Thirteen ways of looking (in-progress,

 

, after Robert Kroetsch

 

1.

A blackbird, thus. A lemon. Glacier. A mass of scatter, heart. The scent of that, green. Christine fills the sunroom with tomatoes, garlic, sunflower seeds. She pulls at the lettuce. Is it the distance that separates. Rose, mutters. Underneath her breath. Christine’s potted lemon tree. A bale of straw in the trunk of the car. For the garlic, she says. To plant the garlic.

You hear the sun. When light is not your friend. This bite, is melancholy.

When they have senses. Another wheelbarrow of dirt. Another broken wheelbarrow. Rhythm: an elusive quality. What two are opposite. The children walk on sound.

The differences of small hands. The differences of hands, without which there is no poem.

I have an abiding interest. My father carried around such years. His father, before him.

 

2.

Whether, red. These green tomatoes: a double reference. Whenever speech an act.

As I continue to expand. What I could not, for the writing of it.

How this is not my book.

 

3.

This blackbird, lemon. As I wander, thoughts. A frame supports the language.

Christine prepares the garden. She separates out, what is familiar. I haul out a wheelbarrow of topsoil. I haul out a wheelbarrow of topsoil. I haul out a wheelbarrow of topsoil. A cubic yard. I empty the bag from our driveway.

To garden, which might be a form of translation. Aoife, her twice-weekly German class. She responds to her sister: nein.

Someone is chewing a bone in my rib cage. Aurora Borealis. What memory is.

Craig Santos Perez: It was summer all winter. What we know, for the writing of it. For the looking.

 

4.

A sheer of frost. The morning, withers. Children vacillate: breakfast, clothes.

Morning: the first and last daily capture during which I self-orient. A form, we lack. Scribble notes in my notebook, this notepad, this postcard. Even the dishwasher grumbles.

Forest school: Aoife names her newly-acquired stick “red crayon.” Once home, she markers the point black, not red. Is this not a pipe.

Let us skip across categories, the ideal situation. An ordinary day, persists. The love songs of Nancy Sinatra, Lizzo. Everyone on television has such good teeth.

I have lost my ability to count.

 

5.

If someone asked me: How are sketches shaped? How is a lemon? How might an hour?

The young ladies’ e-learnings present themselves in packets. One ninety-minute session. A wee break, there.

One moves beyond the iron element.

Christine left the house today at 9am. She will return around dinnertime. One thought leading directly and immediately into another. With a clean edge.

My flippant response to a Twitter question: What prompts you to write?

I answered: Fear of death.

(October 2021-