weeks later

John Wesley's 'Titanic'

it's been weeks since I've written, with time to absorb bits and pieces of my third consistently surreal trip out to west texas for the chinati foundation's open house weekend. the sign of that week's divinity was a beached catfish, so completely out of place, yet alive! in the early part of evening, we returned it to the cienega in balmorhea. the chihuahuan desert was a hard to know mixture of mud and verdant desert flora. kidneywood and desert broom spread perfume which hugged the ground, except when wind came through. and there was plenty of it. perhaps a tornado flung that fish towards our room's air conditioner, because the cottonwoods were rattling like nobody's business, an appropriate balm for balmy conditions. the art, well, it all makes so much sense in such an oasis. heavy air chokes out meaning, which is lost in houston and in heavy textbooks. as i imagine my mistaken, forgotten body floating into a dark corner of the desert pool, or under some accomodating but unlocatable chaparral, i readied myself for crisp art intake. no one is there to hold my hand as i stare at a painting by john wesley of boar heads, so loaded, waiting for the unsuspecting viewer. i leaned far towards a rich blue set of fluorescent tubes, backlit by yellow (dan flavin), and explored the temporary hari-kari of my cones and rods. from there, one can use the small window at the front of the building as a beacon to revive from the quiet white room into the desert grassland outside. later, an evening you wish you could slow down even more, with the smell of pinon burning in a campfire by the railroad tracks, games of pool at the local's place, and the huge dinner, where one can just sit on the curb with plate full and people watch in the smallest human to kitsch ratio i've ever witnessed. i love this desert and my native appalachians equally, and feel myself wedded to these landscapes.