Right now, in this equinox of fall, I am still perfectly balanced in chiaro scuro, between light and dark, sunrise and sunset, while waiting for the storm. All around me I witness the celebrations of the season, of nature as mother earth and her harvests, recipes, advice and inspiration calling for deep immersion into the underworld… and soon the pull for a kind of transcendence into the light of a better self and a better world…. Prepositions predispose us to quite specific and pervasive spatial relationships… like ups and downs and ins and outs…
“Teach me how to book bind and maybe I can teach you how to knit, to sew, to mend. Enclose us inside a paper origami, maybe then we can be friends.” (EW, 9/21/2000)
For now, cheerful sequins from the year 2000.
Sequins
Do as I tell you, please, carefully,
sequentially, methodically open this drawer,
draw out a word and find a meaning.
Write down conclusion and close it again,
fast,
or else there might escape a convict,
some connotation, some undesirable.
Carefully, sequentially, methodically,
historically forget the last and open up this one.
Assign a meaning, use it, consume it and
build full sentences.
But close it down in sequence, please.
No in between this time, your task is well defined,
the wood well oiled, the rabbets smooth, the meaning easy,
the burden light, the joints well understood.
Now for my turn, open at random,
and there they float these bubbles,
these flickering lights, they intersect you see, sometimes explode,
in joyful color, transparencies of meanings…
Some come in rage, some just in sorrow,
they all burst out and shout,
sometimes they whisper.
Strange how I know they all come out and then they turn,
and they return inside, no matter how I try again,
what tricks I play, these little sequins,
shamefaced, changed and mollified,
these words do all appear subtly changed
and modified each time again
inside this game.
(EW 2000)
And still in draft but coming up soon - Persephone enters the Underworld of Plastic Matter! Triggered and inspired by Heather Davies in Plastic Matter and her take on a queer view of the toxic world of plastic… and how its established and infinite toxic success mimics a continuation of rational colonial desires and world views… A must read. I admire her courage in revealing what does not wish to be revealed and in proposing kinship amidst toxicity.
For the book: https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/3013/Plastic-Matter
Thanks for reading!
I want that photo.
these photos are really wonderful.