiation—
- Joy rises.
- Not pleasure—
- Joy.
- Rainey's walking on water
- Invincible, taking us with her, to the far shore.
- .
- Zahourek spits on God
- aiming his heat
- at commandments and collections
- as if they were religion.
- And while he rants
- life riots through him,
- pouring out of his hands,
- exploding onto canvas.
- The driving, relentless force of the universe
- roars through one tense, angry Czech
- and he makes miracles of it,
- there, before our eyes.
- Cadmium, alizarin, cerulean and umber
- turned by his rapid hands
- into shadows and shoulders, tendrils and thighs.
- The forms write and breathe
- as Zahourek,
- drunk on the beauty of the earth,
- on the warmth of flesh
- and the ecstasy of movement,
- sweeps us with him, into the sacred.
- .
- Alexander sculpts a building
- out of air and wisdom,
- waving his hands,
- squinting his eyes
- to see what only he and God can see
- in this clearing on the bluff.
- Listening to something
- we cannot hear, he brings into being
- a house so solid, silent and calm,
- so embracing, consoling and inevitable,
- that it draws in and restores
- every open soul that finds its way here.
- And many do.
- Pilgrims who have heard,
- who’ve seen a photograph,
- who sense that here there is something
- mysterious, rare, perhaps even inspired.
- On a clear blue afternoon
- we sit at a long table in the sun,
- the house embracing this garden
- and all of us who bask here
- amid the calendulas and ferns.
- Feasting on tabouli and cold birds,
- we talk of poetry and paintings,
- of terraces in Tuscany and homemade wine,
- of our work, our passions, our quests.
- We are friends, gathered here
- by the grace that emanates from this holy place.
- At Christmas, the clan assembles.
- The tree, dressed in familiar ornaments,
- touches the coffered ceiling
- and sends the scent of balsam to mingle
- with fire, roast and cakes.
- Thick walls hold out the cold, the wind,
- and every danger of the world we know.
- Comets cut across the high windows
- as we are drawn in and held fast, together,
- blessed by the house that Alexander made,
- while listening to God.
