Dawn's Messenger

There are lots of books by my bedside. A little bookshelf to the right of the bed, and in front of that another stack for me. Then a stack for the little one. Happy Baby Things That Go. First the Egg. Earth Mother. Creation-My Father Loves Me. The Fortune Tellers. Look and Learn ABC. I must admit that having a book jones is both a blessing and a nuisance. If I'm not careful, I'll trip over them when I get up to go to the bathroom at night.

Fortunately, most of the books around here are ones we own. A few, though, are from the library. Any time I go there to drop off old books, I say that I'm not going to get any new ones. Not only am I trying to control this passion, but I'm also notorious for racking up fines since it's never easy for me to return good music or reads.

Of course, I always do end up getting something, swearing to self that I will turn it in by the due date. Art books, with their big pages and color plates, are especially luscious treats. One art book I recently checked out is Romare Bearden: The Caribbean Dimension. Back during college, professor Floyd Newsum's survey of African American art introduced me to Bearden's work. Bearden, Aaron Douglas and Lois Mailou Jones were some of my first favorites.

This look into Bearden's life on St. Martin has a subtle but sure hold on me because of the roots culture and spiritual element that is strongly present in the work. The authors-- Sally and Richard Price, who have also written books on the maroons of Suriname, hence their draw to this phase of Bearden's creative cycle-- allude to the "natural mystic" but (so far) don't refer to Bearden's embrace of African notion of spirituality outright.
Such a holy communion there is between Bearden and nature, especially as nature reveals itself in the Caribbean. There is a breathtaking passage where Bearden gives an earth-reverant and hermetic description of sunrise at his home in French St. Martin. Imagine:

Just as it becomes light, a large black bird soars into view. Sometimes called the "hurricane" or "weather" bird by the people on the island, this frigate bird, with its wingspan of about six feet, glides effortlessly, a master of rising and falling...currents. The coming of the weather bird heralds the dawn. There comes a charging wind that this fine bird uses in his swift climbing spirals, and the dark purple, now graying clouds of night begin to take on new colors and the sun mounts. The clouds become saffron, then vermillion and many shades of red, especially a deep cardinal. Undoubtedly, the sun is the emperor. Observing this vast elemental change, I can readily understand how people worshipped the sun in ancient times.

Image: Romare Bearden, In a Green Shade (1984)