Incidents in a Life (Book I--Abridged Version)

 The shadow play, through dirty windows, of morning light on a basement wall

Book I Things Do Happen

(Abridged Version)

--Chapter 0--

(opens in shadows)

What went on before I was or did.

--Chapter 1--

(something flickering)

And then I was born.

--Chapter 2--

(there might be light)

What went on that I can hardly remember.

--Chapter 3--

(certain shapes appear)

I might have learned to read.

--Chapter 4--

(lines, delineations)

Writing doesn't come easily; I'd rather draw a tree.

--Chapter 5--

(a trajectory perhaps)

Things go on happening that I'd like to report; things go on that I'd rather forget.

--Chapter 6--

(the road runs on)

Sometimes, memory fails me, and this, too, becomes something I fear.

--Chapter 7--

(the cliff edge)

Things neglected; things left to happen.

--Chapter 8--

(pebbles scrabble over the edge)

I know I'll die but I'm not dead yet.

Do we know what we see?

Rain overnight. Wet spatters the windows in howling wind.
Insomniac, I drop logs on the fire, scribble notes
in the dark, wake in fog. Now
sunshine. Sharp shadows cross the lawn, grass
imperceptibly greening.  Everything changes. Nothing
does. Do we know what we see?

Afternoon. A bat appears on the porch floor
trembling, a mouse brown thing, with
tiny feet, awkward in the light.
I watch it breathing-- Is it sick? Is it rabid?--
carry it by towel to a rock by the pond. The bat looks
at me. Sun shines through flared wings. It bares
its teeth, bites a rose thorn: small
mouth blooms blood red.

Notes
Pictures are of clearing clouds today and the crumpled bat, now dead.

Cows With Horns

4 March 2011
Puerto Escondido, Baja California Sur


Two nights ago our friend Dorothy dreams--really it is a nightmare--that she is being gored, cleanly, by a bull.  And that, although many people crowd the street, no one comes to her aid.

Did anyone notice she was being gored? She cannot say.

Then yesterday as we walked up the dusty road to the tienda, a strange lowing animal cry floated out from the bush. We looked, and saw nothing but buzzards circling in the sky, riding the currents up the pink mountainsides of the Sierra de la Giganta.

We entered the tienda--we were back again another year!  The owner greeted us like old friends.  Everyone remembers Marike, la Maria grande who speaks fluent Spanish with an Argentinian accent.  We bought a few supplies: tortillas, a head of cabbage, peppers, yoghurt, onions, some chicken, avocados, some tomatoes, raisins.  No cucumbers--they froze in the last cold snap and aren't available.

Suddenly, outside, a commotion.  Bellowing.  There at the side of the shop is a horned bovine.  Your bull! Marike cries to Dorothy.  And then we notice the hanging udders.

The owner comes out and chases off this skinny desert cow, who clatters up the road to join a lowing companion.

She's a bad one! the owner says.  Bit off the water hose earlier this year--we had water shooting fifteen feet into the air.

You see that green there? She points to a patch of bushy blooming bougainvillea, the only green palm and some grasses.  It's all grown up because of that water, and now she comes to eat it, the wretch!

A smart one, Marike says tapping the side of her head. Inteligente.

As we walk back up the road Dorothy comments, that's not the cow of my dreams.

Because it's had a sex-change operation?

No.  Because it's more white than black.

That sounds like a metaphor or a moral, but its import escapes me.  Was this walk a fable?

Images
Cactus, San Juanico, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Buzzards, Puerto Escondido, BCS, Mexico
Cattle skull, shadow, San Juanico, BCS, Mexico

Why do we wake in the night?

 Why do we wake in the middle of the night?

Is it so we have space to ponder, in the shadows and quiet?  Sometimes I waken already filled up--those nights I make lists or weep, scribble or rant.

Sometimes I stand at the door in the dark and look at the stars.  Or when I'm in the city, I'll gaze out at the lights of the Irving station--24-hour gas and an all-night convenience store illuminate the night.  Sometimes I'm awakened by a siren; sometimes it's the sound of the furnace switching on, fire roaring, then the pipes clattering with steam.  Now and then I'm awakened by a cat jumping or the dog moving about and sighing.

But if I awaken, it's because I'm not really asleep.  I get up then, get my book and pen and make my lists.  Sometimes a poem comes.  Sometimes it's an essay or a plan for an image or video.  More rarely I'll take some photographs or sketch in the lamplight falling over my shoulder.

As the dawn comes I stoke the fire and creep back into bed.  I'll wake later, sleepy and baffled, mind befuddled, in no wise as clear as I'd been in the night.

I tend to wake more often when my days and weeks are filled up with tasks and others' concerns.  When I'm teaching for example.  When there's less time (if any) to think my own thoughts or plot my own projects.  I wake when I'm anxious, excited or frightened.  I wake to keep watch, but also to lose my sense of time.

Waking in the middle of the night?  It's a way of stealing hours from the light and greedy day.

Images
Beaver Harbour at Dusk from Nolan's Head, NS
Quoddy Bay at Night--brief clearing during a storm
Clock, Halifax