Seeing Sally Mann: A Progression

   Photographer Sally Mann near Lexington, Virginia  (Erinn Springer for the NYT)
Please click photo to enlarge.

Haunted by a first way of seeing

The nameless abstractions

Quirks of an antique process

Then the avalanche comes down

Always two things

What it says to the world

And what it says to you

We've built too close to the river

The next flood will take us

–– On the works of Sally Mann, built with extractions

from a Walker Mimms interview with the photographer

published in the New York Times in September, 2025.

Primitive

Edited from the public domain

 

Trapped in the time loop          

as the numbers turn over          

kneeling to the flame          

Living in the Wind

Path to the woodpile                  jo'b   

A cold and angry wind

passes through the country,

shaking this old farmhouse,

its posts and beams creaking,

its mortices and tenons

pushing against each other,

giving a little to keep from falling.

Late, I read the news and tend the fire

to keep my bones from chilling,

all night I let the faucet drip

to keep the pipes from bursting—

the wind is a passing thing,

passing through a passing thing,

which is my life. I am old.

I go slowly to grow older.

I pull down my cap and turn my collar up,

heading for the woodpile through the drifting snow,

each step a crunching underfoot, less of a sound

in my head than a vibration in my soul.

I lean into the wind, sometimes

turning sideways in the stronger gusts,

giving a little, still standing.

Else

from "As We Wait" (Andrea Modica)

                                                            Each other

                                                            Is all we ever have

                                                            And too much to expect

                                                            Love and death

                                                            Love and death

                                                            What else?

                                                            The snowflake

                                                            The sunlight

                                                            The music

                                                            Make do

                                                            6-7

December Ever Since

jo'b

        

Awakened by the wind,

louder than the music

that keeps the dreams away,

another clipper moving in

just as I had made my peace

with the bare places again,

the nothing that is not there

and the nothing that is.

—with lines from Wallace Stevens' The Snowman

Solidago Artifex

jo'b

Closer to the ground

with each cold night

moving slowly

through the ruins

the falling bones

where we had sighed

and squinted at the sun

looking up through goldenrod

waiting for our miracle to come

Spiral

jo'b

We need each other               

in the expanding night               

the soundless flight               

of the owl               

and the flame               

the parade of the dead               

catch my hand as we pass               

perne in a gyre                              

unafraid               

               

at the end               

to call it love               

December Moon

jo'b

Moon of the long arc          

Teach us the strength of silence          

Certain and tidal          

A Winter Heart

Click to enlarge.                              jo'b

I would speak my drifting heart,

But something's in the way,

A caution in the spinning wind,

Something's in the way,

December's moon, its long, high arc,

Something tidal in its wake,

Reticence my saving grace,

Yet something's in the way.

Snow on the Pond

—jo'b

 

How quiet when the wind dies.

We stand at the pond watching

as a light snow falls and vanishes

into the sky at our feet.

You smile in silence

as if we already have a secret.

It's heartbreaking

that we don't.

Sacred Ground

Bones, nothing but bones,   

The hill is nothing but bones,   

Bones and wet ashes.   

 

Those Few

jo'b

Warm sun and cold wind

At the end of November

In the time of gathering,

Those few who know us best,

Those few who knew us then,

Those few who love us still,

Each with our own vague regret,

The warmth of those few

Blocking the wind.

Overcast, Untethered

jo'b

Fading light                                                    

Dissolving hills                                              

Edges ill-defined                                            

Yesterday                            

   Tomorrow                          

The imaginary present       

Touch me so I know you're real                    

If only for a moment         

November Woods

jo'b

Deep enough into the trees,

to where the wind doesn't reach me,

finding the calm

I've sought since childhood

among their heavy shoulders,

away from the shouting,

how they stand over me

circling gently high up,

reaching into the light,

finding at eight

a hint of paradise,

and now I am eighty,

and it is still the same,

deep enough into the trees.

