Paul Mann

A seascape of luminous ivory scrimshaws itself into view. As if they were the dusk of the gods,    rolling fog and sea spray   entwine like Canova’s Three Graces. In the harbor, fishing boats bob and sway at anchor, moored in a milky tableau vivant; water slaps gently against the hulls. A bell buoy clangs elsewhere, […]

Out on the coastal trail the grey air is December brisk. Strangers greet each other  “Good morning!” full-throated and gust-blown in the ante meridiem freshness. Dark, scudding clouds promise the yearned-for deliverance of rain. Leaves ferment on the asphalt, blanketed with pine needles and miniature cones the size of elves. Edging the trail are fervent […]

Inspiration demands the active cooperation of the intellect, joined with enthusiasm. ­— Giorgio Vasari We don’t create art, not in the first instance anyway. It impregnates us. We carry it to term by interior osmosis; gestation lasts days or decades. Art is in the unconscious until we sublimate it, even as we nourish and discipline […]

The strangeness of this unnatural spring fills me with forebodings of the end. April, said to be in its uncertain glory the cruelest month, is preempted by ersatz February and stilted March. Their thievish haloed Moon threatens to steal my breath.

The irreducible essence of life is distilled in the pattering of rain on leaves, from the evensong of birds at dusk, through an elusive shadow of cloud over a mountain lake, in the pinwheel, phosphorescent dust of the galaxies. When we cleave to the essence, we stop hurting each other; we are humbled by our […]

      Sturdy obelisk, whited sepulcher, the lighthouse is a model of vertical economy. Gale-astounded by the sea gods, a marooned mariner in its own right, the lighthouse used to console itself as well as the sailor with tallow candles and solid-wick lanterns before Monsieur Fresnel came to the rescue with his array of […]

            The white crests of the mountain sea are briny conjurations, an untraceable sorcery of mist and churning vapor, lost, like us, in the vanishing moment to time unchronicled and shape unformed. The blue-veined waves compose an eternal return of disappearing amusements, an anarchic minstrelsy that entertains and distracts us […]

            Samuel Drenteln visits cemeteries because the dead are easy to get along with. Their ineffable presence is comforting. Especially at nightfall, in the rain, cemeteries have a dreamlike quality of inconsequence and unreason — like life. At dusk, the tombstones appear to reach all the way to the horizon […]

          It’s a little strange, isn’t it? Empty vases are hard to explain, even though there’s nothing in them. They don’t talk. On the other hand, you could say barrenness speaks for itself. Nifty paradox

          Autumn beguiles us in the manner of a softly rising romantic love, a royal prince-and-princess ardor that is unaware and unself-conscious, yet voluptuous with desire — ambrosial fruit eager for a French kiss. Our senses are bewitched, not only by autumn’s alluring raiment, but also by our childhood nostalgia for […]