...had a moment there in yoga class when this bead of sweat was dripping down the bridge of my nose...gradually making its way down to the tip...and I was doing one of those mudra things so didn’t want to lift a hand to brush it away...so instead just felt it there...imagining its glassy clarity...possibly reflecting the ceiling lights...or the entire room...like one of those beads of sweat William Blake didn’t write about in Auguries of Innocence...but probably would have if he’d ever attended a yoga class on a hot July day in Philadelphia...To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake
....afterwards was going to see this Shakespeare in the park thing...A Midsummer Night’s Dream...stopping for a while under a railroad bridge to wait out a lightning storm...the kind where being under a solid stone bridge doesn’t really keep a person or bike from getting wet...as sheets of misty rain entered horizontally...a couple of other guys were there at first...but gradually made their way away...to somewhere...I stayed, coming out once it stopped to a bright blue above, seeming to have thoroughly forgotten what it had been doing moments before...got back on the bike, dodging fallen trees, branches, and rainwater running down side streets like raging streams, making it just at the time the play was supposed to start...to see actors packing up their truck, promising a rain-date next week...
...clearly, there's more than one kind of midsummer dream...
8 comments:
More a midsummer nights rain ... but you made it sound lovely.
I thought I knew where you were going here, drjay...Roseanne Roseannadanna obsessing over that teeny tiny sweat ball hanging off the end of Joyce Brothers' nose...
Mmm, your dream brings back memories of my own...I love getting caught in summer storms a la bike, and it can sometimes be very adventurous.
And what a great reflection shot---looks a little like an upside-down heart, too. I like when you show your own photography...uh, this is your shot, right?
The thing that first made me take notice of your blog was the Art. Then I noticed you could write too... ;-)
Because I'm used to seeing well known art preceding your posts, I was wondering if you knew about the MC Escher piece that looks almost exactly like your photo...
http://dic.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/69/Escher_Puddle.jpg
I like sharing artsy fartsy stuff...
Enjoyed this post immensely - I have a thing for rain, thunder/lightning, bridges, watery reflections, in almost any context. I won't mention how long I just spent sliding blue bars around the enlarged puddle photo...so let me just say, Blake was definitely on to something.
100 degrees in Hollyweird today!
Plenty of sweat rolling down every crevice of my body...
I never thought I was in a middle of a poem...
(Unless of course it was Dante's inferno)
I guess only cold sweat is poetic :)
I loved that photo Jay--it was really magical. I love looking at reflections in water--it reminds me of our place in Maine.
You also reminded me of when I was doing Shakespeare in the Park and what a magical experience it was. We did "Midsummer Night's Dream" and one night, before the play, I took a hit of LSD (I know--really stupid to do--but the result was amazing). I played Titania, the queen of the faeries and in my psychedelic state, I *actually* became Titania. We were doing the show by the lake at Tahoe. It was just such a magical (albeit drug induced) memory. I'd forgotten about that night but your post and the reflection picture made me think of it!
I love that play so much--I hope you get to see it at the post-dated show.
Melinda
You did your yoga, worked up a sweat, sweated out a rain storm and your play was canceled...sounds like a perfect opportunity for a cheese steak to me.
I like the idea of Blake in Yoga...
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