Friday Inspiration: Concrete Poetry

I took these photos over two years ago, on my first ever trip to Minneapolis which was both brief and exhilarating.  I found myself meeting up with my friend Ryan who I had met years before in Oshkosh where we'd already had many adventures, and he took both Jennie and I to the outdoor sculpture garden just as the sun was setting and the temperature plunging.

It was a fun night, despite the sub-zero temperatures that could be felt all the way to our bones, or perhaps because of that.  I took only a few photos that evening, pulling my fingers out of my glittens only for brief moments.

There is a surprising amount of words for a sculpture garden, and you know me, I'm a sucker for pretty words.  These are the words that stick with me the most, "And it is good when you get to no further" from John Ashbery's poem written for the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge where the words are engraved, and the vantage point from which the next photo was taken.

By John Ashberry

And now I cannot remember how I would

have had it. It is not a conduit (confluence?) but a place.
The place, of movement and an order.
The place of old order.
But the tail end of the movement is new.
Driving us to say what we are thinking.
It is so much like a beach after all, where you stand
and think of going no further.
And it is good when you get to no further.
It is like a reason that picks you up and
places you where you always wanted to be.
This far, it is fair to be crossing, to have crossed.
Then there is no promise in the other.
Here it is. Steel and air, a mottled presence,
small panacea
and lucky for us.
And then it got very cool.