There is a place

There is a place

between uphill

and down, on the edge

of dread and dance.

Don't be fooled.

There are many ways

to make things

and people appear

and disappear, truths

we cannot know

of the curious shape

of hills, the folding

yellow light.

There is, it seems

an uncertain time of day

when the sea is in the sky

and the moon can be heard

whispering in the belly

of the local stone.

CB

Still Point II - Pastel on paper CB

Thoughts on Silence

Tracking iii - Walking with White & Arvo Part - Gesso, ink & pencil on a ply crate lid - CB 2006

There's another conference coming up in October - in Launceston, Tasmania. Titled Sounding the Earth: Music, Language, Acoustic Ecology it's being orchestrated by the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Australia and New Zealand. I'm hoping to be able to contribute a paper and am in the early stages of putting together an outline with a friend over in Oz. Ideally, we'll end up with a collaborative, 'two-voice' presentation-come-sound installation. The subject of sound inevitably brings up questions around silence for me; the spaces between notes being every bit as important as the notes themselves. Arvo Part's glorious music epitomizes this principle.

I've jotted down thoughts on this subject over the years; it's been interesting to dig some of them up. . .

Silence suggests an experience of absence or aloneness, where it can in fact be one of presence and oneness.

Stillness and silence are dynamic. Each suggests a potent space - a way of being that resonates with energy.

Silence contains and emanates all the fullness of sound. Similarly, stillness is anything but static. Each reveals our connectedness with - and separation from - our selves, others, our environment. Each has the potential to expose memory, challenge reality and the imagined, highlight knowledge or ignorance of self and other.

Silence and stillness accompany us through life and death, teaching us patience, protecting innocence, advising discernment, encouraging autonomy whilst nourishing community.

There are times when silence can equate to cruelty. Omission. Crime?

Perhaps it all comes down to love and listening? If we truly listen - to, for, on behalf of and with - will we know better when to act and when to practice restraint? When to speak and when to hold our tongue? When to move forward and when to step back? When to pick something up and when to set something down? (Or someone?)

Tough calls. And always, we wrestle the ambiguities and intricacies of language.

*

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject?

Hope for a More Peaceful World

6 July is a very special date. It is my oldest son Daniel's birthday. It is also my Mother Gill's birthday. And, too, Meryl Streep's, Nelson Mandela's, Johannes Gutenberg's, Pablo Neruda's, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and the venerable Dalai Lama. . .

Gentle strength and a steady gaze are just two of the many fine qualities these excellent people have in common.

Blessings all.

Link to YouTube

& His Holiness's website

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. -Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Tuesday Poem - Give me thunder

GIVE ME THUNDER

Frankly, I'm fed up

with things abstract;

I cannot wrestle the invisible

and balancing on air

is no easy task; tripping

sees me falling

upwards or sideways

but never down.

Give me a beam

to bump my head on

a tree to climb, stones

on which to stub

my toes, blood I can see

and stop with neon plasters

from a cluttered kitchen

drawer. I've had enough

for now of words

and drawing images

out of words, enough

of untangling love

and need for love,

discerning the difference

in bottomless pools.

Give me white-ribbed cowries

an amber ball to roll

beneath my feet

down to sand

and salt water's edge.

And give me thunder. I want

thunder that rams through rocks

and rain that thuds into rivers

in large, hot drops.

CB

Fierce was the billow, dark was the night (in process) Pastel on paper - CB

Click here for more Tuesday poems.

BLEND

This will explain - in part, at least - why I've been so off the air lately. . .

Doors to the gallery open tomorrow evening at 5.30PM (TP night!).

. . . Please join us if you can . . .

My 'painted poems' are responses to the Gulf crisis. They carry the following titles -

More than a metronome

Oil and water do not mix

Surely some revelation is at hand

&

Elegy for the Giant Tortoises (after the poem by Margaret Atwood, posted here a couple of weeks ago)

L, C x

Surface stories iv

What do you see?

