Wordless.

Ward was not only a printer but a bookmaker with "an abiding love for the book as an object" ... What's odd and paradoxical about this booklover is that he does not seem to love words. He doesn't play around with them, and the few words he actually allows in his wordless novels.

Read the rest here.

As a kid, Ward's work captivated me in Esther Forbe's Johnny Tremain.

Birth.

Spenser, The Shepherd's Calendar, 1579

THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR: APRIL

I

Now infant April joins the Spring,

And views the watery sky,

As youngling linnet tries its wing,

And fears at first to fly;

With timid step she ventures on,

And hardly dares to smile,

Till blossoms open one by one,

And sunny hours beguile.

II

But finer days are coming yet,

With scenes more sweet to charm,

And suns arrive that rise and set

Bright strangers to a storm:

Then, as the birds with louder song

Each morning's glory cheer,

With bolder step she speeds along,

And loses all her fear.

III

In wanton gambols, like a child,

She tends her early toils,

And seeks the buds along the wild,

That blossoms while she smiles;

Or, laughing on, with nought to chide,

She races with the Hours,

Or sports by Nature's lovely side,

And fills her lap with flowers.

IV

The shepherd on his pasture walks

The first fair cowslip finds,

Whose tufted flowers, on slender stalks,

Keep nodding to the winds.

And though the thorns withhold the May,

Their shades the violets bring,

Which children stoop for in their play

As tokens of the Spring.

V

Those joys which childhood calls its own,

Would they were kin to men!

Those treasures to the world unknown,

When known, are wither'd then!

But hovering round our growing years,

To gild Care's sable shroud,

Their spirit through the gloom appears

As suns behind a cloud.

VI

Since thou didst meet my infant eyes,

As through the fields I flew,

Whose distance, where they meet the skies,

Was all the world I knew;

That warmth of Fancy's wildest hours,

Which fill'd all things with life,

Which heard a voice in trees and flowers,

Has swoon'd in Reason's strife.

VII

Sweet Month! thy pleasures bid thee be

The fairest child of Spring;

And every hour, that comes with thee,

Comes some new joy to bring:

The trees still deepen in their bloom,

Grass greens the meadow-lands,

And flowers with every morning come,

As dropt by fairy hands.

VIII

The field and garden's lovely hours

Begin and end with thee;

For what's so sweet, as peeping flowers

And bursting buds to see,

What time the dew's unsullied drops,

In burnish'd gold, distil

On crocus flowers' unclosing tops,

And drooping daffodil?

IX

To see thee come, all hearts rejoice;

And, warm with feelings strong,

With thee all Nature finds a voice,

And hums a waking song.

The lover views thy welcome hours,

And thinks of summer come,

And takes the maid thy early flowers,

To tempt her steps from home.

X

Along each hedge and sprouting bush

The singing birds are blest,

And linnet green and speckled thrush

Prepare their mossy nest;

On the warm bed thy plains supply,

The young lambs find repose,

And 'mid thy green hills basking lie

Like spots of ling'ring snows.

XI

Thy open'd leaves and ripen'd buds

The cuckoo makes his choice,

And shepherds in thy greening woods

First hear his cheering voice:

And to thy ripen'd blooming bowers

The nightingale belongs;

And, singing to thy parting hours,

Keeps night awake with songs!

XII

With thee the swallow dares to come,

And cool his sultry wing;

And, urged to seek his yearly home,

Thy suns the martin bring.

O! lovely Month! be leisure mine

Thy yearly mate to be;

Though May-day scenes may brighter shine,

Their birth belongs to thee.

XIII

I waked me with thy rising sun,

And thy first glories viewed,

And, as thy welcome hours begun,

Their sunny steps pursued.

And now thy sun is on thee set,

Like to a lovely eve,

I view thy parting with regret,

And linger loath to leave. —

XIV

Though at her birth the northern gale

Come with its withering sigh;

And hopeful blossoms, turning pale,

Upon her bosom die;

Ere April seeks another place,

And ends her reign in this,

She leaves us with as fair a face

As e'er gave birth to bliss!

Anything.

