Another poem takes the figure of white granular substance
like snow, and makes it into white sands instead.
Which brings me to an interest in the desert,
and makes me want to read a kind of a companion
to that first sequence of sonnets that I read you.
This is called series as opposed to sequence, that was
a sequence, this is a series.
It starts over each time and puts the problem
in more abstract terms.
"Number one, the overall rhythmic profile of hills,
washes and alluvial fans would rise and fall
over the entirety.
Ledges of cliffs and steep canyon walls
would rise and fall over the entirety.
While chattering in their midst is a thriving anthill,
there are these very large clouds that seem to tilt.
He is looking up the sky and thinks,
there's an intelligence behind all of these.
Number two, the desert is associated
with preserving itself as long as it can,
dependent upon sustaining instruments, hallucinations
and insanity, a lightness, and constant ambiguity.
That basic ambiguity, gray green or blue green.
The possibility of not necessarily listening just
to one thing or the other, where there are no words at all.
Number three, when the structures begin,
sustained from the very beginning
with very small, slow changes.
Usually comprising paired mallet instruments and sometimes
two pianos, each group is lightly doubled.
When the structures begin where the A sections are slow
and the B section moves up, just after dusk,
each group is lightly doubled.
And when listening in particular to two pieces primarily
on one or two nights, each group is lightly doubled.
Fascinated by the symmetry.
Number four, usually a single plant
produces only a few flowers each season.
This, of course, is an old technique,
it threatens one's normal thinking.
The percussion is omnipresent, clicking
sticks just after dusk.
They're pulsed, the realm of pulsation
to supply the ongoing pulse, the pulse which begins and ends
after about 40 minutes.
After more than 1,000 years, a series of spasmodic jerks,
he sort of reaches out a wordless response
to purely rapid eighth notes.
This is an extremely emotional moment.
Number five.
A vision, at 2,000 to 4,000 feet elevation,
that you'd never get if the notes were sustained.
Begins with this pulsation of available vibrations.
Fruit red, of the most intense and sophisticated sort,
ripening in the desert or in grassland,
like strings or the electric organ repeating
over and over again, fruit red.
Gravel or coarse sandy soil sets up a kind of rhythmic energy.
It's as if you're in the desert and you're
running as fast as you can.
Number six.
Gray green or blue green, birds open the fleshy fruit
from the side going into a text and then out of it again,
that constant flickering of attention.
All sequences simultaneously continued
between what the text says and it's pure sensual sound.
A light radiating out of the dark infinitude, out
of this complete continuity aba, abcba, from beginning to end.
Number seven.
Reading his work to the present, with regard
to where the stresses and where the beginnings and endings are,
dependent upon the recipient with the epical cup not
prominent, but more chromatic and darker in harmony,
its own harmonic cycle.
He then goes on to more complex pieces with a few scales,
slowly, in the desert in a land belonging to no one.
It is to this possibility that the words refer,
and no more, and no less.
Number eight.
Produced 31 flowers, produced 31 flowers,
repetitive in any literal sense.
In order to set up the feeling, structure, and harmony,
the surrounding woody vegetation for protection from animals.
Different things are happening at the same time,
or later if the weather is cool.
Often move at a very slow rate of change,
are fast and use the same harmonic cycle.
So the voices continue without words, with 24 open blossoms.
Another plant on the desert at Sacaton
was photographed, normally over by 7 o'clock
the following morning.
Another plant on the desert at Sacaton
was photographed, for the lower part of it is brittle
and easily broken.
Another plant on the desert at Sacaton was photographed
and a single flower may scent the air for 100 feet.
Number nine.
But one unusually large plant in Tucson,
just after dusk, a kind of barge of light just after dusk,
a large arch just after dusk, his death at age 80
just after dusk.
At which point the chorus sings didididi and is itself
an arch form without anything else added or subtracted.
Number 10 of hills, of washes, of alluvial fans,
ledges of cliffs, and steep Canyon walls, late in May
or in June with a few scales floating down
a river in very dark surroundings.
In complete darkness, Lazondos, which with contact microphones
attached, resolved to put a plant of light
in the last part.
Between fascinated by the symmetry,
different from the recipient, he sort of
reaches out a series of spasmodic jerks,
the perfume is liberated in profusion.
Number 11, silent."
Oh, I was really quiet.
It's a page, but someone else could--
in fact Frances did continue this poem, which was the idea.