RIDGES

 

Cover of Ridges

On our arrival in Sewanee, TN, we found three boxes of Ridges, a volume of my poetry and Don Thornton’s paintings produced by Pinyon Publishing in Montrose, Colorado. Fortunately, Sister Madeleine Mary, CSM of the Sisters of St. Mary here in Sewanee, TN, had rescued and taken our books into our home on Fairbanks Circle during heavy rain, and all was saved. Since then, I’ve been sending out copies to a few regular readers that I hope will respond to my most-favored book. I sincerely appreciate Dr. Mary Ann Wilson’s salute to the “…blending of natural and human, art and place in a loving tribute to a fellow artist and friend, seeing in those ridges ‘the mudflats of old sufferings…”

The reference is to a volume of poetry and paintings designed by Susan Entsminger, publisher and editor of Pinyon Publishing, whose own artistic talent showcases the work of Don Thornton’s paintings and that which I consider my ultimate book of poetry. I had transported Don’s paintings from New Iberia, Louisiana to Sewanee a year ago where they sat in a box for months until I was able to overcome ennui caused by the threat of Covid disease hovering around everyone in the world. Perhaps the disease itself made me wonder if I’d ever feel like writing again. Only Don’s beautiful paintings could have challenged me to bring his art into book form. And after I sat with his work daily for several months, the Chenier Plain became my place of inspiration.

 

As botanist Dr. Victoria I. Sullivan explained in Ridges, the term chenier (or cheniere) derives from the Cajun word chene for oak. The Mississippi Chenier Plain is an ecological feature composed of coastal ridges 12-18 miles wide and 6-20 feet in elevation. The oak ridges stretch 124 miles from Sabine Pass, Texas, to Southwest Point, Louisiana. This plain is a rich mixture of wetlands, uplands, and open water that developed 7000 to 3000 years BP when water levels stood 16-20 feet lower than at present. Sea level rise between 3000 and 2500 BP submerged the cheniers to the extent we see them today.

The special foreword by Darrell Bourque, Louisiana Poet Laureate, 2007-2011, explains that in Ridges, “each poem takes an artist-poet-teacher to the crossroads of being, that sacred ridged place where Thornton lived most profoundly, most honestly, most deeply…” This morning I rejoice as I re-read Bourque’s foreword and take another long look at the “blue, blue skies, the rosy sand in the mud flats, the yellow he assigned to love, the brooding skies too, the impending storms, the golden, fuchsia, lavender and purple sunsets, each detail springboard for Moore to attach to a life, a marriage, a vocation, the sacred, the obstinate, the tortured, the mendicant, the explorer…”

I am proud of this book, of Don, of Suzi, his wife; of Vickie, who photographed the paintings, of Darrell and his grace-filled poetic introduction to the book; and of Susan, who realized the importance of making Ridges available to poets, biographers, and nature lovers. I hope that Ridges finds a prominent place in Louisiana history and culture as it found its precious place in my love of the Louisiana landscape through the eyes of master artist Don Thornton.

Here is “Blue Skies,” a poem and accompanying painting from Ridges:

 

 Blue Skies

That blue sky so close to the water,

a mirage of ridges behind,

was clear enough to banish bad spirits;

he could hear Ella Fitzgerald …

no, it was Willie Nelson …

singing “Blue Skies” that day.


The scattered frequency

moved his eyes into calmer light,

thoughts cleared of apparitions,

the mud flats of old sufferings,

and the wind, a mouth for Spirit,

created verse void of form within.

 

Oaks on the ridge swayed

while he drifted in the boat,

soon fell asleep

in the color of blue,

awakened to music dissolving,

      his soul spinning on a tuning fork.

Order books by emailing me at deaconwriter@gmail.com or snail mailing at PO Box 3124, Sewanee, TN 37375. 

LEGACIES OF BEAUTY

Painting by Paul E. Marquart

 

During these spring-like days when life becomes flowers and soon-to-be gardens, I leaf through two black notebooks with photographs of my deceased brother Paul's paintings and gardens he planted in northern California a few decades ago. I'm proud of Paul's considerable talents in both fields, and I viewed his art firsthand several times, but I never tire of revisiting the photographs his wife took and relinquished to me on a visit about five years ago.

Although the paintings of flowers don't have his usual signature symbols—tiny people embedded in forests and other landscapes —I laugh when I discover them because Paul seemed to think people should be a part of any garden or landscape when he created art.

 

Paul's Garden

I once sat in the garden depicted in the photograph above, wearing a heavy jacket on a summer morning because the wind often blows cold in northern California, even in the summer. I loved the sights and scents of this Paradise Paul had created. He had a checkered past, beginning with mischief-making at an early age as the firstborn boy in our family, and he showed little interest in scholarly pursuits while in school, but he was someone I think Henry Miller would've taken under his wing as an artist living at Big Sur, California. However, Paul would not have liked the idea of being poor, although he would've enjoyed the community and stayed at Big Sur awhile during an adventurous period of his life.

I didn't communicate with Paul for twenty years until one day the phone rang, and I recognized his lazy southern drawl at once. "You need to come out to see us," he said. "I have this old pick-up you could use to tool around in the redwoods." At the time, I was employed at a daily job and told him I couldn't visit, but he continued to talk about his painting, and I told him I wrote poetry. "I'll trade you a painting for a poem," he said, and a few weeks later, we made the exchange. Two years later, I went out to northern California on vacation, and we reunited.

I'm proud to own a few of Paul's paintings and the two black notebooks. Paul began practicing art early, illustrating my father's tales about Jimmy Bear, but he didn't become a serious artist until the 1990s, when he gardened and painted until his death a few years ago. I like to pen the lines "art is eternal" when I look at Paul's paintings and gardens. And when winter closes in, I spend a few hours a week thinking of how art can alter a person's vision—and lead him/her to create a legacy of beauty.