Pas
de Deux
a
Haibun for Alanna Bondar
We pulse at different frequencies. Wavelengths open. Sound travels at varying speeds through
water, air. Your body enters, vibrates within an ocean of depths,
surfaces.
Regard the liquid sky at night. At
times, I hear your voice travel over this lake.
At times, we match frequencies, resonances, sing greetings over
distances, a sonic exchange, a reciprocal arrangement between water, stars…
connected dots. Night’s moon-sliver, stellar groupings dance above Superior,
this inland sea. Aurora Borealis,
enters a pas de deux of sky, water.
Electrically charged particles freed from the sun’s grip collide with oxygen,
nitrogen, an adagio of light. A comet’s pirouette, brings this missive, “Match
the frequency of your desire, and you will grasp it.” A liquid dance. We are
elemental, two-thirds water, a curving glissade, flying through space.
Gravitational waves. Temporal fluctuations. Suddenly, you, beside me, as you
were that day. The universe expands with an allegro Sautée, thought’s speed.
Light emitted from galaxies beyond our event-horizon remains invisible,
awaiting revelation. After the universe’s expansion stops, the sky-drum will
pause, in a momentary balance, and with one beat space-time will revisit its
origin. Time will flow backwards. We’ll meet again. Ours is an instant in this pas de deux. Water bounces sound. You and I are strands of
rain-blown hair, arpeggio flights, stardust memories, singing resonances, a
rose at dawn, a single breath in the mind’s ear. Morning. Lakeside. Your breath
shapes cold air above Superior’s shore. Recollection skips stones over water.
Light bends. Pasts are fictions, memory is liquid, you, that day, spill from
memory’s edge. Then the dance concludes.
Look. Hear. At dusk or dawn, moon, stars, planets appear larger,
higher than they really are. Light remains visible beyond our horizons.
light
bends memory
when
we breathe the morning air
through
our rain-blown hair
The &MAN
for Iain Baxter&
And
he stands in water up to his waist
and
he’s holding an ampersand
and
it’s a sunny day
and
he’s wearing a ball-cap with an & on it
and
he’s considered Canada’s 1st conceptual artist
and
he’s got an Order of Canada (CC) & OOnt & OBC & FRSC
and
he’s called the Marshall McLuhan of the visual arts
and
he founded N.E. Thing Company in the 60s
and
he trade-marked the & in 2009
and
he lives with his wife & collaborator Louise Chance Baxter&
and
we’re collaborating on a book about S&wich town
and
you don’t need a memor&um to know
his
success is not r&nom
it’s
maybe slightly off-h&
some
think it sc&alous
but
nearly all agree his art is gr&
and
sets a new st&ard
and
his influence will exp&
while
offering gr&iloquent profundities
with
much ab&on
as
fate has m&ated.
From
a majority st&point
he’s
a key panj&rum
Silences
for
Collette
She asked, “What’s the quietest thing?”
I hedged. She crocheted;
A flower unfolding?
A taste of freedom?
Grass flexing in a gentle breeze?
An infant’s first breath? A soul’s final exit?
Spirit steps walking over autumn leaves?
Waves seen through a telescope?
Long-distance before you drop a coin into the slot?
Butterflies in a sunlit field?
Unspoken words?
Your lover’s pulse in the chambers of the heart?
Spring ice melting on open water?
Snowflakes settling on the outskirts of a quiet forest?
Pine smell on a soft breeze?
Sun warming an open field?
Sub-marine movements of fish?
The vacuum of space?
Wind-blown sand collecting in dunes?
The moment between in-breath and out?
Eyes reading words?
The eleventh hour?
The moment you hang up?
Perhaps time’s fingers sifting sand,
or, thoughts gathering wool…?
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