The Lovers’ Chronicle 8 March – the yearnin’ – art by Colin Campbell Cooper & George Spencer Watson – verse by Juana de Ibarbourou – publication of Thomas Wolfe’s novel Of Time and the River

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. For what, or whom, do you yearn?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

of dreams and the river…
oh that is a great tune, thank you to whoever
progams the jukebox in my head, oh nice,
this is the Annie Lennox version;
‘’I don’t know why I love you like I do
All the changes you put me through’’
thanks to Al Green and Mabon "Teenie" Hodges
for writin’ it and everyone who has covered it
wait, why is the bed gently rockin’
My love, says the fabulous redhead, I hear water
yes, we appear to be floatin’ down a river
Is this the European cruise we have wanted to do
ha, no, it looks like the Canadian River but before
it was dammed to make Lake Meredith near Amarillo
So this is the river that runs through it, she says
ha again, you are sharp today my love,
i was born about three miles south of the river,
it is a trickle today but the valley it left
from its years of flowin’ is beautiful
and it is with me wherever i go
Wait, do I hear someone typin’ on a typewriter, she asks
oh probably Wolfe still writin’ Of Time and the River
Of course, he’ll never finish it, or stop yearnin’ 
hey thanks for gittin’ us back on topic,
this is what i long to know;
’’I wanna know
Can you tell me?
I’d love to stay’’
Yes we are here to stay
holdin’ and squeezin’
till we cain’t take no more

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this one came from a poem
by the Uruguayan poet
Juana de Ibarbourou
“I will read it to you in Spanish”
oh i like it when you do that
“She was writing about longing”
i was hooked as soon
as i translated it
“Did you know where yours
was coming from”
from the not havin’ found
“The one”
i now have

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somethin’ that served a purpose, but no longer needed, Wolfe knew, probably voluminously, born of bein’ without and the longer spent there the more material, the more drama, how else can you tell the tale, how else can you probe deep enough into the wounds to be able to understand, to be able to go on, well that is what we have here, will take whatever credit and make the apologies, with the door closed, yearn for you to move a little closer

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later, rain stopped and clouds cleared,
standin’ outside, we swayed, gazin’ up,
because the stars were high and deep,
closin’ an afternoon and evenin’ spent
embraced in verse and togetherness,
brings us now, this wish bein’ said,
an offerin’ as we step into our future

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Pale Love, Pale Rider

certainly cannot
dismiss the past

all of the hurt
for the sake
of the pain
or whatever,
served a purpose

to know from where
longin’ comes
to have survived
livin’ so long
under a canopy
of mournin’,
makes us
stronger,
and not take
for granted
the wonder
of bein’ here

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

it is all here, the art,
the books, the albums
and the lean verse
of your favorite…

the way the fog rolled in
after all that snow
we learn to walk miles
around what we want

the reasons dissolve,
then the will
dreams fraught
with ruined gestures

a charred palace,
the gaze through
how well we remember

the notes glidin’ about,
the gate coolin’ our hands
singin’ out of need
a feelin’ hot as blood
endin’ with us

the fence
gives way
to the prairie

it is all here
now we can begin

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

oh sure spent a lot of time there
led to some verse, ever grateful
for that, but nothin’ else came of it
and might as well apologize
for the trail of drama left behind
blame it on tryin’ to find my voice
and the need to vent
and what of longin’ now
gittin’ on the other of that
the further into the solitude
the better it suits
and the more i want to stay

© copyright 2018.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

hurtin’ for the sake
of the pain
or somethin’ else

donde regresó el anhelo

to know from where
the longin’ awaits
to sing at the time
in between
the sky and the fall
with blue pure thoughts

a mournin’ canopy
the spark
night cleft asunder
and the ache
again opened
winged verse
and its punishment

worse,
how could it possibly
git any worse

donde regresó el anhelo

what does one do with that
how in the hell does one go on
a struggle
to comprehend,
much less convey

can i take off,
do i want to take off,
this halo of hurt

el anhelo

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

What? You want my heart?
Ah hell, that is easy;
You can have it
What? You want my words?
Whoa, hold on darlin’
That could be a problem

© copyright 2016 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Lost my heart somewhere between Amarillo and Palermo…

oh sorry, I was busy hangin’ out with friends (Jupiter, Venus, Orion, and the Moon), not alone, just disengaged 

© copyright 2012 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Colin Campbell Cooper

Today is the birthday of Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (Philadelphia; March 8, 1856 – November 6, 1937 Santa Barbara, California); Impressionist painter, perhaps most renowned for his architectural paintings, especially of skyscrapers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago.  An avid traveler, he was also known for his paintings of European and Asian landmarks, as well as natural landscapes, portraits, florals, and interiors.  In addition to being a painter, he was also a teacher and writer.  His first wife, Emma Lampert Cooper, was also a highly regarded painter.

In the Dutch artists colony in Dordrecht in South Holland he met Lampert (1855–1920 from Rochester, New York). They were soon married, in Rochester on June 9, 1897.

