Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Homework



Wish I were on a train instead:

small birches all in a row, tall and skinny with everything flat around them.
villages on a hill, the church at the highest point.
a wooden table on a lawn with misty glass bottles on it.
fences with thatches missing.
fields brown from rain-flooding.
patches of industry and back to another village on a hill, sprawling out into fields, into almost-forest.
a woman in a pink sweater is gathering twigs into a wheelbarrow.
a couple sits with a thermos watching the train pass,
and then to a middle-of-nowhere platform where old Polish women sit in long wool coats, hats, inherited earrings and sober looking shoes.
the vanishing point recedes, again and again.
a man stands, bicycle parked, by the tracks watching the trains pass as though he knew someone once who could be shuttling past
or the motion calms a wandering part in himself that he has never been strong enough to let wander.
Like the wiggling of ears, the passing trains whir his soul back into his body while his heels stay planted firmly on familiar soil.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Beatitude


The fact that I'm posting again must mean that I have homework to do. Here's something that I posted a piece of a while back but I really like the whole thing now:

Double-headed Canoe

This is how she looked the day
the men harvested the nests and stood knee-deep in the river:
breath in cold gusts,
eyes slits of slate,
hands to her heart.
Thick, alluvial mud slid between toes
and she saw the sky lit with lightning;
bones like a skeleton-leaf though the water.

Summer passed that year without ritual.

I read how a voice falters,
how words flutter and fade.
Hers fills every crevice;
my hands wrap around echoes,
tiny bones grasping for age and wisdom.
The passing to and fro of grief, like the ocean's swell,
is the movement of logic and mystery;
sinking into pores as to sand,
the motion of memory.

Clasping water sounds,
(the markings of shells)
she dug her heels into earth and opened her palms;
seeds catching the breeze.
No dirt under nails,
no thumb to mark a spot, a hope, a prayer.

We are the folding, the unfolding.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Some more thoughts for cold weather.


Muffle the wind;
Silence the clock;
Muzzle the mice;
Curb the small talk;
Cure the hinge-squeak;
Banish the thunder.
Let me sit silent,
Let me wonder.

(Orders, by A.M. Klein)

Friday, September 9, 2011

When wool-sweater weather comes...

I must go to Scandinavia immediately. And live in this house.


This doesn't help the craving either:

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

city lights turn to tree lines


Here are some photos that I took on a roadtrip to Nova Scotia a few weeks ago with Emily, Sarai and Ali.

New Brunswick has frighteningly large moose.

Yup, glass tiger house on Brier Island.

Sarai has crazy good aim. Watch out water balloons!
First mates.

Whales are actually dinosaurs. And their breath smells like rotting cauliflower.

Eeek!

Lawrencetown Beach.



Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Papermaking!


Last week I decided to recycle some class notes (for a class that I didn't even end up finishing in Holland) and make pretty paper that I'll hopefully use to bind a few poems together. I did some youtube research and it turned out to be super easy.

I made a deckle from an old ikea frame, nails, screen and some jewellery wire.

I ground up torn sheets of paper with water and decorative kitchen supplies. This is a turmeric batch but I also made some sheets with cinnamon, rooibos tea, cayenne pepper etc. They smell delicious, which is also cool.

And then I just put the pulp into the deckle, drained it and pressed it with a sponge to get all the extra water out. The sheets came out a little thick so I know now that I can be fairly economical with how much pulp goes in to each sheet.

Fun summer project! I think I'll make some more sheets tomorrow so that I have enough to put a few books together.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Summer Storm


This is how she looked the day
the men harvested the nests
and stood knee-deep in the river:
breath in cold gusts,
eyes slits of slate,
hands to her heart.
Thick, alluvial mud slid between their toes
and she saw the sky lit with lightning,
bones like a skeleton leaf through the water.

Summer passed that year without ritual.