I don't know what to make of this tapestry of tabla over flamenco guitar other than saying it is weirdly wonderful - yet it is this piece of exquisite flamenco dancing by Joaquin Cortes which is making my heart ache, ache. As Rilke put it in his great poem, "The Spanish Dancer":

As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white flickering tongues before it bursts into flame: with the audience around her, quickened, hot, her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.

And all at once it is completely fire.

One upward glance and she ignites her hair and, whirling faster and faster, fans her dress into passionate flames, till it becomes a furnace from which, like startled rattlesnakes, the long naked arms uncoil, aroused and clicking.

And then: as if the fire were too tight around her body, she takes and flings it out haughtily, with an imperious gesture, and watches: it lies raging on the floor, still blazing up, and the flames refuse to die - Till, moving with total confidence and a sweet exultant smile, she looks up finally and stamps it out with powerful small feet.

Ole!

On conclusion of his Canadian sojourn, he returns to his garret by flying southwards into spring. And all this follows: the shock of seeing forsythia's yellow, blankets of daffodils in green grass, making his eye remember the color green, temperature that doesn't require ten layers to prevent frostbite.

And to top all this off, the massive horde of writers who have descended from the heights to the City, in whose shadow he lives, to talk, argue, banter and share all that they know about books with other adepts, and with other lay-people like him. He opens a calendar page, and tries to cram in as many occasions as possible over the next two days, only to realize that he can't be present in two places at once, in this life that happens outside the covers of a book.

A friend had sent me a link to a Amichai poem (read previously when I was devouring Amichai and meditating on Israel-Palestine) via email earlier, and that link lead me to this post on the passing of Laurie Baker early last week.

Laurie Baker was a sustainable architecture guru, and more importantly, a lovely person who stood and lived by an elegant variation of Gandhian philosophy. Also it so eerily happens that it was only just a while ago I had thought of the beauty of Laurie's buildings (I was looking up one of my posts here that mentions him )!! If I ever build a house for myself - none of the suburban mass-produced ugliness for me - I will certainly borrow one lovely feature of Baker's work: stained glass effects created from broken bottle ends; perhaps a Laurie's wall or ceiling.

Farewell Laurie - you will live on via your buildings, and ideas that they will continue to radiate on how to live a good life.