—after Mary Oliver's "Black Oaks"

Late Affection

jo'b

We don't have much time          

We won't change each other          

But we will be moved          

Ultramarine

Porpoise Bay, Maine (jo'b)

I've said too much

And wrecked the music

Of our collapsing shore

Bring your silence too

Perhaps we'll know

Deep silver water

Perhaps we'll lift

On rising tides

Thick with debris

It's hard to say

And yet how strange

To not want more

Wind in the Oaks

jo'b

Wind high up in the oaks

where it still has a voice,

change preceding change

under a scattered sky

on a finger-cold day,

sentient beings on the ground

trying to love their lives,

more than a few fully conscious

of their own rarity in the universe,

hurtling through the void,

grateful for the miracle of each other

and a warm hand to hold,

hearing the wind in the oaks,

and knowing this is a sacred thing.

First Snow

from the public domain

I turn off the game

and listen to the wind.

The rain tapers off

and the snow begins.

I stand at the sink

and watch it fly

swirling in the yardlight,

first of the season

and like it never left.

In the long solitude of evening

nothing seems more important.

I had stopped by to see you

but you were just leaving.

We waved to each other

behind windshields.

I turn off the yardlight

and climb the stairs to bed.

The wind sings me to sleep.

I meet you there.

It's best this way.

The Consolations of November

jo'b

 

Sodden, stubbled fields       

Mist drifting in the hollows       

The beauty of loss       

Somehow

We're still here somehow

Together in this sweet line

You and me and time

 

Vespers

jo'b

Stopping to listen

To the evening's promises

Earth and sky music

The Search

jo'b

A haunted poet               

By the rising of the moon               

Walks the dying field               

Falling Back

jo'b

Wind huffs in the flue      

The woodstove ticking with heat      

We observe our thoughts      

Given

jo'b

Give us then

the pleasure of the curve,

the smooth arc, the unbroken line,

the bend of the oval, the shape of the egg,

the flow of the day, the trajectory of our lives

as we orbit each other, innately in love with

our tangents and intersections, and with

 the heft of original minds, sailing

through an empty, spiraling

universe, ever smaller,

no less complex,

on our glide

into the vanishing point

.

Tribal

jo'b

          The trees

          Do not object

          To being in this dream

          Unconcerned

          With distances and time

          Their roots entwined

Streaming Wind, Busy Sky, Flashing Sun

—jo'b

 Too long in the house          

The high art of October          

Just beyond the door          

Early Morning Mist

—jo'b

Just after sunrise

hooded apparition

the bed still warm

the field strung with dew

awaiting your return

which always only just begins

not ready yet

for the full face of day

savoring this ache

the closest thing to love

I should have suffered more

when we were lonely

on this earth together

just before sunset.

Lou Reed Considers the Universe

jo'b

Looking up through a beech tree

at the edge of a field

solitude enough

to consider infinity

and not find it ridiculous,

I mean all of it, everything,

infinitely small, infinitely big,

endless in all directions,

except for you and me,

baby.

Galaxy Messier 51, the Whirlpool, 31 million lightyears away. Stars are formed in its arms. As seen by the Hubble Telescope. (NASA)

Universal Gravity

NASA

Astral friend, take care.

Attraction draws us closer,

Orbiting our star.

A Pure Thing

A love unspoken              

Light of the pointed moon              

Rising late and fine              

 

The Woods

I went to the woods

With many questions.

Most were not answered.

Seven Cords

jo'b

Twang of the long spring

And the screen door's downbeat,

A choir of geese, loud and low

Above the baring crowns,

Mission rocker creaking oak

To hush this weary body down,

Woodshed filled for the dog and me,

So let the fall be done,

Coyotes yipping in the dark,

So let the winter come.

Spherical

jo'b

Nobody in sight, no road and no structure,

no right angles, no plumb and no level,

just a few flowing lines in fading starlight,

just a soft wind over unbroken horizons,

just you and just me in a continuous present,

no future, no past, immortal for a moment,

our brief eternity.

Heating Season

October Moon    —jo'b

We belonged to the moon

and barely survived it

before they taught us

the iron distances of time.

Another winter comes around,

I wonder how you've changed.

Fiction flares in the dark.

I build fire, after fire, after fire.

Just After Sunset

East

The Belt of Venus

surrounds us from the east

just above the rising shadow

of the earth

we believe

the beauty of the world

will sustain us

waiting in stillness

amid the reality of time