Seaby, Nightingale, 1927

Anything worth thinking about is worth singing about.

Which is why we have songs of praise, songs of love, songs of sorrow.

Songs to the gods, who have so many names.

Songs of the shepherds sing, on the lonely mountains, while the sheep are honoring the grass, by eating it.

The dance-songs of the bees, to tell where the flowers, suddenly, in the morning light, have opened.

A chorus of many, shouting to heaven, or at it, or pleading

Or that greatest of love affairs, a violin and a human body.

And a composer, maybe hundreds of years dead.

I think of Schubert, scribbling on a cafe napkin.

Thank you, thank you.

Mary Oliver

Dances.

Ambler, Grackle, n/d

BIRD

It was passed from one bird to another,

the whole gift of the day.

The day went from flute to flute,

went dressed in vegetation,

in flights which opened a tunnel

through the wind would pass

to where birds were breaking open

the dense blue air–

and there, night came in.

When I returned from so many journeys,

I stayed suspended and green

between sun and geography–

I saw how wings worked,

how perfumes are transmitted

by feathery telegraph,

and from above I saw the path,

the springs and the roof tiles,

the fishermen at their trades,

the trousers of the foam;

I saw it all from my green sky.

I had no more alphabet

than the swallows in their courses,

the tiny, shining water

of the small bird on fire

which dances out of the pollen.

Pablo Neruda

Know.

PINE TREE TOPS

In the blue night

frost haze, the sky glows

with the moon

pine tree tops

bend snow-blue, fade

into sky, frost, starlight.

The creak of boots.

Rabbit tracks, deer tracks,

what do we know.

Gary Snyder

Messengers.

At dawn I have birds, clearly divine messengers that I don't understand yet day by day feel the grace of their intentions.

Jim Harrison, from "Age Sixty-Nine" from In Search of Small Gods

Bumble.

Shaw, Old King Cole’s Nursery Rhymes, 1901

Wassailing.

Wassail the trees, that they may bear

You many a plum, and many a pear:

For more or less fruits they will bring,

As you do give them wassailing.

Robert Herrick

Happy birthday, Kent

Rockwell Kent was born on this day in 1882.

I think the ideals of youth are fine, clear and unencumbered; the real art of living consists in keeping alive the conscience and sense of values we had when we were young.

Rockwell Kent

Kent, The Leviathan, 1930

Sitting.

Hnizdovsky, Loon, 1985

The LOON

Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive

strikes me from sleep, and I rise

from the comfortable bed and go

to another room, where my books are lined up

in their neat and colorful rows. How

magical they are! I choose one

and open it. Soon

I have wandered in over the waves of the words

to the temple of thought.

                 And then I hear

outside, over the actual waves, the small,

perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,

and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out

to the fading moon, to the pink flush

swelling in the east that, soon,

will become the long, reasonable day.

                       Inside the house

it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight

in which I am sitting.

                 I do not close the book.

Neither, for a long while, do I read on.

Mary Oliver

Invisible.

Kiyoshi, Snow, Sunset, 1975

HOW I GO INTO THE WOODS

Ordinarily I go to the woods alone,
with not a single friend,
for they are all smilers and talkers
and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree.
I have my ways of praying,
as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone
I can become invisible.
I can sit on the top of a dune
as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned.
I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me,
I must love you very much.

Mary Oliver

Voyager.

Esherick, Bright Night, 1925

Man would not be man if his dreams did not exceed his grasp. Like John Donne, man lies in a close prison, yet it is dear to him. Like Donne's, his thoughts at times overleap the sun and pace beyond the body. If I term humanity a slime mold organism it is because our present environment suggests it. If I remember the sunflower forest it is because from its hidden reaches man arose. The green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must still seek refuge there. If I dream by contrast of the eventual drift of the star voyagers through the dilated time of the universe, it is because I have seen thistledown off to new worlds and am at heart a voyager who, in this modern time, still yearns for the lost country of his birth.

Loren Eiseley

Power.

Power Moby-Dick.

Entire.

Walker, The Raven, 2013

The answer is always in the entire story, not a piece of it.

Jim Harrison

Thanks, Kurt.