poetry – Spiral Paper Moon

Waking at the Mouth of the Willow River by Don McKay

Sleep, my favourite flannel shirt, wears thin, and shreds, and
birdsong happens in the holes. In thirty seconds the naming
of species will begin. As it folds into the stewed latin of
afterdream each song makes a tiny whirlpool. One of them,
zoozeezoozoozee, seems to be making fun of sleep with
snores stolen from comic books. Another hangs its teardrop
high in the mind, and melts: it was, after all, only narrowed
air, although it punctuated something unheard, perfectly.
And what sort of noise would the mind make, if it could, here,
at the brink? Scritch, scritch. A claw, a nib, a beak, worrying
its surface. As though, for one second, it could let the world
leak back to the world. Weep.

The Spirit of the World

The spirit of the world is very much alive.
She will stalk your dreams to free
egoic bonds that hold us captive
in ‘dreaming wake’ – to call you to remember
her spirit lives in you. ‘Danu’, she is Mother
of the Tuatha De Danaan, or Mother Ayahuasca,
Mother Earth, Neith, Umay, Gaia; so
many names.

I dream of her. I dream that, just in the moment
of dawn betwixt dream and awakening, she
pulls our destinies from caskets on the sea
bed, her arms unfolding great swatches of
seaweed, glistening in salty wind.
She shakes our soul spirits from her tangled hair,
dancing, back out into the world to begin
another day, vibrant, replenished.

It is said that the spirit of the world holds all knowledge from
all of time. It is she who is that still small voice within,
and when grief floods in and binds your eyes tight shut
with black ribbon, it is she who gently holds your heart
and weaves it back together with windsong sutures.

(You used to say all landscapes
are carved from myth, even the landscapes of our bodies.
And that myth can carry us home.)

How to find her? Stand outside in nature,
marvel at the raw beauty of it all. She will find you,
kiss your wounds with sea-stung lips, rock you to sleep beneath
a canopy of trees.

Little bird

Rescued from a cat, I cradle you helplessly
in the palm of my hand.
You are frail like crushed paper,
contain the mysteries of sky enfolded in
feathers, beak, and soft, lidded-eye.

You breath sounds like rust forming on clouds,
and you shudder under your scruffy
coat and I think you won’t make it. But
later, you are a twitching reflex of
remembered purpose. You make known
your indignation at being
captive and –
with some trepidation–
I release you into the garden whereupon
you vibrate your thanks, lightly
against my palm, and it feels like you’re dancing
then in a flash you are gone.

You’ve morphed into the night,
the noise from your wings the only
sign you were here.

On memory (for Marian)

In the low hum of night
silences overlapping
I listen carefully for husks of memory
see if I can fit them together
like a puzzle

Autumn is here and
I am as a hollowed, marionette
I spin myself a fat cocoon
from the photographs
on my table
Fashion a home for me to live another night

(Perhaps all we truly have is silence,
and the small things that light
our attention
like fireflies)

Autumn is here and
I wish I could say to you that it’s all OK
but the truth is everything fades, becomes sepia

Oh, this old woman sitting here isn’t me
she’s not the girl who went travelling on her own
–long before it was fashionable!–
spoke six languages, fell in love.
I place the photograph back on the table
I’ve sewn you into my mind for another night

Tonight, I can still utter your name.
And I say it over and over again.
Over, and over.

On Longing

In the garden tonight, I breathe heady scents that
act as a portal to a world I once danced with
My senses keening, I long to be wolf-like
and to gulp great lungfuls of air.
My bones hunger for the hunt, for slipping
my belly through the tall grasses. And at once
I am flooded with memories
– or a dream? – of ecstatic dances
and drumbeats that thunder my womb.
Shamans murmur to the spirits
of plants and I soar over hills, valleys, trees –
aware of the slithering of the snake; sensing
the awkward gait of crow. I listen to stories
of trees, rivers, stones, flanked
by shadows that dart and stalk, unfettered.
The vision recedes and
I find myself bathed in the
majesty of silence

Later I dream I am back in the garden
Caged like a bird yet unable to sing

Café Rouge

Tendrils of food laced with perfume,
Windows of noise
Echoes in closed eyes.

Lemons nestled in silver-bowl,
Full-bodied decadence
Embrace.

Slick-sticky pleasure
Blood-violet pool in mirrored transparency

Soft tumble of memory
Senses blurred, unspoken
Slurring.

Candlelight falling through mind,
Tall words amid pleasing heartbeat,

Veins pulsing under thick membrane
Through cigarette smoke
Stirring.

The Darkroom

So precise;

the developer, diluted just so,

the stop bath, the fixer. All await,
to coax an image
from particles of silver
bromide in the darkness.
All I hear is the sound of the
Paper immersed in solution.
I lift it out with care, peg it
on a line.

My image, my process, the
temperature, the time,
Just so.

Later I curl up to you in the darkness,
Knowing nothing outside of
this moment.

This touch, this sigh, all gone in the
blink of an eye. I want to peg this moment
On the line, fixing it in time.

A view from a window

The fresh smell of morning dew
Reminds me of a time ago,
when the trees outside
(in their shades of viridian
and pale green),
were teeming
with chattering finches.

And autumnal fingers
gently enveloped the fields in
a white mist.

Now there is silence outside my window
And a grey terraced smudge replaces the trees.

A winter’s chill I cannot shake.

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So precise;

the developer, diluted just so,

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