tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8951305727311205556.post9194725207621897069..comments2024-03-14T08:29:39.298-04:00Comments on Armchair Asia: Gordon MannixArmchair Asiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03467997896704963410noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8951305727311205556.post-6654090917767347782011-03-06T18:25:47.544-05:002011-03-06T18:25:47.544-05:00How I admire your writing. In one brief outburst,
...How I admire your writing. In one brief outburst,<br />a feature film Brad Pitt and any number of actresses would vie for. <br />But Gordon Mannix died.<br />Only in the flesh, of course, but as the War Poet said of an earlier Inferno, "Life to be sure is nothing much to lose/ But young men think it is and we were young." <br /><br />Shadows on the cave? Cries in an empty theatre?<br /><br />But somehow of course, threads of pure gold pull the incomprehensible together, stitch the seam of some ultimate fable. <br /><br />I knew I would receive the woodcut prints on an ultimate day. Such is the power of art, to press its image on life.And weeks passed and your parcel didn't arrived. And then it came, and I unrolled the otherworldly pain and beauty of Anton Refreger's rose for Alex, and the other images, spun gold. And I knew they came on that day for a reason. And I flew over the Atlantic the next night and came home to hold my mother's hand as she passed from this good earth. It is the war that is bad; the sniper. My mother lost her youth and loves to the Nazis Gordon Mannix died fighting. And Anton carved loss and the sacred dignity of youth and life; there is no such thing as an impersonal agony to the sufferer; only to the hardened obituarist. <br /><br />So I think of the glory of her spirit; and his. <br /> Thank you for reminding me of the glory of the spirit.Annanoreply@blogger.com