Reyes

Reyes 2019

Reyes

On the night of January 5 – 6, The Three Wise Men, Los Reyes Magos in Spanish, visit all the children in the world as they travel to Bethlehem. They bear gifts to these children and January 6 is a time of visitors and gifts.

First: the visitors. Three deer walked out of the woods this morning (6 Jan 2017). They paraded in front of the garage, luckily we had the door open, and equally luckily, I was able to get these photos of them.

This is the lead deer. At this stage, the road was empty and I hadn’t been seen.

The camera’s click sounded the alarm. The deer froze … and so did I. We gazed at each other for several seconds. I was afraid to move.

I took another photo. The feet picked up as the camera clicked and away the deer went.

Baby came last, but didn’t stay long.

Up went the tail and away baby sped. Wapiti, White-tailed deer, tail in the air.

After the visitors, came the gifts.

Below is a link to my first Poetry book of 2008: Iberian Interludes. It arrived just in time for Reyes … the little boy that still dwells within this old man’s heart is delighted with his gift: the majority of my best poems about Spain gathered together beneath two new covers. Click below and open the box!

https://www.amazon.com/Iberian-Interludes-Bulls-Blood-Bottled/dp/1539911411/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

May you all have a great visit from the Three Wise Men (los Tres Reyes Magos), and may you all have a prosperous and joyous New Year, full of excellent writing and wonderful new accomplishments.

Nativity

Nativity

We keep this beautiful, hand-carved nativity scene on the sideboard all year round. It is tiny, approximately 2″ x 2″ and came from Central Europe, possibly Hungary, where a friend was travelling in the mid-seventies. He brought it back for us as a gift and we revisit it every Christmas, moving it into a more central place of honor and beauty by the Advent calendars and the Christmas scenes.

It will soon be time to remove most of these Christmas adornments. Some will stay up longer though and this is one of the pieces that will remain in sight to delight us all year round.

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This is another piece that will stay with us. It shows our photo of Tigger being visited by Kiki the Cat and several little puppies. Tigger gazes at them from his Royal Portrait, making them all feel welcome and protected as he endows them with the seasonal spirits that will extend well into the New Year.

Yesterday

Ay Ay Ayeres

Digging around in the photo files that I transferred from my old computer to my Google drive, I discovered this golden oldie composed of my words and Clare’s images. What a revelation: I had completely forgotten that this group of work existed. I’ll dig them out ne by one and post them from time to time. Ayer is the Spanish for yesterday, hier in French. The title “Ay! Ay! Ayeres!” with its multiple plays All our yesterdays and its reference to the old song “Ay, ay, ay, canta no llores” draws together a series of memories, some in the past and some in the future. ‘How can we have a memory in the future?’ you ask. By recognizing a present moment, or one that lies just ahead in a future that ill become soon enough a present, as one that has already occurred in the past, thus confirming the circularity of our lives and the idea that all time is time present, one of T. S. Eliot’s recurring themes.

Ocho Venado: Eight Deer is a central figure (war leader) in the Zouche-Nuttal, a pre-Columbian Mixtec Codex. He is the war leader in the Conquests recorded in the codex (circa 1050-1100).
Quesadillas: Oaxacan tortillas filled with cheese and flores de Calabaza, gourd flowers.
Reyes Magos: the three wise men or kings who visited the Christ Child on January 6, the traditional Spanish Christmas.
Murcielago: the bat and a symbol of death in Oaxacan mythology.
Nueve Viento: Nine Wind descends from heaven to separate the sky from earth and its waters. Nine Wind at Tule meeting with Cortes is mythical not historical, though the meeting of Cortes with the Mixtec chiefs (caciques) did happen.
Apoala: The Mixtec nation was born form a cave (sometimes a tree) in Apoala, Oaxaca.
Spinning the wheels in the snow: a reference to Jean Chretien and one of his famous images.

The piece is written in a surrealist style that mixes historical fact with creative writing. The distant past is recalled (1050-1100), then the middle past (1525-1530), and finally the present appears. This mixing of time and place (Mexico and Canada) is also related to the surrealist movement. Surrealism creates a dream world in which images float and change shape within a time-space conundrum where dream is more real than reality and creates its own new meanings that are individual to each reader.

Any comments on this rediscovered piece will be warmly welcomed.