Sunday, September 18, 2011

Walkingstick: Thomas 2001-2011


One quote is from Walt Whitman's "We Two Boys Together Clinging" poem:
"We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,
threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on
the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray."



The other is from Ranier Maria Rilke's Lament:
"Everything is far
and long gone by.
I think that the star
glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road...
When did it start?...
I would like to step out of my heart
an go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think that I know
which one it is--
which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,
stands like a white city... "


I made this stick for my brother in the spring of 2001 while we lived in Brooklyn, NY; however, with 9/11 and its subsequently leave-taking, I did not finish the stick until recently. This stick contains two different designs which I was unable to reconcile until this Fall.