Summer and Autumn

Autumn and Summer, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Today has been both in Belfast. So here goes.

The cover of the book underneath shows part of the large Autumn canvas that Cy Twombly painted for one of his Four Seasons cycles. The cover of the book on top shows a house torn apart by Hurricane Katrina.

Reading both of these at the same time, my mind mixes them up. There are little boats in the other Four Seasons paintings, blurred, primeval and dreamlike - setting out on the water to make an offering, perhaps? To the gods of wind and water? To keep us all safe as each season passes?

Too bad.

Twombly's seasons paintings say: we are small beside all this. It is neverending and has nothing to do with us. It is beautiful and dangerous somehow; bountiful, also.

In a certain mood, your mind too may play at chinese whispers, and suggest much the same about hurricanes. And old cities.