Welcome to Poetry Friday, this first week of February hosted by Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone. Thank you Molly. The name of your blog seems perfect.
I have been thinking, and mourning, the loss of our beloved Kennedy Center. In the late Seventies, I lived in D.C. I saw Andres Segovia, the great master of classical guitar, play there and Julian Bream, another master of classical guitar, both no longer living. I saw the opera Faust by Gounod, and several plays. I lived three blocks away.
I was young, single and working in Washington and since I’d grown up in a small town in a middle class family, the Kennedy Center opened my eyes to the arts. I have wonderful memories of D.C. and to me it seemed in many ways magical. It brings tears thinking of what has happened and I just wanted to remember it here.
One night this week I was transported back to the Kennedy Center by YOUTube watching the Tribute to Paul McCartney at the Kennedy Center. You can find it easily on YouTube if you want to watch it. Below is the link. (I couldn’t embed it.) It was absolutely wonderful to watch. Sir Paul sat next to Opra. Obama was President and the audience was as diverse as America is.
Free images of the Kennedy Center from iStock.
So why does it matter that the Kennedy Center is closed, besides the fact that it’s a memorial to JFK? It matters because Great art heals people. It just does. Life is hard and music and visual art helps us process our experiences and emotions. In times of national crises, we often share it together through art. When the space shuttle burned up on re-entry, President Reagan recited a line of poetry by John Gillespie Magee Jr. and how the astronauts “slipped the surly bonds of Earth.”
I saw an example of how art heals this week at the movie HAMNET. The movie is about the Shakespeare family’s grief over a loss of a child, and healing from that grief through Will’s art. I won’t spoil it, but the ending was magnificent.
My only point here is America needs art and public art and we have to watch treasured venues like the Kennedy Center disrespected and assaulted. Here is a Paul McCartney- inspired haiku.
HONORED BY THE GHOSTS OF THE KENNEDY CENTER
Paul McCartney mouthed
the lyrics to Let It Be--
in his front row seat.
© Janice Scully
The Beatles from an exhibit of McCartney’s photos the De Young Museum in San Francisco.
I hope that after our current national nightmare is over–and I am certain that someday it will be–that The Kennedy Center will be returned to the people of America where it was meant to be. And we will have a lot of loss to process.
I bought a watercolor book with a few exercises. This is an attempt to paint like Turner. I ended up liking this version.
Have a great weekend!