In the light that enters morning
by way of the northern sky,
a Swede holds a Finn,
his arms enclosing darkness,
his placid brow countering
her recurve mouth, forgetting
she took him to herself before ever
he took her for his own.
From their mutual sufferance
came music, children and,
for some of us, dance.
Their echoes sang of you before ever
you came gliding in
with passerine suppleness,
soft music under your wings,
landing with a husshhhh
and a flutter like a passing dove.
What a storm. Dark, choppy river, big whitecaps riding the cross-currents. In many places, the water is higher than my ankles — I might as well have left my shoes home. There are mini-floods everywhere. Going past tennis courts, lighthouse, bridge, I guess I don’t like giving up. Do or die, that’s me. My clothes are soaked. It’s a wet morning.
Up by the stone wall, there’s that woman. She’s watching the river, where a sloop is coming, sails reefed way down. It’s staying on the Jersey side, away from where the Hudson splits off to start the Harlem. Spuyten Duyvil was what they called the split, before engineers changed its course more than a hundred years ago to try to tame it. The current’s still wild.
I’m interested in the woman, but since I don’t want her to notice, I distract myself with silly fairytales: She’s homeless and lives by the wall with a clutch of kiddies. She’s devoted to some guy who across the river, and she comes to the wall just to look at him. The path is turning and I can’t see the woman anymore. The storm, flaunting its size, has made the path a stream.
Between me and the river is a sparse row of sea-beeches that stand tough, almost unchanging, year to year. It’s full-on summer and with the way the rain is weighing the trees down, I can tell branches are going to break. The ground is already covered with fallen leaves and twigs, which, combined with the water, make the going hazardous. Still, wanting to run, I shift into a lope, shaking my head, dog-like, to get the rain out of my eyes.
(This is the other side of the story in The Sloop on Motor.)
Hmmm. Hands, water, wind, stern views. Late winter, NE United States.
As wild as the sea, with a home onshore, always, that’s most safe & well-built. Like loving someone so much that saying so is almost a sin. Like sledding in fresh snow. Like feeding handfuls of grass to a foal. Like walking on a stream’s smooth, wet stones on a hot day. Like lying on a hill in early evening with smells of earth & plants going up one’s nose. Like cousins coming to stay for the summer. Like sleeping in any day of the week. Like dancing on Thursday nights. Like chatter & night walks with adorable Leo guys. Like stepping on a bee in the clover and not caring. Like lying on one’s tummy, breaking open portulaca seed pods & sprinkling the seeds around so there’ll be flowers next year. Like peppermint straws at Christmas time. Like oranges in the winter. Like basil and tomatoes in August. Like home-grown baby potatoes. Like sauted home-grown eggplants (aubergines, brinjals). Like walnuts & almonds. Like swordfish. Like rice. Like lemons. Like Amish Farms milk. Like a kiss & a hug from the best of friends.
Prose poem about how Google+ feels, contrasted with other digital social experiences.
I’m simple in your hands –
black ink on paper,
supergirl in skintight garb.
Your pen? A knife
that finds my comic heart.
© 6 Jan 2009, Heather Quinn, all rights reserved; edited 5 Jan 2012.
Riding south, across the river, a mile
below the Bridge, see?
A tower and forested hills, with leaves
glowing in nooks in the bare, smoky trees,
as if someone’s been shooting paintballs
there, and the wind shearing the earth
to the west and the sky to the east,
and sullen, fast-moving clouds rising, like
in El Greco’s Toledo. Continue reading
The morning we arrived, pepper exploded in scrambled eggs
made, by Dad, with butter, pipe-smoke and an absence
of everyone else. Continue reading
If happiness is honey, tickly-thick
enough to make you choke,
if happiness is wine, a smooth swallow
and a short-lived high,
if you’re defended against joy, Continue reading
Chhoti Bahu, she of the biggest eyes and motion
most honey-like, begs you to stay.
Here is she:
bound by your space, still at your whimsy, Continue reading
Present moments: listening to this still — it came in via Outlandish‘s Facebook feed. I’m still a little open-mouthed at how ebrahim / @eebsofresh wraps his voice in, out and around the lyrics to make something totally new of the song — Continue reading
In this story of then, long ago, there are just two of us: a man, wet through, in soaked purple shirt and running shorts, fast-walking through stands of lush trees tossing down by the river; and me, lounging against a stone parapet a hundred feet above him, watching as his fine profile and dark stride disappear into the dense rain. Continue reading
A poem’s beginning is maybe a waking dream — expressed in words.
Inside that beginning, the writer hides something secret,
even from him- or herself. Continue reading
Please, don’t speak when I’m making art or thinking about palettes with no greens, pigment granulation or studio space. I won’t hear you. I’ll deflect your conversation. Don’t wait for me, I have no words. Continue reading
In Kieślowski‘s Heaven, cinematographer Frank Griebe: the way his eye sees the architecture of people, as well as of buildings…
…the way he shoots light, masses, volumes, voids, angles and implied motion… Continue reading
Then thank you, oh food delivery service, for running out of local peaches and cornish hens last night, so I ordered Finger Lakes plums, curried chicken salad and chocolate cookies. Then thank you again, for running out of chocolate cookies Continue reading
Early school days: A dirndl skirt of unbleached muslin printed with a floral pattern in indigo dye, my first hand-made creation, made from cloth given to me by a textile factory manager when my father took me on a factory-visiting trip Continue reading
For me, movies are a fantastical experience, and when the moviemaker doesn’t honor his or her participation in the world of fantasy, I get bored. On the other hand, movies always raise realistic questions for me, like: Who cleans up the mess after a fight? What happens to the bodies? Continue reading
Cr — t and cr — t both have wickets. One’s boring, the other’s chess on the run.
Croquet’s wickets I confused with cricket’s, as a kid, so gave cricket a miss for too long. Love it now, though I don’t know it very well.
Croquet is varnished wooden pieces peeled, worn, greyed and split by summer rains, wire and wood pieces lost in overgrown grasses, toes cut or stubbed when the pieces are found by oblivious bare feet in shadowed, still-uncut lawns at summers’ ends.
Cricket is something else.
I think of plans as promises. Since, all too often, life’s crazinesses interfere with promises, my solution is compromise – I don’t plan tightly. Instead, I sketch ideas Continue reading