He and his wife were aboard the RMS Carpathia during its rescue mission for the survivors from the sunken RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912.  He assisted in the effort, and during the rescue operation, he created several paintings which document the events.  The Coopers gave up their ship’s cabin so some of the survivors would have berths to sleep in.

Emma died of tuberculosis on July 30, 1920.  After her death, Cooper moved to Santa Barbara, California in January 1921.  Santa Barbara would be his home base for the rest of his life, spending two years in northern Europe and Tunisia.  He became Dean of Painting at the Santa Barbara Community School of Arts.

In April 1927, he married Marie Henriette Frehsee, in Arizona.  Cooper continued to enjoy traveling, and kept painting until prevented from doing so by failing eyesight in his last years.  He died at the age of 81.

Gallery

Hudson River Waterfront, N. Y. C., 1913-21

Rescue of the Survivors of the Titanic by the Carpathia, 1912

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, c. 1915

Terrace at Samarkand Hotel, c. 1923

Amsterdam, 1892

New York from Brooklyn, c. 1910

Columbus Circle, 1909

Pergola at Samarkand, c. 1921

today is the birthday of George Spencer Watson R.O.I., R.P., A.R.A., R.A. (8 March 1869, in London – 11 April 1934, in London); portrait artist of the late romantic school who sometimes worked in the style of the Italian Renaissance.

Juana de Ibarbourou

Today is the birthday of Juana de Ibarbourou, also known as Juana de América, (Juana Fernández Morales; Melo, Uruguay 8 March 1892 – 15 July 1979 Montevideo, Uruguay); poet.  She was one of the most popular poets of Spanish America.  Her poetry, the earliest of which is often highly erotic, is notable for her identification of her feelings with nature around her.

She married Captain Lucas Ibarbourou Trillo (1879-1942) in a civil ceremony June 28, 1913, and had one child named Julio César Ibarbourou Fernández (1914-1988). In 1918, Juana moved to Montevideo with her family. As was the custom, Juana and Lucas were remarried in a religious ceremony on June 28, 1921, in the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Aid. Lucas Ibarbourou died on January 13, 1942. Their son Julio became a compulsive gambler and drug addict and Juana spent nearly all of her money, eventually having to sell her houses, property and jewelry, to pay his debts and the costs of his medical care.

Verse 

“RECONQUISTA” (Reconquest)

No sé de donde regresó el anhelo
De volver a cantar como en el tiempo
en que tenía entre mi puño el cielo
Y con una perla azul el pensamiento.

De una enlutada nube, la centella,
Súbito pez, hendió la noche cálida
Y en mí se abrió de nuevo la crisálida
Del verso alado y su bruñida estrella.

Ahora ya es el hino centelleante
Que alza hasta Dios la ofrenda poderosa
De su bruñida lanza de diamante.

Unidad de la luz sobre la rosa.
Y otra vez la conquista alucinante
De la eterna poesía victoriosa.

-Montevideo, 1960

And it was on this day in 1935 that Thomas Wolfe’s novel Of Time and the River was published. Wolfe’s editor was Maxwell Perkins, who also edited Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When Wolfe brought Perkins a draft of Of Time and the River in December of 1933, it was more than one million words long, and still growing. The first installment alone was two feet high.

For a year, Perkins and Wolfe met almost every day to work through the manuscript. During that time, Hemingway invited his editor to join him in Key West, but Perkins declined, writing: “I am engaged in a kind of life and death struggle with Mr. Thomas Wolfe.” Wolfe never gave up arguing with the deletions Perkins made, and he frequently appeared in Perkins’ office with several thousand words of new material which Perkins refused.

Despite the cuts, Of Time and the River was still 912 pages long. Wolfe dedicated it to Perkins, and even that was almost 100 words long. The book was a commercial success and received mostly good reviews, but Wolfe was wounded by the negative ones, and became convinced that Perkins had ruined his book. He left Perkins for a new editor. Three years later, dying of tuberculosis at the age of 37, he sent his last letter, apologizing to Perkins and thanking him once again.

Excerpt

 At that instant he saw, in one blaze of light, an image of unutterable conviction, the reason why the artist works and lives and has his being—the reward he seeks—the only reward he really cares about, without which there is nothing. It is to snare the spirits of mankind in nets of magic, to make his life prevail through his creation, to wreak the vision of his life, the rude and painful substance of his own experience, into the congruence of blazing and enchanted images that are themselves the core of life, the essential pattern whence all other things proceed, the kernel of eternity.

Play us a tune on an unbroken spinet, and let the bells ring, let the bells ring! Play music now: play us a tune on an unbroken spinet. Do not make echoes of forgotten time, do not strike music from old broken keys, do not make ghosts with faded tinklings on the yellowed board; but play us a tune on an unbroken spinet, play lively music when the instrument was new, let us see Mozart playing in the parlor, and let us hear the sound of the ladies’ voices. But more than that; waken the turmoil of forgotten streets, let us hear their sounds again unmuted, and unchanged by time, throw the light of Wednesday morning on the Third Crusade, and let us see Athens on an average day.

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

mac tag