Tuesday Poem - John Donne

Mary McCallum left a comment on yesterday's Syrenka post that reminded me of a poem I'd written, oh, perhaps a decade ago. This set me off on a late night hunt. I'd hoped to find it and type it up here for today, but apparently the fish that's in it has discovered its fins and swum the poem into hiding. Never mind, it'll turn up. Meantime, staying with the mermaid theme (in itself, a totally unexpected little tributary) here is a poem from John Donne ---

Go and catch a falling starre

Get with child a mandrake's roote

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil's foote.

Teach me to hear the mermaid's singing;

Or to keep off envy's stinging.

And finde

What winde

Serves to advance an honest mind.

John Donne

Click here for more Tuesday poems.

In the late 1850s, a 1233 ton ship name Mermaid made many voyages between London & Auckland, Liverpool & Lyttleton (I stumbled on this passenger list on the NZ Yesteryears site).

Syrenka

Rebecca Loudon pointed out that the mermaid holding her tail(s) over in Hobart is related to the Starbucks mermaid; and a Facebook friend recognizes the sword-brandishing mermaid as the nobel fish-tailed woman in the Warsaw coat-of-arms... I wonder if any of you has a story to tell about the other two? (This is a bit of a high-speed chase; I've just got home, Tuesday is only an hour away and I'm not sure yet which - or whose - poem I'll be posting in the morning!)

fyi. . .

Syrenka folk band, Sydney, Aus.

A Polish syrenka is synonymous with a siren.

". . . The Coat of Arms of Warsaw consists of a syrenka ("little mermaid") in a red field. Polish syrenkais cognate with siren, but she is more properly a fresh-water mermaid called “Melusina.” This imagery has been in use since at least the mid-14th century.^[1] The syrenka has traditionally held a silver sword although this does not appear on more recent versions.

Tasmanian Devils & full-breasted women

I didn't come face-to-face with any Tasmanian Devils whilst in Hobart, but I did come across this group of lissom mermaids. . .

Four aspects of the same woman?

On a late evening walk around picturesque Battery Point, this mysterious image caught my attention - tar calligraphy? I'm absolutely certain it wasn't there the morning before.

The things roads get up to when the rest of the world is sleeping?

I wish I knew how to animate these kinds of 'found' gestures. Imagine these lines choreographed into a 3D dance. Lisa Roberts would know just what to do. . . I especially love this piece, her lyrical observation of Southern Ocean krill (with a spoken commentary by biologist and krill expert, Steve Nicholls) and this one that illustrates their life cycle. . .

The day following the Antarctic Visions conference, three of us took a taxi out to the Antarctic Division (about twenty minutes drive from the centre of Hobart) and spent the day in conversation with various scientists there, and too, drawing Euphausia superba in the krill nursery - what ephemeral, balletic little creatures they are. Exciting research is being done on krill's relationship with whales - theirs is an intricate and vital dance - and we'll be looking for ways to visually represent an important new piece of data on this subject. This collaboration is likely to include dance, animation, painting, poetry and music. (Geologist Rupert Summerson brought his shakuhachi along to play to them!)

*

This is all a bit disjointed, perhaps because I'm sitting cross-legged on the hard floor of Auckland airport (beside the only power outlet I could find in the domestic departure lounge). I ought to be in Christchurch but last night's flight from Melbourne was delayed, first by mechanical problems, then - when one of the aircraft's air conditioning units failed - by our having to take a longer, coastal route South. About half an hour away from Christchurch we were told we'd have to turn back to Auckland because heavy fog in Chch made landing there impossible. That was at about 2.45AM. It must have been about 3.45AM when we landed and 4.45AM by the time we'd all been herded into buses and off to a hotel in town to sleep what was left of the night away.

The first Auck-Chch flight I've been able to get onto leaves here at 8.00PM this evening, so guess where I've been all day? Actually, it's been fine; peaceful even. I've savoured (a good number of the) 100 Poems from the Japanese, surrendered again to the place and characters of Penelope's potent Island and been transported into new landscapes by Gretchen Legler's stirring essays, All the Powerful Invisible Things. (Gretchen was a co-presenter at the conference. I intend to write more about her book once I have absorbed more of it...)

Essential things, places of pause.

Tuesday Poem - Thin Ice

Step

out

onto

white

not

as

a

body

bearing

any

weight

but

as

a

feather

might

think

of

ink

in

a

quill

drawing

a

cantata

out

of

light.

