Right cheek warmed by friendly planks,
I sprawl beneath a chosen window
that spills its sunshine on my lips,
ladles honey heat over tilted nape.
I roll from side to side, waking combs of beeswax
and provoke the floor to creak an invitation:
“You can ask me anything.”
***
Unsure, I glance to the mirror for answers,
but it speaks only shame, does not listen.
I fling away my glasses, and the judge dissolves to Wisdom:
examining my body is only one way to experience it.
***
Rising yesward on bolder knees,
I study the high ceiling,
ten tall windows with fans whirring on their sills,
the fire exit platform threaded with vines –
and this choir of generous portals shouts
“Get Your Freedom Here!”
and bids me stand.
***
Now on my feet, I allow shoulders and wrists and thighs
to shake off dutiful belittlements —
the should’s, the sorry’s, the shrinking silences —
and let them be shed and shredded on the dance floor
somewhere south of broken.
***
For once, my hips don’t apologize for their curves
and they dare me leap from mountain bridge
to thunder-soaked river, where I wrestle
with dangerous currents I’ve shunned out of fear.
Surrender to the river tugs me wild open, cracking my thick shell,
pushing, pulling, having me rolling like a beast
who slaps mud on her chest and stamps her hooves
and doesn’t care who thinks she needs a cage.
***
Being here in this dancing river
feels like returning to the fire-girl I was,
burning up caution, sadness, and grief in a healing fever,
reveling in electrical storms that crackle along my bones,
flourishing a purple cape, tasting the salt of delectable effort,
spine loose, palms grateful, instinct hushing intellect,
feet singing over noise of the brain.
Here in this movement, I inhabit my body, my rightful home.
Impressions of Progress Campus
Heart Mosaic’s Evolution
Belleville Sojourn
My friend Ellen once told me that turtles were one of her favourite creatures, and I hope she would have enjoyed this collage devoted to her memory.
Barn Memory (2007)
I am a ruined barn, empty but smelling of ancient hay. I sit in a lost valley, no longer a shelter nor part of a living farm. I used to be warmer, to glow orange from lanterns on February mornings, to retain animal heat. Now my shadows fill in their outlines, brief flashes from the highway my only relief.
I am tired of being a relic, a rural ghost who attracts photographers from the city. Their insulting attention reminds me that I am just a skeleton of economies past, a symbol of romantic decay.
All my sounds are whispers and echoes now, where once I heard grunts, shouts, whinnies, cries of pain and hunger. It’s so quiet now. Ruin is quiet. My unsteady walls feel dry, brittle, so straw-like that one warm hand on my door would set me ablaze. I welcome this fire, this sweet extinction into ashes.
When it rains, I feel the blessed water soaking my beams, splashing through broken panes, swelling the hayloft floor so that I forget my ladder is broken and my stalls now shells that once held a family’s wealth and sustenance. I miss being whole. I miss being real. I miss the animals I used to protect.
Pollokshields, Glasgow
Rambunctious Summer Clouds
Puddle Vistas
Two Great Lakes, Huron and Ontario
Chalk Invitation
Near the back garden of a trail-adjacent home rests an invitation: give your pet a drink of water and borrow some sidewalk chalk from the green box.
A group of young people had recently accepted the chalk invitation and left colourful words on the path to motivate the walkers, runners, and cyclists who would follow.
Thank you, anonymous messengers of encouragement!
Thank you, butterfly!
And many thanks to the kind hosts who filled the silver bowl with water and offered chalk for creative expression. You brightened my walk this morning!