{"id":29907,"date":"2018-06-08T07:02:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T11:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=29907"},"modified":"2018-06-21T11:15:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T15:15:51","slug":"majestically-lonely-and-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2018\/06\/majestically-lonely-and-white.html","title":{"rendered":"‘Majestically lonely and white . . .’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that you’ve had a look at the moody green splendor of the moors<\/a> near Manchester, England, take a look at the brilliant skyscape near Bordeaux, France (courtesy of our staff), and a favorite poem of theirs.<\/p>\n

<\/a>‘A History of Clouds’<\/strong><\/font>
\nHans Magnus Enzensberger<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Appearing as they do,
\novernight, or out of the blue,
\nthey can hardly be considered
\nas being born.
\nPassing away imperceptibly
\nthey have no notion of dying.
\nAnd anyway, nobody
\ncan match their transience.<\/p>\n

Majestically lonely and white
\nthey rise against a silky blue
\nor huddle together,
\nlike animals in the cold, collectively
\nand numb, cluster to form
\nink-dark electric disasters,
\nboom and flash, unmoved,
\nlet hail and water fall.<\/p>\n

Then again they boast
\nof vain feats, change colour,
\nape all that is solid.<\/p>\n

<\/a>A game is their history,
\nunbloodied, older than ours.
\nThey don’t need historians,
\nhenchmen, medics, make do
\nwithout chiefs, without battles.<\/p>\n

Their wanderings high up
\nare quiet and inexorable.
\nNothing bothers them.
\nProbably they believe
\nin resurrection, thoughtlessly
\nhappy like me,
\nlying on my back and
\nwatching them for a while.<\/p>\n

Postscript:<\/strong> June 8 — A note from our Mancunian correspondent Jay Jeff Jones: <\/p>\n

Sometimes the universe throws back the curtains here also, and the sky castles roll past. What is missing in recent summers are all the curlews that used to rise out of the fields, whistling their way out of sight.<\/p>\n

But often it’s also the way that Ted Hughes wrote it:<\/p>\n

Winds from fiery holes in heaven
\nPiled the hills darkening around them
\nTo awe them. The glare light
\nMixed its mad oils and threw glooms.
\nThen the rain lowered a steel press<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

PPS:<\/strong> June 8 — And from Gerard Bellaart:<\/p>\n

Here’s Vallejo’s line dealing with the same subject: <\/p>\n

“the colossal staging of the sky”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

PPS:<\/strong> June 21 — Crossposted<\/a> at IT: International Times, The Newspaper of Resistance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that you’ve had a look at the moody green splendor of the moors near Manchester, England, take a look at the brilliant skyscape near Bordeaux, France (courtesy of our staff), and a favorite poem of theirs. ‘A History of Clouds’ Hans Magnus Enzensberger Appearing as they do, overnight, or out of the blue, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,18,4,23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-news","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/clouds-1-480.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-7Mn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29907"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30138,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29907\/revisions\/30138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}