Today's poem comes to you from Hobart, Tasmania where I'm attending the Antarctic Visions conference. It is wonderful to be here and immersed for a time in 'all things Antarctic'.

Thin Ice speaks to my experience of having to negotiate a safe passage across the sea ice at Explorers Cove. Towards the end of the summer, the ice begins to thaw and traversing it becomes fairly treacherous; one has to step lightly whilst listening to every footfall. The poem also references creative processes and the sometimes breath-holding experience of approaching the blank page.

Where there is ice, there is music - CB 2007 Pastel on paper.

Serendipitously, my conf. presentation is this afternoon. I'll be showing my short film, Hidden Depths - Poetry for Science (which I hope to be able to upload to Youtube one day soon) and an adjunct paper on ArtScience collaboration. When I woke this morning, I thought 'how wonderful that my 'poetry for science' film has been allocated a Tuesday slot in the programme. . . ' I can see myself mentioning our Tuesday Poem initiative to the good folk in the audience!

Click here for more Tuesday poems.

Surface stories iii

What do you see?

An honest continent

Life's an incongruous mix of shimmer and chaos these days.

Something's up, though not necessarily amiss - each day a birth, a death. Back-to-back these dual pronouncements come, sometimes calmly and quietly, other times in a hot and bloody rush. With every arrival, a departure. With every departure, an arrival.

A trusted mentor reminded me recently that one of my life tasks (as he - and I - see it) is to 'burn up the past' so that I can more fully inhabit the present. For all my fiery independence, I am one of those people pathologically wired into loving 'for the long haul.' As time goes on, I realize that this does not necessarily imply wisdom, generosity or capaciousness. There are times when an imperative like this can become a trap for both self and other, a bind that speaks more about enmeshment than connectedness. Such 'love' can be more suffocating than emancipating. L also suggested that if we are to nurture our soul's 'true efficacy' we need to live in as invested and unencumbered a way as possible. Love with neither expectation nor attachment. . . While this notion resonates powerfully with me, there are times when I don't feel particularly well-equipped for the (t)ask. Like now, for instance, when I find myself soaring and plummeting, capable of deep joy and generosity one moment and unspeakable twistings of the heart the next.

Yesterday was a tough day - much of it around revisiting the past in an attempt to make peace - again - with the 'old order' so as to be more at peace with the new. Regardless of one's relationship status, there is always Relationship Humus asking to be sifted through. And, well, some bits on our personal compost heaps take longer to break down than others. There's nothing for it but to trust that sooner or later, with a careful mix of diligence, cut worms, spades and good faith, even our darkest material can be turned over and put to good use; the foetid and fermenting can (even wants to?) become generative, informative, transformative.

I laid my precious cat Sage to rest yesterday. He was the dearest, most complex wee creature. I loved him. We had in common a burning need for solitude. His small, handsome body will not be laid into the earth - at least not yet. He's to be cremated and in time I will dig his ashes into the soil and plant a renewable Sage bush for him in his favourite patch of garden.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. . . Of course, Sage's death brought a myriad other griefs into the room. Over the years, loss has been a persistent theme; I've tended to think I have to be brave and firm-footed - stoical even - but not so, yesterday. Something in me cracked open and I felt as though I was finally able to weep years of unwept tears. There was some relief in giving myself over - unapologetically, noisily, un-prettily - to the catharsis of snot, puffy eyes and freely-flowing salt water... I wept because I had every good reason to in the moment, but of course I was also weeping for past losses and, too, for who knows how many other unknown, undeclared reasons.

*

My older brother Alan died in 1984. He had an incredible gift with animals, his love and empathy towards them a language all its own.

Here is one of the poems I wrote for him but that speaks no less to others we have loved and lost.

BROTHER

i

You warmed my blood

for years I kept an eye

on you. Now I tell myself

Death at least is

an honest continent

a simple compost

of history and bones.

ii

Chisel an altar

out of mourning.

When stone thaws

and herons dream

unbind your feet

and sign yourself.

SAGE

d. 15 June 2010, aged 12 & 3/4

*

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea."

Karen von Bliksen-Finecke

Tuesday Poem - Jade

JADE

"Hold this," he says

kneeling on air.

