"Remembering Julian Beck"
Hanon Reznikov
We are thinking of Julian today, on the twentieth anniversary of his departure from our midst. We remember in living color his voice, his vision, his poetry and the theater he enlarged with them. Tom, Ilion , Malina and myself drove out to Cedar Park Cemetery this morning and gathered at his grave. Judith read Shelley's "The West Wind," which they used to read aloud together and I read the poem below, by Dacia Maraini.
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"Now Julian, You Walk Barefoot"
Dacia Maraini
To Julian Beck
Now Julian, you walk barefoot
Now Julian, you eat frozen roses
Now Julian, all the cats have fled
your lap, not even a flea
would take you for its father
In a hall in Cinecittà
you ate pasta and beans
on a plastic plate
Julian, your fingers dirty with green lacquer,
you spoke of liberty,
your mouth full, your eyes laughing
so white
and so full of air
Julian, what was the theatre
under your thin feet
divided in hot and bitter zones
between gushes of an imaginary reality
the geometry of your intelligence
your colorless ascetic's tongue
made you seem a ferocious monk
but you liked touching walls,
bodies, machines, the earth.
Julian, with your face of a predatory bird,
you smoked like an old Turk,
sliding in your black trousers
along the paths of thought
and Judith with her hair swelled
like a wild owl's wing
gold prospectors you and she bent
under the stage's boards
digging for treasure, so she was born
like a mouse between flying stagelights
and you behind
with an acrobat's grace
in winter's glittering evenings between glass panels
and Dutch linens, between taffeta flowers
and paper crowns, Julian when you will look at us
we will already be faraway
and you, great archer in your world
of ringing silences will look at us
through your reversed binoculars
and we will salute each other as from distant ships
raising our arms and a white rag
There is a wonderful tribute to Julian put together by Gary Brackett here
and another by our Italian comrades at here.
