Spring in Port Chalmers - Dulcie Kirk*, felt-tip pens on paper, 2002
DOWN DULCIE'S STREET
Dulcie draws a toaster house.
Outside, a web of copper wire
weaves windows into walls, ties bricks
to fascias, laces gutters to roof
to chimney to fly-away
chimney smoke.
She sends a charge
across the facade
singes the white sky
blue, flashes red
onto the front doormat.
Inside, there are no lines
in sight. Breath settles
into shadows, thought hovers
underfoot. There are shivers
of sound, the invisible murmur
of magnetic fields waking.
They shift and fold the paper
envelope of home.
Dulcie walks us down her street.
Beneath the double light of moon
and sun, she draws electricity, trees
and bees. Her felt-tips ripen
fruit, coax flowers to open. She understands
the secrets of dragonflies, seeds germinating
in silent underground places.
You can tell
she knows that ink
dreams in water.
* I recently learned that Dulcie Kirk has died. I did not know her well but on the few occasions we met, was touched by her refreshing transparency and lack of compromise when it came to her art-making. She was remarkably prolific.
Whilst sifting through boxes and files from my past, I came across this poem I'd written for Dulcie eight years ago in response to her Port Chalmers drawing. She was in her late seventies when she drew this house; well into her eighties at the time of her passing.
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