Stars through the Blinds

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Lying in bed this morning I watched a star through the slats of the Venetian blinds. This is the same star (I assume it is a star but know nothing about the night sky-could be a planet or an alien space probe, I suppose!) I have watched on a couple of mornings recently. As I am not sleepy and lying in the same position, in the same bed, every morning about this time, I watch it “move upwards” past slat #4, then #5, then behind the leaves of a tree in the distance. The perspective of “stars” is such that it only takes a branch or a leaf down here on Earth to obliterate the “star” from view, even though the “star” itself is a scajillion times bigger than the leaf. It is so far away it can hide behind the leaf. And then it moves up towards slat #6. I know it is not the star that is moving. Again it is perspective that allows me to feel like it is the star that is moving, not the rotation of the Earth, which is actually what is happening. By the time it reaches slat #7 and has hidden behind several other leaves it is beginning to get light and I know, from other mornings observations, that I will loose the “star” entirely in a few minutes. The sun will obliterate it as it climbs out of its red bed and the sky becomes winter white.

In the last few minutes in bed I find myself mentally writing poems about the day and the light and the winter and the morning but, curiously, in a story within a story, I find I am writing a poem within a poem too. It is a haiku about the “star” It is about the Venetian blinds. Now that I am awake and I have had my coffee and toasted Sunday Bialy, the haiku eludes me. I can’t remember it now. I feel badly. Like I did something good but there is no record of it.

That is one of the nice things about photographs. When you see something that is worth recording you can capture it (hopefully with skill) right then and there. Perhaps I should put a camera on the bed stand and shoot from my pillow through the Venetian blinds? There is something that separates the photographer from the painter or the writer. The writer and the painter both have to capture the image in their brain and then transfer it to something concrete. The photographer (especially digital) has the luxury of capturing the moment directly-with no ‘middle man’ or memorization to delay the creation. No excuse though. If it is worth recording (film, canvas or keyboard) one must still get out from under the warm blankets and work for it.

Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow morning the poem will come back to me and I will get up and write it down.