One picture
the bleed
A held breath. One picture runs to every edge of the screen, with words in its calmest corner.
Haze and vista
the reveal
Remembering. A small window onto the picture opens to the whole screen as you scroll.
the scale jump
A jolt. The same picture huge, then tiny.
Twilight
The soft voluptuous opiate shades,The sun just gone, the eager light dispell’d—(I too will soon be gone, dispell’d,)A haze—nirwana—rest and night—oblivion.
the detail
Looking closer. A picture again, cropped close. Drag the close-up to choose what it shows.
Drag to move the close-up · click to change the picture
the island
Solitude. One small picture alone in a wide field of the page.
the vignette
A memory. The picture’s edges fade into the page, as in an old engraved book.
After the Dazzle of Day
After the dazzle of day is gone,Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars;After the clangor of organ majestic, or chorus, or perfect band,Silent, athwart my soul, moves the symphony true.
the arch
A doorway. The picture seen through an arched window, with words beside it.
Spirit That Form’d This Scene
Spirit that form’d this scene,These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,I know thee, savage spirit—we have communed together,Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;Was’t charged against my chants they had forgotten art?To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?The lyrist’s measur’d beat, the wrought-out temple’s grace—column and polish’d arch forgot?But thou that revelest here—spirit that form’d this scene,They have remember’d thee.
the panorama
Looking out. A long band across the screen; the picture slides sideways as you scroll.
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.
Two pictures
the pair
A conversation. Two pictures side by side, the same size; the gap between them says something.
from Song of Myself, § 31
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,And the tree-toad is a chef-d’œuvre for the highest,And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
the offset pair
Casual. Two pictures at different sizes, their tops not aligned, words in the room between.
To You
Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me?And why should I not speak to you?
the overlap
Depth. One picture laid across another.
from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.
the inset
A memory within a place. A small picture set into the corner of a large one.
Gliding O’er All
Gliding o’er all, through all,Through Nature, Time, and Space,As a ship on the waters advancing,The voyage of the soul—not life alone,Death, many deaths I’ll sing.
Many pictures
the scatter
Handled. Prints dealt on a table, each turned a little.
Out of May’s Shows Selected
Apple orchards, the trees all cover’d with blossoms;Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green;The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning;The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun;The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers.
the salon hang
Lived-in. Many sizes at many heights, no one masterpiece.
the contact sheet
Time passing. Ten frames on film’s own black, in the order they were taken.
the filmstrip
A detour. A sideways strip inside the downward scroll.
the flipbook
Time under your thumb. Three pictures change in place as you scroll.
the triptych
A sequence. Three tall panels side by side, read as one.
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
the stair
Descending. Pictures stepping down the page, each a little lower than the last.
The Ship Starting
Lo, the unbounded sea,On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even her moonsails,The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately—below emulous waves press forward,They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam.
the constellation
Far apart, together. Small pictures far apart on an open field, like stars.
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
the plate
A study. Ten pictures numbered on a printed plate, as the first books of photographs set out a sequence.
the ovals
An heirloom. Ten pictures in oval windows on an album leaf, as the first family albums held them.
the spectrum
A palette. Twelve pictures in one band, set in the order of their colors.
Words with pictures
the line alone
A poem. A few lines on a screen of their own.
A Farm Picture
Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding,And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.
the drop initial
A book opening. A poem opening on a large red letter, its first line in small capitals.
from Song of the Open Road
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,Strong and content I travel the open road.
the marginal note
A voice in the margin. Words beside a large picture, carrying half its meaning.
The First Dandelion
Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging,As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,Forth from its sunny nook of shelter’d grass—innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,The spring’s first dandelion shows its trustful face.
the run-around
An embrace. Words wrapping the round outline of a picture.
from Song of Myself, § 6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
the overprint
A poster. Words set into the picture itself.
A Prairie Sunset
Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,The earth’s whole amplitude and Nature’s multiform power consign’d for once to colors;The light, the general air possess’d by them—colors till now unknown,No limit, confine—not the Western sky alone—the high meridian—North, South, all,Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.
the pin-and-pass
Lingering. One picture holds still while lines of words pass it.
Twilight
The soft voluptuous opiate shades,
The sun just gone, the eager light dispell’d—(I too will soon be gone, dispell’d,)
A haze—nirwana—rest and night—oblivion.
the fracture
An interruption. A picture breaks into the poem at its first blank line.
A Clear Midnight
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,Night, sleep, death and the stars.
the spread
A book lying open. Words on the left page, the picture on the right, a gutter between.
The Voice of the Rain
And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, altogether changed, and yet the same,I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin, and make pure and beautify it;(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.)
the gloss
Notes in the margins. A poem down the middle, small pictures in the margins beside it.
Miracles
Why, who makes much of a miracle?As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,Or stand under trees in the woods,Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,Or animals feeding in the fields,Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,What stranger miracles are there?
the epigraph
A voice from elsewhere. A few lines set small and high, with where they come from.
Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,Therefore for thee the following chants.
Thou Reader
Turns and pauses
the long pause
Silence. A screen of nothing, holding one printer’s flower.
the short pause
A smaller turn. A breath, marked by three stars (⁂).
the color turn
A new season. The page takes its color from the next picture, and keeps it.
the drift
Travelling through. Pictures float up at different speeds.
from Unseen Buds
Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn,Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping;Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting,(On earth and in the sea—the universe—the stars there in the heavens,)Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless,And waiting ever more, forever more behind.
the endpaper
A breath of color. A screen of plain color drawn from the picture that follows, like the paper inside a book’s cover.
the turn
Surprise. The way into the next room: its opening picture, small, and its name.
Unseen buds
next
Unseen buds
the colophon
An account closed. Under a double rule, who made it, ending on a printer’s leaf.
Pictures by Todd Stabley.Words by Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass.