The Unremitting Cycle (Poetry by Bob Racine)

Light-footed angels, grace and truth in their step

this the response to prayer – the glow of Eternal Love

in blessed orbit about body and soul

such the Spirit’s entrance upon

the summons of that human heart 

peace, the gift of earth and heaven 

the cry for more of same, more of the serene

more of pleasant dreams, safekeeping 

love notes in muted, merciful music!    

Unclear the moment, subtle the shift from

bright sunlight to a sepia drizzle  

perhaps storms on the horizon

a robust threat to imperfect untested resolve 

apparent spoilage – dark clouds awash

with overtones of heartbreak 

whence this nebulous aura? 

from what noxious fountain

from what fouled nest

this specter of anguish and defeat? 

the sometime thrust of daggered lightning 

lost to us that angel footing

the soothing sights and sounds of tranquility,

elusive the space for prayerful devotion 

whither that celestial guardian Spirit?  

whither the promises of the living God? 

whither the tender mercies?  Why this tumult?                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

    

dawn seemingly always late in its arrival,

but at last the healing touch 

at last the dissolve of heavy accented stress 

the shadows slipping away 

eyes opened to the parting clouds, the return

of sanity and sweet sunlit affections 

the heart once more erect, fresh

renewed by virtue of the departing storm

perhaps tempered as well. 

God of all ambience – God of all living –

this your gift salted by the brine

the unremitting cycle of blessedness

and the chastening rod 

darkness and light, all the same to you! 

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.

Nebraska (Movie Review by Bob Racine)

                                1 hr & 55 min, b&w, 2013

Bruce Dern has been high on my list of movie actors for almost as long as I can remember.  He has filled very few leading roles over the six decades that he has been in business, but he has turned in some of the most incisive supporting portrayals, so many I could not begin to list them all, each one distinct.  He would be very hard to pigeonhole or typecast.  The first time I encountered him was in an episode of Gunsmoke, wherein he created a villain who, as I recall, bullied a child he held captive.  He proved quite a challenge for old Marshall Dillon to bring down.  I suppose most of his work has consisted of villains or, if not that, contentious or creepy troublemakers who pose some kind of threat.  Everything he has done he has done in deadly earnest.  He could sink a ship with those stalking eyes of his or break a heart or two as he did in “Coming Home.”  I quiver as I remember the psychopathic, suicidal blimp pilot he gave us in “Black Sunday,” who nose dives his ship right into a stadium full of people.  He is one of those many performers who have never gotten anywhere near the recognition they deserve for consistent quality work, only a few Oscar nominations that failed to produce an award. 

Naturally I was exceedingly pleased when I learned that he had become a leading contender this past year for his starring role as Woody Grant, an aging, very senile, scraggly, dipsomaniac husband and father in “Nebraska,” who drives his family crazy insisting that he has won a million dollars and is determined to set out from Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska to obtain it, even if he has to walk.  What is different about this role is the fact that he has so few lines.  He is the central pivotal character, but he has less to say in it than anything I have ever known him to take on.  Most of what he does say he says with his body language, chiefly his loping walk and his vacuous eyes (nothing like the stalking ones I just mentioned).  He is harmless though oblivious and rather mule-headed, enough to be a puzzle to his family, especially his bitchy, coarse but basically benevolent wife Kate, played magnificently by June Squibb (also an Oscar nominee).  She is the inveterate scene stealer in this movie, enough to make me wish at moments that she had been a main character.  But in a real sense the story is not chiefly Woody’s or June’s.  That distinction belongs to the son David, played pleasingly well and appropriately low-keyed by Will Forte.  It is his decision making that turns the wheels of the plot.

What does a man in his early thirties do when faced with the peculiar vagaries of a father such as Woody, a potential danger to himself?  David, unmarried and childless and working at a lackluster job, has lived near his Dad right along, but has never been close to him.  He tries to talk him out of his fool idea of going to Lincoln, knowing that the notification he received in the mail is only a scam, but to no avail.  Woody will walk there whatever anyone says, unless someone drives him.  David, feeling responsible for the old man, decides to take a few days off and do that, knowing that Woody will have someone to keep an eye on him.  So, yes, this turns out to be what is known in the movie jargon as a “road picture.”  The journey takes them to more than Lincoln.  Woody gets to visit along the way former relatives and acquaintances, whose ears and eyes light up when they learn that their old friend is an alleged millionaire.  One minute he is scarcely noticed, next minute he is everybody’s topic of conversation, especially those to whom Woody owes money and think they are entitled to a slice of the winnings.  The most adamant in putting his hand out and somewhat deadly in his revenge for being misled is a former employer played by Stacey Keach, a fine stage actor who seldom shows up on screen, certainly the most insidious and detestable person we meet up with.  I was gratified by his performance.

The quality of life among all these back country folk is rather dispiriting from all surface appearances, but if one sticks around, as Bob Nelson’s carefully crafted screenplay has us do, we see a slice of life both funny and in its own way poignant.  We begin to sense how rugged things have been for them and how with quiet dignity most of them hold up and keep pushing, despite some gravitation toward nastiness when they feel cheated.  David, a basically quiet young man, seems out of his element among these snidely  aggressive people but does all he can to shepherd his father through the thick of them.  The film’s latter scenes concern the two of them, David trying to break through barriers and give his Dad a few golden moments, the Dad in limp-wristed response to what he may or may not be appreciating.  Following them to the end of their journey is a curious study, under the sensitive direction of Alexander Payne.  Father/son relationships have furnished the substance and the framework of many fine motion pictures.  Unlike so many, this one is not high strung or intensely combative.   But it leaves somewhat mysterious the matter of what David really achieves by the questionable trouble he goes to, perhaps more for himself than for his father.

“Nebraska” is a modest picture on a modest budget, with no great pretensions; it is even filmed in black and white.  We do not see that process used much anymore.   But it is honest and absorbing and takes us into a subculture where movies do not often venture.        

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com.  To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.