"This stone

is alive." But she

is five and unprepared

for such magic.

The frozen sea

rolls itself over

in her trembling hands

and now her bottom lip

is trembling, too. She

cannot see for sobbing

is quite unable to stop

the quaking, stop

the jade

from

falling.

It cracks

the kitchen floor

stains the concrete

terre-verte.

The room is dim

and small. It quickly fills

with fish that flash

a sudden squall of men

the whip and slide

of kelp, the smell of gulls

and thunder circling.

CB

I've been 'elsewhere' these past two weeks; I imagine you've noticed how skinny my recent posts have been as well as how dismally few comments I've left on your blogs lately? Sorry. I've been wrestling with daemon and demons alike, and - not unlike the five year old in this week's poem - found myself uncharacteristically 'unprepared for such magic.' There's been something Herculanian about this latest chapter in terms of tasks and asks. This may sound dramatic but truly, I can't recall tackling an obstacle course quite like this one before. I've made a right show of myself, too, coming face-to-face with my Beauty and my Beast and getting to know each of them better and a whole lot more bluntly than once upon a time. You could say I've been doing some grueling dueling.

But I digress...

Back to things jade; pounamu is a myth-rich stone. (For overseas readers, pounamu is the Maori word for jade or greenstone). Pick up a piece and it invites 'reading', to be entered like a landscape.

*

The Gulf calamity continues to haunt me. I'm unable to paint or draw anything but that right now and don't expect to be able to for a long, long while.

Click here for more Tuesday poems.

And for good measure, a wordless offering from the sea.

Listen

. . . to two favourite voices. . .

Tuesday Poem - Elegy for the giant tortoises

ELEGY FOR THE GIANT TORTOISES

Let others pray for the passenger pigeon

the dodo, the whooping crane, the eskimo:

everyone must specialize

I will confine myself to a meditation

upon the giant tortoises

withering finally on a remote island.

I concentrate in subway stations,

in parks, I can't quite see them,

they move to the peripheries of my eyes

but on the last day they will be there;

already the event

like a wave traveling shapes vision:

on the road where I stand they will materialize,

plodding past me in a straggling line

awkward without water

their small heads pondering

from side to side, their useless armour

sadder than tanks and history,

in their closed gaze ocean and sunlight paralyzed,

lumbering up the steps, under the archways

toward the square glass altars

where the brittle gods are kept,

the relics of what we have destroyed,

our holy and obsolete symbols.

Margaret Atwood

from Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965 - 1995

I'm busy preparing paper for a series of new paintings that will be part of an ArtScience exhibition here in Dunedin early next month. The title of the show is BLEND. There's no way I can't not make work in response to the environmental calamity in the Gulf. I can't get the manatees, seabirds, foraminifera, turtles. . . out of my head. The words 'oil and water do not mix, oil and water do not mix' have been pounding in my chest like a storm; a chant, a plea, a protest. . .

Margaret Atwood's website is (as you'd imagine) a roomy place that, amongst its many treasures, offers generous resources for writers (ref. Negotiating with the Dead: A writer on writing). She has also included 'links of interest', photographs, media clips, podcasts of interviews, reviews, readings. . .

Remarkably, she wrote ELEGY FOR THE GIANT TORTOISES in 1968.

Click here for more Tuesday poems.

Surface stories - candle

Tuesday Poem - Girl

GIRL

for Ali, aged fifteen

You're all prickles today

a native pyracantha

snapping and wrapping

the house in a barbed-wire

mantle.

There are tacks

underfoot, an armoury

of weapons

at the back door

a legacy of lead.

Your mouth

is a live coat hanger

a twist of wire firing

into unexpected

Alexander Calder shapes.

Despite the jabs

the flicks and flays

all the elements are here

for a mobile shape

of extraordinary aesthetic.

When winds thrash

and sharp shards fly

there can be no denying

the whole damned gorgeous

truth of you.

CB

Girl appears in my collection Open Book - Poetry & Images , published by Steele Roberts (2007).

Ali is now twenty-five. We weathered some spectacular teenage storms and, yes, she's gorgeous!

For more Tuesday poems, click here.