Moya Cannon: "Openings" & "Still Life"

OPENINGS

In my chest a rusted metal door
is creaking open,
the door of a decompression chamber
cranked up on barnacled chains.

The rush of air hurts and hurts
as larks fly
in and out,
in and out
between my bended ribs.

--Moya Cannon

STILL LIFE

Much though we love best
those intersections of time and space
where we are love's playthings,
a sweet anonymity of flesh --
life's blessed rhythm
loving itself through us,
two human bodies tuned
to the whirring stars --

this is almost nothing
without the small, quotidian gifts,
habitual caresses which hinder fears,
the grace of small services rendered --
two bowls of blueberries and yoghurt,
two cups of coffee,
two spoons,
laid out on a wooden table
in October sunlight.

--Moya Cannon

-- from Moya Cannon's Hands,

Carcanet Press Limited,

Manchester, UK, 2011

Foray

Kayaking Mendocino: Four Shots

(Sorry about the waterspots.  I need to figure out how to get the water off the lens better.  Maybe keep a small spray bottle of fresh water handy for the amphib camera.  I think that the waterspots are part of the experience and that the photos work, but that may not work for everyone.)

This last photo shows a tricky spot a bit to the south of Van Damme State Beach. If you go through this narrow archway, you find a cathedral-like cavern open to the sky, The trick is that there's a mass of kelp growing in the center of that archway passage that will slow your kayak to a crawl. (I vividly recall past experiences digging, digging, digging with the paddle to get through and out.) This day, the swell was working, and I couldn't tell how much clearance I was going to have at the top of the swell's rising, and I did not want to get spiked; also, the tide was rather low at this time, which may have meant more headroom, but which also meant at the surge's drop the kayak would be in a too narrow space that wouldn't matter with a higher tide or with a mellower surge.

I looked, shot, and paddled on. Another day for entry. See, I am maturing (finally).

Lady of the Marsh

 Venus, A Study: sculpture mix; celadon or light jade, transparent brown, and floating blue glazing.

Art class exercise from a few years back: 40 minute session with model.  Practicing, both sculpting and glazing.  I look at her, and I think of what I have learned, what I can learn.

The Gate From The North

Sentinels in Blue and Green

Sentinels of the imagination?  Guardians of the bookshelf?  Okay, so they aren't the Ruritanian palace guard nor Strider's ancestors guarding the river approach to the southern kingdom . . . .

Greeters?  "Hello, fellow reader!  Pick a book, any book.  Or, we can suggest one for you, if you'd like?"  That's the duck talking.

The dragon?  I'd like to say he'd caution you against dog-earring favorite pages, but I do that myself.  He may look somewhat goofy, but he does have teeth and fire at hand--as do most books, the ones worth your time; or they should do, if you're lucky.

Welcome to the Gates of Ivory and Horn.

Self-Portrait #50: sculpture mix; blue (with a bit of green) glazing, layered.
Green Dragon (Somewhat Goofy): sculpture mix; green glazing, layered.

Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn?

I love my alma mater, warts and all.  And, to keep with that metaphor, she'll bewitch you if you give her half a chance.  Half-Circe, half-Sibyl of Cumae?

Whenever I approach that gate, I hear Virgilian echoes; I just do.

(Homeric resonances too: Holy moly, Hermes!)


Let's hear it, especially, for Latin Summer Workshop '88!
"O passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem."  --Virgil, The Aeneid, from Book I.