Saturday, January 28, 2012

a place where hard men shift a boulder to plant a seed












House 

.....Manitoulin Island, Ontario

she was a doorframe
she was the windowpane in his blood

she breathed slowly by the sink
and thought of a tree in bloom
a warmth in her thighs against snowfall
sunlight quavered in a bowl of water

 he held the phrase matrimonial privacy
a mouthful of nails to hammer a stair toward the bedroom

winters later
he curls no larger than a loaf of bread
under strips of wallpaper
mewling for home


16 comments:

  1. jesusgod, i love this post. i have nothing, james, nothing. i am broken all over this, related to it tenuously and not at all, broken, still broken. every crack of light (in photo and in word) finds its way into me. your title, i fall upon it like a crumbled column. your poem, it is a wall of broken glass, so important. your photos, i fall upon them and they cut me. the history, it slides inside me. tomorrow, slices through me.

    xo
    erin

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  2. Your poems and photos take me to another place. I'm sure she spent lots of time looking at the tree outside the kitchen window. Watching it grow...

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  3. The essential stuff of life is protected here in your poem and images. What we hold, what lasts. I am always drawn to images of decaying buildings, they are beautiful. Your lines embody that sense of beauty. There is tremendous breadth in your writing, simple leaps that feel more like embraces, sort of like life. Just lovely!

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  4. was für ein wahrhaft poetischer Post ... was für ein Gedicht und die Bilder dazu, tief berührend.

    ich bin begeistert und bewegt. Danke dir.

    isabella

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  5. it is as if light is nothing else than time piercing through the cracks of being, slowly tearing the house down - and everything which it once held within... yet light is also the memory which preserves, what a paradox - here, in the shape of your photos, which are nothing else but the light of that place, written onto your eye, your camera's eye, now unto ours. everything about time seems to be about building and tearing down, and the only thing transcending this eternal circle is love (she knows this so well, no, she feels this so well as she is breathing slowly by the sink)...


    it is beyond beautiful, all this -

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  6. How the light sparkles even among the ruins. Something of beauty always remains.

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  7. erin: it was an extraordinary day, and just when it seemed to be ending, this house presented itself to us, demanding to tell its story ... i'm glad you saw it and we stopped to listen ...

    walking (carefully) through these rooms, i felt the story was about us, somehow, as if it had known you in that house decades ago ...

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  8. Liz: it is depth that we feel in old houses, isn't it? time that has gathered like a pool ... we can't help imagining ....

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  9. Ruth: there is always another surprise, something hidden so far that life reveals quietly or with a grand flourish ... i am seeing that these days, learning to be still and let life take me by the hand (at least, i hope i am learning :-)

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  10. Isabella: Deine Worte immer erhebe meine Seele. Ich umarme dich, liebe Freundin....

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  11. Roxana: yes, this is the paradox of time, the simultaneous building and destruction -- and if love is the only thing we have to place against the paradox, then love is strong enough -- at least it makes the erasure sweet ...

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  12. Laura: you are welcome here :-) thank you for coming, and for your kind words ...

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  13. nothing profound: thank you for visiting. yes, i think there is always beauty -- we only have to be able to see ...

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  14. Beauty. Pain. Stark reality. Light. Pain. Sorrow.

    I am stunned.

    You, Erin, Brian--poets that go straight to my jugular soul. Thank you.

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  15. JeanneteLS: sometimes the light is not gentle ... but it is true, i think ...

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