Poetry: Exhale I just close my eyes so I don't see myself falling down. Purple is the colour of raindrops floating in the air. It's just a drawing. Mommy, You don't have to be scared of it. --Poetry Spoken by Aria Eden Mair, age 3 1/2. Living poetry at the moment... Heard those amazing lines coming out of Aria's mouth today--talking to herself as she played. I've had a large blank canvas in my room for months (when & what to paint?). This afternoon I put it on the floor and gave Aria a box of pastels. She used each colour once. Body spread wide. Concentration. Constant chatter. --- After grocery shopping, ran into the kitchen. Where's the cat? "Biddle! Look! I want to show you all the junk we bought!" Cat sat on the counter, approving each article zealously thrust... --- I took Aria to Royal Hospital. Paediatric Ward 3. Official opening of the new "mothers' rooms". Aria: "Maybe the children have barfek?" Barfek..? "Yes. They're sick. Barf-ek." Oh. In the hallway, a man praying. