Two Land Art Projects

Well-known but new to me, and both, interestingly about planted areas:

Time Landscape

The first Land Art creation of Alan Sonfist; this oasis of growth in the midst of the metropolis, placing the ancient indigenous plant species of New York in the modern landscape of the urban island. Conceived in 1965 the Time Landscape was among the first prominent art works in the Land Art movement and functions today as inspiration to create Natural urban landscapes.

Location: New York CityCommissioned by Department of Transportation

http://www.alansonfist.com/projects/project.html?time-landscape

And–

http://greenmuseum.org/artist_index.php?artist_id=63

Denes Wheatfield

Constellation Poetry Competition

POETRY COMPETITION judged by George Szirtes on the theme Constellations. Closing date for entries: 5pm, Monday 8th September. The Ealing Autumn Festival 2014 is inspired by the 450th anniversary of the birth of Galileo. All ages are welcome with categories for 18 years and under, as well as for adults.
There will be cash prizes to a total value of £500 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize-winners. The winning poems will be published on the Ealing Autumn Festival website and their authors invited to read them at the presentation of prizes. George Szirtes will announce the winners and present the prizes at the Ealing Autumn Festival on Tuesday 21st October. Closing date for entries for the poetry competition is 5pm, Monday 8th September 2014. Entry forms and details about how to enter at: http://www.ealingautumnfestival.co.uk;
Further information: info@ealingautumnfestival.co.uk, 44 208 567 7623, 


Swimming in Five New Mexico Lakes by Terry Wilson

DIFFERENT STROKES

After our beautiful cat Sylvester’s recent death, I needed something to make me happy again. It seemed like nature was the only thing that could comfort me and being a Scorpio, that meant being in the water. Swimming reminds me of the best parts of my childhood—walking into Lake Erie on that soft sand and feeling those tiny crests in it, just like the auburn waves in my father’s hair. I stayed in the water longer than everyone else till I got yelled at to come out–I could never get enough of being held up by water.

I traveled to Abiquiu Lake in early June and as soon as I saw the shining jewel of water after the sign for the Piedre Lumbre Land Grant, I could take a deep breath again. I drove to the turnoff to the lake and then walked over the boulders to get to my favorite spot where the biggest and most flat rocks are. It was a blustery day so there were whitecaps but I didn’t care. Somehow being in that lake harmonizes my spirit and smooths out the bumpy parts. There’s no room to be depressed when I’m swimming. Though getting in that day was a challenge since I was cold. There were not many people, and I knew the water temperature was about 60 degrees, but then I saw a guy over on the next ridge diving in and he was naked. I knew I had no excuse then! Plus, I was wearing a shortie wetsuit, so I made my way across the slippery rocks and slid down into the deep. Damn, it was icy! And each time I turned my head to grab some air as I swam, I got a mouthful of water. When I emerged dripping a little while later, I was shivering and the wind made my hair stand on end, but I was no longer sad.

There is no way to get more “into nature” than having your whole body immersed in water: water in your ears, in your mouth, up your nose. You just can’t beat getting wet on a hot day!

I’ve lived here for 22 years, and if a body of water is within two hours of Santa Fe, I’ve taken a dip in it. If you don’t mind cold water, here is a guide for you, starting from my most favorite to my least.

1. Abiquiu Lake—As I mentioned above, this has become the place I’d most like to be on a sweltering June, July, or August day. Not only is the drive from Santa Fe spectacular in terms of scenery, but after you swim, you can stop first at Bode’s, a very eclectic neighborhood store that sells worms for fishing, cast iron frying pans and refrigerator magnets in the shape of farm animals’ butts. After Bode’s, the Abiquiu Inn is on the way home, so why not visit and get a lamb burger and salad or try on some jewelry in the gift shop if you’re feeling flush?

Back to swimming though—Abiquiu Lake is generally more full of water than, say, Heron Lake. Even in this multi-year drought, Abiquiu Lake has not receded much though many gallons of water were used from the reservoir to douse a fire in early July. Pulling off Hwy. 84 into the turnoff, I take the road away from the boat dock, though most of the shore is rough. The boulders are my diving boards. Swimming in June is a bit of a trial since the water can make your teeth chatter, so at least try to go on a calm day when the water is still and shining like a mirror. Though if that older guy is there in his birthday suit, he will inspire you to go in, no matter what the temperature!

In general, and especially during July and August, you will not be able to resist that bright turquoise lake, white puffy clouds and flat, toasty rocks to lie on after getting out.

2. Heron Lake–this used to be my top spot for arid summer days because of its cleanliness, azure beauty, and (unlike Abiquiu Lake), no speed boats. But three years ago, while swimming to the middle of the lake, the Los Conchas fire had just begun and when I looked up, there was a gigantic , smoky, mushroom cloud in the air. Sobering, but that wasn’t Heron Lake’s fault. (There was also that small, drug running plane that crashed into Heron Lake a few years ago, leaving its store of cocaine in the middle of the lake. After that, Heron Lake became a lot more populated, and not just by the osprey.) Last year, though, was the clincher because when I went to take my plunge there, because of the drought, the lake had withdrawn (and this was early August) by 85 feet! So getting in there can be tricky unless you appreciate foot sucking mud up to your knees for several minutes before you actually reach water. Once swimming though, the lake is gorgeous. Again, cold, but August into September is perfect. By then the water temperature is close to 70 degrees, and the no-see-ums are gone by July 4th. After you swim, you can either have dinner in Chama (just about 10 miles away) or, if it’s getting close to twilight, you may see a mule deer or two in the woods around the lake. Your other choice for seeing mule deer that you can actually feed is to drive back toward Santa Fe on Hwy. 84 about 10 miles to Los Brazos, a mountainous area that has been privately developed (though there is an excellent restaurant there). On the way up the forested road at dusk, mule deer come out from behind the trees for food! Drive slowly! And bring oats for them to eat if you can, but they have been known to eat graham crackers and small pieces of fruit out of your hands. Sometimes they even pose for photos!

3. Cochiti Lake–I don’t know if this is really my third favorite, but lakes to swim in around Santa Fe are few and far between, and Cochiti is the closest, only about 45 minutes of driving from Eldorado, where I live. Abiquiu Lake takes 90 minutes, and Heron Lake about two hours and 15 minutes, though driving past Ghost Ranch and Cathedral Rock is not exactly punishment. Still, Cochiti has gotten some bad press in the past 10 years. Apparently dead bodies have been found in the water there. I also saw a young man drown in Cochiti one sunny day while his wife and children were on shore. I helped dive for him along with several other people and he soon was found, but it was too late. Those were the days when the swim area was near the boat dock and there was a 20 foot drop off. There is a ranger but no life guard which is true of all the NM lakes I have gone swimming in: it’s the Wild West. I received my pollywog badge when I was 5 or 6, but since NM is mostly desert, many residents never learned to swim. Sometimes young people used to party during the night at Cochiti and then after drinking several beers, decided to jump in the water. In past years, there was a steel flip chart on the road into the lake which showed how many people had drowned there since 1974 when Cochiti Dam was built, but that seems to be gone now. And the beach is better; it started with no sand, just sizeable boulders, but now it’s sandy and bigger and has been moved down to an area away from that 20 foot drop off, so many children play on the shore and in the water and it’s safe. There is an actual area roped off for children. It’s a friendly neighborhood beach now and even though I hadn’t gone there since the fires and floods of a few years ago because I heard there was a lot of the ashy runoff in the lake, now it’s cleaned up. In late June, I had a refreshing swim there; the water was already about 69 degrees. It’s not crystal clean but it’s no more dirty than the Rio Grande. It was calm and I swam out almost to the breakwall and got nearly run over by only one boat. Cochiti, like Heron Lake, is a no-wake lake which means boats have to travel very slowly and they don’t really bother swimmers. I ended up having conversations with several New Mexicans that afternoon, one a Native American man who worked for the state and promised to come back that Friday to show me some of his jewelry.

4. Santa Cruz Lake–this lake is near Chimayo and like many others (except Cochiti) is in a wooded area. I used to swim there quite regularly, but then a new sign showed up which said, “No Swimming, only Wading.”

“That’s no good,” I thought, and proceeded to swim across the lake which barely tired me out. I’m not a fast swimmer, but I’m dogged. Anyway, I was so proud of myself for going all that way and decided to rest on shore for 10 minutes before I started back. But no sooner had I gone about 1/8 of the way back when the ranger showed up in his little boat and told me I had to get in or he would fine me $200. I was not happy about it, but I did as told. He admonished me for swimming (instead of wading) and then motored us back to a dock near the shore where I’d gone in. Except someone had broken a coke bottle on the ramp to the dock, so when I got out of the boat, I cut my foot pretty badly. I would have done much better just swimming back on my own! I have not gone back since because wading is frustrating (plus the shore there can get very muddy and attract mosquitos). I decided that if I did go back to Santa Cruz Lake, I would go in disguise and then make my way across the lake again. I do have an old nun outfit I have not used in awhile, and no one in New Mexico is going to yell at a nun, even if she hates wading.

5. Storey Lake–I’ve only been swimming here once and I don’t recommend it. It’s near Las Vegas, NM which is a long drive. And not only is it very muddy, but it’s super shallow! I trudged through the muck to the middle of the lake, hoping for more depth, but it wasn’t even up to my waist! It was also quite windy, so much so that people were wind surfing. But I’ve heard that some valiant souls do the Polar Bear Swim here on New Year’s Day, so it’s possible the lack of deep water makes the surface a bit warmer than other lakes would be. At least that’s what I will tell myself if I show up on January 1st, 2015!

Even though I swam in the neighborhood pool every summer day in Buffalo when I was a kid, I don’t like pools so much now because I have that thin Irish skin that chlorine dries out, especially now that my 50’s are only a memory! Plus, if I ruin my hair color, Hector, the high priest of hair, will never forgive me. But there are still warm days left to dive into a lake, and I’m going again today to Abiquiu. If the weather holds, I figure I can swim outdoors till early October!

Bearproof by Bibi Deitz

Bearproof

“Pardonnez-moi,” Molly said, but she said it Par-donny, like what you’d say to Donny if he got par on the golf course. Moi was right, but she said it the way you’d say mwah, like the sound of a kiss, so she couldn’t really be credited for either one. Then again, my sister was fourteen so I couldn’t fault her for it, though I did.
We lived in Kansas. We went to school in the same brick building, our mother drove us from the farmhouse in a Jeep. I carved soapstone and sold my figurines at the swap meets and flea markets in nearby towns: White Cloud, Hiawatha, Highland. I rode horses, read John Steinbeck and thought I could see myself on a ranch. On a camping trip to Texas the summer after high school graduation with my mother and Molly, I started thinking, Hey, I could really make it out here.
The pardonnez business was about cows versus cemeteries. The game fit Texas rancher country: count cows, and whoever has the most at the final destination wins—but if a cemetery passes on your side, you start back at zero. Molly’d wanted to know whether a little graveyard in the side grounds of a church counted and I said, “Of course,” and blew all the air out of my lungs through my nose.
My mother said, “Now, girls,” and turned up the radio. “Ramblin’ Man,” green Texan cement roads, shade from every bald cypress and river birch cast against the car. I was at a hundred and two and Molly at ninety-one. We’d both hit a boneyard and reset.
I think my mother liked to drive that fast. I think she didn’t miss my father. I think she liked thinking of him in an apartment on Hampton Street back in Lawrence while we sped south. Molly just counted cows, but I think all three of us thought, Phew, as though we were relieved to be on the road alone.
Cow piles. The shadows of leaves left constellations of maples and gingkoes in the sun on the road. We took curves close. We blew through Mason, the library sign crooked and the only place we wanted to eat, a diner, dark. The sun on the cleft of the road ahead.
The Llano River followed the land on Molly’s side. It put her at an advantage—less likely to build a cemetery on the banks of a river—but I didn’t say anything. We’d crossed the river in Junction and we’d probably cross it again. The first cross was little more than a paved bridge with red barn-y slabs of wood around the arch like frosting.
“Ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four,” I heard Molly count under her breath. My mother fumbled for her cigarettes in the side compartment and opened the ashtray from the dash. She pushed in the lighter; it sprung from its clutch, poker hot, and she plunged the paper tip of her cigarette into the heat. With a sizzle and smoke, the tobacco leapt alive and she rolled down the window. “Ninety-seven,” Molly said. “Ninety-eight.”
I was at one-seventeen, counting in my head and making a list of things I’d want with me in cowboy country. It was late June and it was nice enough to keep all the windows down and let the smoke funnel and whirl out to the treetops. Sleeping bag. Some clothes.
We found the state park between two small towns. It was on the map, a tent stamped on the area like an emblem, and we pulled into the parking lot long after dark. Crickets, cicadas. A porch light, of all things, clicked on from an RV at the trailhead and a balding guy with spectacles came out and took my mother’s five dollars. He pointed us toward an empty tent space and climbed the cinderblock steps back to his trailer. The woods smelled of citronella.
Molly and my mother and I pitched the tent. It gave off a scent of attic must. I pushed the metal stakes into soft ground. I heard bits of grass ripping under the stakes and I liked the way it sounded. Molly unzipped the tent, got in, took off all her clothes and put on a slip. “It’s so hot,” she said.
“Why are you wearing Mom’s slip?”
“She doesn’t care,” Molly said, and our mother said, “I don’t.” She was smoking on the hood of the car.
The sign on the dirt road by our camp said, Bear Country: Store All Food in Bearproof Containers. A small stencil of a fat black bear floated above the text. “See the sign?” I said. Molly was lying on the nylon tarp of the tent floor, head propped on her elbow. She poked her head out the mosquito netting and read it.
“Killer,” she said. “Hope we see a bear.”
“Is bearproof a word?” I said.
I threw a couple of pillows into the tent and Molly and I shook out a blanket. I fell into the woodsy black sleep of the outdoors, my mother’s silhouette willowy and dark in the shade of the jacaranda.
Sometime after midnight it cooled off. I woke and my back wasn’t cold with sweat. My mother had crawled in with us, by our feet. Her hair glistered pale silver in streaks. I heard something close by, crunching around.
Molly opened her eyes and I told her, “Shh.” She looked at me and I said, “Look.” We pushed our faces to the mosquito netting and saw the same as before: dirt road, bear sign, the car. “I heard something,” I said.
Molly curled up and put an open hand over her eyes. On my back I saw hundreds of stars. My mother let go a long breath. I heard a cluster of laughs from a neighbor camp. It was quiet for a long time.
“Two-hundred and eighty-nine cows,” I said. I nudged Molly’s foot with mine.
She didn’t say anything, and then she said, “Three-oh-one.” On her cheeks I could see the moon.

Duende Poetry Series

The Duende Poetry Series Sunday, September 14, 3 p.m., Anasazi Fields Winery

The featured readers will be James McGrath and Lauren Camp. Following the featured poets, there will be an open reading, as time permits.

James McGrath, poet is known for his narrative poetry in the PBS American Indian Artist Series in the 1970s. He has four collections of poetry from Sunstone: At the Edgelessness of Light; Speaking with Magpies; Dreaming Invisible Voice; and Valentines and Forgeries, Mirrors and Dragons. McGrath was poet-artist-in-residence with the United States Information Service, Arts America in Yemen, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of The Congo in the 1990s. In 2010, he received the Institute of American Indian Arts Visionary Award. He lives in La Cieneguilla, Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he hosts poetry readings in his apple orchard.

Lauren Camp is the author of The Dailiness (Edwin E. Smith, 2013), winner of the National Federation of Press Women 2014 Poetry Book Prize. Her third book, One Hundred Hungers is forthcoming from Tupelo Press. Winner of The Más Tequila Review Margaret Randall Poetry Prize. She hosts “Audio Saucepan,” a global music/poetry program on Santa Fe Public Radio, Sundays at 6PM. http://www.laurencamp.com.

For all Duende Poetry Series readings, free snacks and non-alcoholic drinks are available. Anasazi Fields wines are available for tasting and for sale by the glass and by the bottle. Although Duende Poetry Series readings are free, donations to provide small honorariums to the poets are encouraged. For more information, contact Jim Fish at 867-3062 or fish@anasazifieldswinery.com. The winery is located at 26 Camino de los Pueblitos in the historic village of Placitas, six miles east of I25, Exit 242. WELCOME WE HOPE TO SEE YOU!

Bear poem by Gary Lawless

A note from poet Gary Lawless shares a good poem and also the mysterious life poems can have…

Friends,
One of my old Bear poems has shown up twice on the internet in the last week, both times as a surprise to me, once from the US and once from Italy. This is a poem that was on a wall in Central Park Zoo, at the polar bear exhibit, until recently when the last polar bear there died, and the exhibit was shut down. Both of the new versions have wonderful photos with them, and here are the connections:
www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2014/08/gary-lawless-treat-each-bear.html
and from Italy:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202593494099888&set=gm.509898699147792&type=1&theate

Multiple Choice Test

Life Is A Multiple Choice Test:

1. true
2. false
3. none of the above
4. all of the above

School starts this week—I’m almost ready!

Call For One Line Haiku from the editor of Brass Bell

I am seeking one-line haiku, on any theme, for the September issue of brass bell: an online haiku journal.

Deadline:
Sunday, August 31 at 5 p.m. (eastern time, U. S.)
Publication date: Monday, September 1

I would like to include more than one haiku per person so I suggest you send me a selection of work to choose from; 10 seems like a good number (or less, or more).

Each poem I publish must fit on one line on the page. It’s hard for me to say how long your poem should be but I’m guessing 10-12 words will fit.

If you’re not already familiar with one-line haiku please do a bit of research; this form can be deceptive! A one-line haiku is not the same as a prose sentence.

Paste your haiku in the body of an email — no attachments — and send to:

zee@twcny.rr.com

Be sure to include your name exactly as you wish it to appear, as well as your country (the countries will be included at the top, not with each poem).

Previously published work is fine with me but I am keeping everything simple this time around so please send poems that do not require a credit line (attribution).

Feel free to share this invitation with others if you think they might be interested. I would love to receive one-liners from people I don’t even know yet. New haiku friends are always welcome!

Be sure to visit the brass bell site and read the issues dedicated to rain, food, flowers, birds, colors:
http://brassbellhaiku.blogspot.com/

Fondly,
Zee

http://www.zeezahava.blogspot.com/
http://lostpaper.blogspot.com/
http://paintedparrot.blogspot.com/

Annexation of Crimea Divides an Artist Colony Founded on Tolerance

Note from Miriam Sagan: I don’t usually blog overtly political work, but this is so fascinating I couldn’t resist. It is a window into an amazing Russian literary world, and I’m grateful to the author for reporting it.

***

Annexation of Crimea Divides an Artist Colony Founded on Tolerance
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
by Neil Macfarquhar   Aug. 20, 2014
KOKTEBEL, Crimea — In Soviet times, when favored artists received a government stipend to summer here on Crimea’s southern coast, a metal billboard by the beach read in bold letters: “Be quiet! Writers are working!”
This season, it is the artists making most of the noise.
Drawn here for generations by Koktebel’s particular light and kinetic landscapes, the artistic community has recently split into two feuding factions. Neighbor has turned on neighbor, old rituals have been abandoned, and some regulars have avoided the place entirely.
“It’s tense,” said Sergey Tsigal, 64, sporting a white beard and a gold earring, shushing his naked 3-year-old grandson as the boy gamboled around their lush garden with a gray Irish wolfhound named Dunya.

The problem started with Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in March. President Vladimir V. Putin unleashed the Russian military to end Ukrainian sovereignty and organized a hasty referendum in which the overwhelming majority of Crimean residents chose to join Russia.

Igor Sheptovetsky, a former nuclear physicist who now owns a hotel in Koktebel, Crimea, called the Russian annexation of the peninsula “a miracle.”
The artists have been arguing ever since whether the moral thing to do this summer was to stay away, since coming was interpreted by many as tacit acceptance of a forced annexation.
Although reflective of current events, the clash is rooted in the history of Koktebel. Max Voloshin, a merry, skinny-dipping poet and painter who espoused tolerance, founded the creative oasis about 100 years ago. If not exactly free of Soviet strictures, Koktebel provided an escape to someplace more open, out of time.
It was seen as less wealthy but more spirited than Yalta down the coast, where the czar and Soviet rulers once played.
But this summer, the world did not retreat.
“People split into two camps, pro-Russian Crimea and anti-Russian Crimea,” said Natasha Arendt, 55, whose family members are bickering. “Some people were very excited, and some were disappointed, and they became enemies where once they were friends.”
The skirmishing began long before summer, spilling across the pages of Facebook, where many seasonal residents stay connected.
The Kremlin-inspired slogan for taking Crimea was “Krim nash!” or “Crimea is ours.” When some artists advocating a boycott discovered that others were planning to come anyway, they began hurling sharp comments like “Krim vash!” or “Crimea is yours” and “Just go to your Crimea!”
A former friend of Marietta Tsigal, 30, an actress, told her on Facebook, “If you go there, you support Putin.”
She tried not to engage. Her father, Sergey, had no such qualms.
“I say the referendum was illegal,” said Mr. Tsigal, who advertises his sympathy in subtle ways. He runs errands around town in a yellow T-shirt and sky blue shorts, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. “I share the opinion of the whole world that does not support it. I want to be part of the civilized world.”
One ally, Elena Fokina, a painter brought here as an infant in 1962, became a permanent resident six years ago.
After proffering a bowl of plump apricots plucked from her garden, Ms. Fokina and her husband, a gallerist, extolled the interplay between the coast, steppe and mountains surrounding Koktebel. “When you look out the window to paint the landscape, you think the painting is never quite finished,” Ms. Fokina said. “Every time you look, the landscape seems different.”
She, too, regrets the annexation. “I feel shame,” she said.
But Ms. Fokina does not bring it up when she drops by places like Turkiya, the small local gallery owned by Natalya Turkiya, 70, who holds court out front.
“Russia saved Crimea!” Ms. Turkiya said bluntly, noting that she holds the majority opinion in Koktebel, not least because most annexation opponents stayed away.
Down the road, Igor Sheptovetsky, 51, a nuclear physicist who retired here early and opened a small hotel, concurred. “What happened in Crimea is a miracle,” he said. “Without Russia, the same violence happening in eastern Ukraine might have happened here.”
One regular guest, an American professor who has vacationed in Koktebel every summer for 24 years, looked sheepish as he disagreed. “It’s a little bit embarrassing being here,” he said, declining to use his name. “What happened is an international outrage, and it is like participating.”

Summer regulars say they have learned to avoid the topic.
“People have lost their minds!” Ms. Tsigal exclaimed. “Everyone says: ‘Thank God Putin saved us from those fascists. They would have killed us all.’ ”
But she does not want to justify coming to the place she most considers home, nor does she want to lose friends over the issue. When dinner party conversations veer toward politics, she said, she steers them away.
Ms. Turkiya now talks about anything but politics with Mr. Tsigal. “He is such a great cook, I don’t care what he thinks,” she said.
Mr. Tsigal has not found it easy. He likes to speak his mind.
One neighbor, Dmitry Kiselev, is a Kremlin ideologue and television host who regularly pillories Ukraine and noted recently on the air that Russia possessed the nuclear means to annihilate the United States. The European Union decided that his aggression warranted putting him under sanctions.
Mr. Tsigal used to sample his neighbor’s homemade wine every summer. No longer. “I know we would start arguing from the first glass,” he said. “It’s just not the same pleasure.”
Another summer ritual, the Koktebel Jazz Festival, used to draw a raft of international musicians every September. This year, the organizers decided to move it to Odessa, in Ukraine.
Mr. Kiselev then started a competing event called the Koktebel Jazz Party, noting that he had helped start the original. “Life goes on,” he wrote on the website for the festival, which has yet to announce many acts.
A core of summer regulars decided to put aside their differences to preserve at least one tradition — a four-hour art exhibition held every May and September on the expansive white outer walls of Mr. Sheptovetsky’s hotel. Given this year’s acrimony, he feared a boycott, but many regulars contributed.
Longtime residents find the local civil war particularly distressful because it clashes with the open-minded spirit of Mr. Voloshin, who transformed Koktebel from a deserted hamlet populated mostly by asthmatics and Bulgarian refugees into a thriving artist’s colony.
“He did not divide people into groups, and believed anything created by human endeavor was worthy of respect,” said Svetlana Kleps, a guide at the beachfront Voloshin Museum, once the founder’s home and studio. It is filled with photographs and artifacts, like paintings of Mr. Voloshin by Diego Rivera.
Mr. Voloshin settled here in 1917, hiding people from both sides during the revolution and civil war. Afterward, his mother started a summer tradition of inviting artists, reaching a record 600 visitors in 1927.
Mr. Voloshin died in 1932, but his widow kept the place alive for decades by donating the expansive beachfront property to the state-run Writers Union. It eventually grew to 20 buildings that could accommodate 350 artists.
The stipends did not always go to the best artists but to those admired by the Soviet state, Mr. Tsigal said. He remembers as a boy seeing a woman on the beach with an Order of Lenin medal pinned to her bathrobe.
The generations descended from Mr. Voloshin’s friends were horrified by the changes wrought after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. During 23 years of Ukrainian rule, an expansive park, a vineyard and a public tennis court disappeared under new construction. The once-serene beach is now a honky-tonk strip of bars and souvenir shops.
There is one positive aspect of the annexation that just about all the old-timers seem to agree on. With the tourist industry in collapse, this summer reminds them of how quiet the town used to be, the spirit of a mythical place partly restored amid the rancor.
“In the 1950s, there were few people here,” Mr. Tsigal said, “which is why I like this summer so much.”

Having Trouble Writing This Haiku

A poet friend of mine asked me for a disability haiku in response to his. I won’t give too much away as this is just the start, who knows where it will go. But I find myself not too pleased with my attempts–maybe because the subject is somewhat new as a focus.
Here is how I started:

the cane’s tap
accompanies me
like a cricket

Then of course I thought the cane was more like a dog, but that sounded pretty silly. But the problem here is that the tap tap really isn’t the chirp chirp of the cricket. Also, “like” isn’t really used much in haiku.

So…

Tried some intermediate versions where the cane was going tap tap tap more vigorously, finally settled on

tap of my cane
accompanies me–
autumn crickets

which I rather like because now the cane just co-exists with the crickets. A weakness though, that tap tap is a wooden cane on the hard floor of Santa Fe Community College and the crickets were later and outside–they don’t co-exist perfectly.

Any advice?

PS. Note to self–start using cane with rubber tip at work–the other is too noisy!