suddenly: going to work in tall buildings
(via guardocamino)
just tidying up here….watch your step Tumblrs.
A lesson once rose out of my collarbone
and it hurt
my face, my body parts
racing into headlights
the yellow teeth of night
that investigated me,
the corner of my little room
where the doctor’s housevines
dressed and undressed my feet,
I couldn’t sleep-
but it was in a milky dream
where I was truly harmed,
I, a cold-stunned butterfly
suddenly realized that the sun had stopped,
gathered all the planets with a paperclip
and set them safely in a drawer,
left me pinned, writhing in the sky
unobserved.
Shut your eyes,
breathe,
lay with me, quiet
like a ring of silence at night
naked around your wrist.
(Night Sky in Cape Breton, via Dasmond)
Excerpt from “The Grey Islands”
driving all day. mist and rain. the highway
deserted. miles of bunchbacked spruce. grey sea
butting the rock.
along the mud road to Roddickton. Dark backwoods
feeling. bush on all sides. gravel pits. old
machines along the way.
hardly a soul.
-John Steffler
Excerpt from “Primitive Renaissance”
We travel south to a shore crackling
and aromatic, necklaced in salt,then to an island,
white,
giddy in space, where shoes
shirts, jeans wander off on their own and skinremembers its language, bounds
into conversation with the world, skilled in a grammar it
never learned in the north,sniffing,
yanking us off the path. Every object it meets
is its physical kin,has a shapely ass
or anecdotes, invitations to meals.At the sun-scarred table, heat
rustles the eucalyptus leaves overhead, pine
and oregano spirits brushing us.My fingers find the cup’s tiny
shape deep in its own white glare. Inspired,we plan a high culture built
low to the ground,
a primitive renaissance.-John Steffler
I have very fond memories of NFLD. In 1997, while in Portugal Cove, I wandered into a little bookshop one afternoon. I purchased a book of short fiction titled “Trouble and Desire” by Robin McGrath. It is no secret that Newfoundlander’s have a natural and easy way of opening their doors to you and drawing you in. They do so without reservation or hesitation. One moment, I was chatting with the bookseller in the shop and the next she was on the phone to the author of the book herself. Before I could blink, I was having afternoon tea with Robin and her husband at their nearby home. They were still in thick of restoration. We shared a wonderful few hours talking about Newfoundland, the history of Portugal Cove, of their home, literature, poetry, travel, education…you name it. She kindly signed my copy of her book. (Which is somewhere still in my packed moving boxes….now I need to dig it up).
I had planned to spend that evening on Signal Hill, watching the sun set over St. John’s harbour. My drive back through Portugal Cove unfortunately ended with my keys locked in my car and me waiting for a service truck for help. Again, the kindness of strangers…a sweet (and very handsome) tow truck driver finally rescued my keys and escorted me into St. John’s, right up to the Hill and actually hung back with me to watch the fiery orange sun go down for the evening.
I was a very happy girl on that road trip.
If you’ve never been to The Rock, please find a way to get yourself there. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.
David Blackwood, Island Funeral, 1967
A Book Full of Pictures
Father studied theology through the mail
And this was exam time.
Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book
Full of pictures. Night fell.
My hands grew cold touching the faces
Of dead kings and queens.
There was a black raincoat
in the upstairs bedroom
Swaying from the ceiling,
But what was it doing there?
Mother’s long needles made quick crosses.
They were black
Like the inside of my head just then.
The pages I turned sounded like wings.
“The soul is a bird,” he once said.
In my book full of pictures
A battle raged: lances and swords
Made a kind of wintry forest
With my heart spiked and bleeding in its branches.- Charles Simic
Doris McCarthy, Iceberg Fantasy #46, 1992