Monday, June 01, 2009

White rabbits


Yes. White rabbits, Everyone. (A hundred years ago, whilst still a young thing at boarding school, we were superstition-bound to make 'white rabbits' the first words uttered on the 1st of each month. Old habits die hard.).  
 
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I've spent this evening rustling and came across this slightly unexpected fragment-of-a-poem, written in December 1999. It seems so diametrically/hemispherically/atmospherically at odds with the winter chill we're experiencing in Dunedin right now, but never mind. Flux is a constant, no matter where or when our feet are planted. 

Funny the things we keep - or that keep us?


A Question of Balance (detail) - Oil, medium & oil stick on paper 2009



I suspect that
 
it is possible
if we half-open 
our half-closed eyes
to see 
that there is no such thing
as things 
in suspension. 

I more than suspect.
I know, for I have seen 
pollen threading itself
into light, light crackling 
and bursting on the inside
of pollen: swarms 
of yellow and orange 
crazily, determinedly
in flight.


4 comments:

  1. Hi Claire,
    I suppose it's apropos of nothing, and just some daft private synapse that causes your poem to make me think of the following words, but there it is. And here they are.

    There is a City of Hope
    Across the ravine, by the green sunlit slope
    And all I need is an axe and a rope
    To get to the city, the City of Hope
    --Bob Dylan

    Have a lovely day

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  2. You kept it/it kept you for now, Claire. 'pollen threading itself into light'! I've been looking for something I noted about the vitality of pollen in native American ceremony, but came on this instead from Ahdaf Soueif's 'The Map of Love'. '... "hayam" is love that wanders the earth ... "hawa" is love that shares its name with "air" and with "falling"...' Might love share its name with pollen?

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  3. Aq. Aye - there seems to be a theme of ravines (and how best to negotiate - and ultimately cross - them) right now. I keep encountering the metaphor. As do you, apparently! A friend recently suggested that all one needs to safely cross a ravine is a 'sky hook' and a good dollop of trust.

    Pen - what gorgeous definitions (or are they poems?) of 'hayam' and 'hawa.' So image-rich and image-suggestive. Thank you! I think love might well share its name with pollen. Yes.

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