behindtheax: August 2004

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Near Bartibog

Saturday, August 28, 2004

Another writing prompt

Spending a month in my hometown this summer brought up a lot of childhood memories and I guess that is why I am starting out my blog more in the past than in the present. The book I am currently reading is Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian. It is a great read. He wrote something in the very first chapter that I really related too. It said, You've lived in the city for a long time and need to feel that you have a hometown. You want a hometown so that you'll be able to return to your childhood to recollect long lost memories.
The writing prompt today at onionboy.ca brought up one of those memories for me.

Moss laden quiet. As kids we spent a lot of time in the woods, sometimes whole days, walking as far as we could with nothing to sustain us but squished peanut butter and jam sandwiches and what ever was growing wild at the time. Raspberries along the old railroad tracks in July and blueberries beneath the well spaced pines of the pinewoods in August. For water we would drink from anywhere the water was running, a small stream, small brook. We thought if it was running it was clean. I am not sure that was actually the case and it may be the reason why I remember worm medicine being a substantial part of my diet as a kid. But after exploring field and wood in the heat of a summer’s day, it was always a part of our adventure to find running water, scooping it up in cupped hands, quenching our thrist, feeling like we could now survive forever in the wilderness. The paths we explored were mainly well traveled ones and we usually kept to them, sometimes taking short cuts by running through a farmer’s field instead of going around it, hoping he wouldn’t start firing salt at us. I doubt very much now that there ever were farmers standing, well hidden in the trees, waiting for kids to trespass so they could shoot salt through a rifle barrel at them but at the time we believed this whole heartedly.

Then came a day when a friend told us about an abandon cabin he heard of and that he knew how to get there. So, of course we went. The part of the woods he wanted to take us into was in the northeast corner of this huge field. The field itself was a journey and I remember the sound of heat bugs loud in our ears as we walked in a row, each holding a long strand of green hay in our mouth, chewing on the sweet end. When we got to the corner of the field we spent some time searching for an opening through an unyielding wall of bush and alder and long skirts of spruce branches. But there was none so we decided to just plow our way through, calling out words such as Frig and Oww and Judas as we went. Judas and Frig were our substitute swear words and we pretty much wore them out as kids. We swore because branches were scratching up our arms and legs, and getting caught in our hair pulling us up short and the friend in front was always letting the branch, they just pushed through, come back to hit the kid behind in the face. We almost got to a point where we were going to turn back but then the woods opened up for us and most of the bush disappeared leaving only straight spruce and cedar trees with black trunks and with branches that didn’t even appear to start until three quarters of the way up their slim trunks. We all stepped forward together and our sandal/flip flop covered feet sank up to our ankles in this incredible softness. The whole floor of this wood appeared to be a bright green carpet of spongy moss. We walked on slowly, enjoying the give of the ground and the rich feeling of being on the best and thickest shag carpet in New Brunswick. We walked on quietly; each of us now engulfed in our own thoughts, watching our feet being absorbed by the moss, none of us making a sound. I can’t really explain it but sometimes, even now, when I remember that glimpse of pink flip flop sinking into green moss, I feel a quick, fleeting feeling of well-being. We never did find that cabin but I do believe we all took that feeling of moss laden quiet with us when we left.

Friday, August 27, 2004

writing prompt

Since February, i believe, I have been attempting Onion Boy's daily writing prompts in my private journal. I try not to think too long on them. I just write down the first thoughts that come to me. it is a great exercise and I appreciate that he puts these prompts on his site. Today's prompt is the feel of her knuckle

The feel of her knuckle, tiny ridges of skin like a minuscule furrowed field, makes me want to bend her finger to smooth it out. But I don’t. I take my hand away from hers and reach for the book once again that is lying between us on her small single bed. We are both propped up by pillows, her thick unruly hair that is still damp from her bath smells of rosemary and youth.

I should comb it before she falls asleep to avoid tangles in the morning but instead I turn to the page that is marked by her green frog bookmarker. I hand the book to her. It is her turn to read. She takes it, smiles and begins. We both love the book. We love hating Professor Umbridge and are waiting patiently for her to get her just desserts. I look around the room as she reads and hope this room is comfortable for her. That she feels at home here always. It could use a coat of paint or at least I should do the trim over, try to hide the mistakes I had made when I had painted it last. Slips and spots of blue here and there on the white ceiling, on the white trim. She reads on. Her voice is clear and carefree like it should be. I listen and feel fortunate, like it should be.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Grey Heron at dawn

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Homeward

Driving Eastward

Cramp conditions
Comfort at first
But after Quebec City
A stretch is needed – a road side stop
Between silos pressed against blue sky

It is only three but a nocturnal breeze
Blows
Smelling of the St. Lawrence and cow shit
Purple lupines and canola
Point us home.

No talking now
from Toronto to Montreal
YES
but it faltered after Drumminville.
When we began listening to the air conditioning

Clouds of rich white with tarnished bottoms
Sit low—
Not disturbing the blue
Only stretching it

Opening space

Until it is once again familiar
Causing
slice upon slice of vast
between silos and white churches

East is right here
Not our east but the
First touches of it
And longing finds us and settles in

We spot it everywhere
Even in the highway ditches

It brings excitement
The kind we’ve known as children
As the remaining hours are counted

Maybe Edmunston by six

Through the Plaster Rock
by dark.

If there are no more stops

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

childhood memory

While visiting my hometown in New Brunswick this summer my daughters went for a walk one afternoon by themselves and stopped in at the musuem. Compared to the ROM, which my girls are use to, they weren't overly impressed. But when I was a kid I thought it was the creepiest, oddest place in town. I loved it.

by art of taxidermy
teeth and lips snarl set
and glass eyes gleam
the source of light -
from open doors -
and tiny twisters of sun spun dust
line this threshold
on Wellington St.

this museum of mustard paint
and black cracked asphalt
ten steps west from the town’s
pool
where chlorine hovers haze like
in between the constant whistles
till chlorine will always smell like whistles
whistles will always sound like chlorine
and today like all days of summer
the afternoon is in the deep end
trying to pick up pennies from the bottom.

And with hunger giving by pool water
We stand in pockmarks of asphalt and dandelion dander
Gazing into the dark museum
July on our shoulders – blistered and red.
And the old favourites, the dead things
Call us in
And we go (of course)
Down the aisle of barn wood
And chicken wire cupboards
where fox and owl and beaver
stare down from branch or log
silver slices of metal protrude from around
hardened paws and coats
exhausted by death
dank mixes in well with the stretched white rubber
Of wet bathing caps
that we clench in wrinkled palms together with towels
And in one thin line we tread
Watching eyes and teeth but
only the owl remembers life
or something similar for it holds it
in its great false eyes – daring us to say it
doesn’t
And still we move towards the back
past the single albatross wing pinned to a board
and other oddities and history
united arbitrarily on shelves
where world war two metals and old ledgers
lay next to the fawn in formaldehyde
the fetus twisted in on her self
with undersized black hoofs hiding
closed eyes
suspended
Oracle like and aloof

And still we move towards the back
and dusty bell jars in a line
under the best - the
chicken with four legs
- the kitten with two heads
the length of their true lives we argue
And finally

-above – old and leathery -
at the very back wall
- the belly of a whale.
Hanging in the open rafters
looking like it may split and empty
the contents of a sea
or Jonah
onto us.

It is then the light of open doors
dissolves all restraint
to stay longer
and in a rush of flip-flop
we leave
praying that the doors won’t shut us in.
and that dead things stay dead

behindtheax