Day: February 15, 2005

Art, Collage

Vessels: Attun

Shelly

A Book of Vessels: Attun
Vessels: Attun
collage

I tried to upload this last night, but I couldn’t get online. So, I’m trying out Flickr, because it’s accessible from work. It seems easy enough, but I’m not sure I like the size of the thumb-nails. I’m also not keen on the the way images are displayed. I really like the transparency of Hello. But, beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Anyway, this piece is yet another in the new Vessels series. After I had the basic lay-out sorted, I started playing around with some letters I’d cut out of an architecture magazine. My options were limited, word-wise, so I settled on attun. Hmmm. I was sure I’d come across the word before, but I couldn’t remember the context or meaning. A quick Google turned up this. Oh, serendipity!

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2000-January/005986.html

Dr. Marcus Jastrow defines ‘attun /’attun’a as “fire-place, stove; a fire-place of which the fire has been scraped out.” … However, it is also used in Targum Onqelos to translate the Hebrew word kavshen at Exodus 19:18, which is a “kiln for lime or pottery,” (BDBG) and was used to describe the smoking mountain of the theophany. Or as some translate this Hebrew word also, a “furnace.” It would appear that the word ‘attun is not explicit, except to refer to a large place used for burning. Yet ordinarily, that might favor furnace or kiln over a bread oven.

Poetry

The Star Maker

Shelly

The Star Maker speaks volumes, in Greek
a wise man with rational principles,
inventing new methods for calculating prime numbers
a man of ethics and ellipses,
the Star Maker studies orbits,
dreams of satellites, planets, and comets
and mapping the sky.

The Star Maker, alchemist and geomancer
binds thought to water,
weaves halos of tin,
and summons bone from air
the Star Maker
speaks in circles of his theories of life,
of gravitational pull
and the swell of the waxing full moon.

The Star Maker, seer and cunning deceiver
divines portents from meteors and scatters of light,
ceaselessly searches for a unified theory of life
the Star Maker, keeper and monster slayer
watches over memory,
haunts dreams, never sleeps
the Star Maker thinks the unthinkable thing
and keeps the unknowable hidden from sight.

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I guess I’m in the midst of a poetry writing binge. I recently pulled out my book of Homeric hymns, which is probably what spawned it. I love the Homeric hymns. I’ve always envied the the ability to know one’s gods so intimately that they are an unquestioned part of everyday life; that the gods could be as real and familiar as one’s friends and relations. I’ve never had that sort of faith.

I also envy people who have created their own mythologies. It’s not that I don’t have recurring threads, thoughts, and dreams, but until now I’ve never bothered to try to gather them together give them tangible form.