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water + ice poems Fresh news from the
Arctic I. Inside a dusky breath I watched the edge of light, radiant and graceful in its retreat. I whispered: Arctos and felt the ground beneath me fall. I observed the swelling of the earth. I was leaving the known, the traceable. Heading out to climb the goal, to swing and hitch the rope. There is more to this than the surface. I took a fancy to your hills of little secrets To the quilted ice, your lace of snow. Seducer in blue I repeated your name. Arctos. Twisted the notion of true north around my tongue. I desired the taste of you. At that distance the earth looked like a changeling, a
phantom spirit. I conjured and I beckoned. II. When I arrived, I moved as if to speak but the birds were heavy with their dialogue. I left them to their bickering and moved into the light. The air was full of willow seed, and as strange as possibility. August, I thought, was a month of jewels. Being speechless became my new way. I learnt how to culture the ear, To hear nuance in the landscape. Sound overshadowed all other senses. Precise and complete, I listened to the crackle of a short autumn, To creeping ice, and shivering poppies squat against the earth. I lent my eyes to white ferocity, retreated from touch and taste. My sense of smell tightly froze while I listened to the approaching snow deepening its resolve, becoming graceful constellations. III. For the first time in my life, the cold
bothers me. This would seem rather an obvious
statement, but I’ve lived my life like
Gabriel, swooning over the faintly falling snow. It’s the progression of loneliness
that ices my way. There’s a pattern, a routine
that’s followed through. I’ve crept into a self-imposed
exile, only to realise that my bones are built
differently. IV. This is where winter shapes itself. More hut than a snow igloo, it’s a breezy contraption anchored at hillside. Ice wreckage looped by whalebone and skin. Too like a ghost to feel comfortable inside its thick walls. I’ve been thinking of spirit
photography, of the apparition at my shoulder fading into paper. The thought of you remains. V. When the sun falls low dipping to a curved steer, my heart becomes a heavy stone. I acknowledge the darkness like a black seed, which has chosen me and is nurturing a foreboding. Dark reverberations of the people who’ve inhabited this
house. Interlinked misadventurers Pushing fingerprints into walls, that then incline into journeys. They’ve fallen a long way From the expectations of a new life, grizzled Poes who’ve buried bones under floorboards. I stretch my hands out, rub them back and forth to rekindle touch. I hear the years of vacant possession, the poetics of empty space, of the dust settling. I’m not sure if I’m the haunted or if I’m doing the haunting. VI. I breathe a London fog of fine
concoction. Like Captain Walton, I’m listening to the slow shattering of my life. I daydream about leaving yet something keeps me here, keeps me tied to the distance. Every shade of white, every variation of sorrow. The wind buries my footprints. I wait. I wait. I’m hoping for inner resolution. It must come like a mast, like a sail; with an almighty north wind, prodigious and impressive. I’m trying to read the sky for confirmation. Diamond dust, swirling. Falling over me. Into me. VII. Sometimes I can take the beauty in and hold it there – The tapestry of aurora borealis, the boom-crash of pack ice, an arctic fox deep in mischief-making. I’m in love with the awkward feet of reindeer. I’m perpetually suited to the idea of this land – only my mind has other plans. In every sense, I see this as my failing. I dream of boat-building. I’m left with a clear blueprint, A misshapen vessel constructed by somnambulism – buoyant and eager for departure. An umiak, it slips away as I wake. VIII. If white
were a colourful word I’d have to strip it down to this
– pale, washed out. An absence of energy except for the gradation. But isn’t
life about shade? Isn’t it the shadows that make life
interesting? My mind wanders over clouds that are blue and grey, stippled by the ocean. I feel alive today. I’m somewhere, nestled between good fortune and hope. I’ve struck a deal with change. I’m motioning, becoming arched and bound. This is the voyage out. I’m leaving. Just like that. I’ve packed my instincts like a
trio of golden birds; becoming a tidal chart, I’m
calculated to the second. I’ve dowsed the burning letters,
removed the clumsy furniture, and turned things inside and out.
There’s no longer a place for everything and everything in
its place. I’m living like a tight wire. I’m mesmerising animals, I’m
seeking embers. I’ve stripped the bones bare, and bleached them for authenticity. I’ve left the air fresh with
expectation. My dogs are restless and keen to make a
start. IX. I whisper: Arctos and listen to the wet slap of an oar shape the rhythm of the journey. I have a talisman. It comes in the form of a grey seal who is ever watchful, Circling, and disappearing into the calm
water. Reappearing with wide yawns and a strange tongue. A tiger moth swoops low, a fiery phoenix, it burns a patch of sky. I follow earnestly Edging my way toward the timberline, remembering that it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive safely. I’m straightening my boomerang as I repeat your name. Arctos. There is more to this than the surface. More to this than your blue meadow of icebergs, to the outline of narwhal, the grim
dentistry of walrus. More than the palpitation of evening
lights on the main land, Or a sea otter, anchored by seaweed while
it sleeps. Everything feels new, but my heart is
old. Moth-like, I reach out to oncoming
traffic. Night rain becomes its own vigil, curved by arterial stars – all vivid and misguided. I reach for the silhouetted trees, for the touch of bark and leaves. Bird nestled into
stone / Corca Dhuibhne This is where the water of my heart comes to rest, this raggedy-ruggedness. It settles in the heart and mind, already imagined. Water, just like this. Just this way. Not a thing out of place – just this and this simply. The wildness of the rock, the bottom of the bay, and the memorial stone for Bridget Murphy Who did leap to her death a year or so ago. Here, at these sharp edges The wind and light work off each other, and there’s something about the eternity of it. About its calm savagery, the wild and the unruffled settling across my back of feathers like a spotted cape. The mist stands up for me now and I fly through it in search of a dream. And there you are. Lake Wild underneath, its moodiness just a hint of ripple as the wooden ribs of rowboat lull a gentle measure. Without oar or effort I am spun clockwise. I’ve been sitting here for hours, trying to distance myself from distance. It hasn’t worked and all that I know has sunk to the bottom of the lake. Perhaps I anchored it there myself. Perhaps it went willingly to mud and restive fish. Either way, I’m at a loss to explain most things these days. I turn, like time itself, until I see a thin man standing by a clearing in the forest. He waves at me then evaporates through the sun’s haze. There are too many ghosts here, but my troubles are elsewhere, all bundled and bound, so that the water has become a slow and unfurling freedom. I can choose to sink or swim, or row away, because there are no bridges to burn or build. Yet I find myself waiting for portents, waiting for something to keep me guessing.
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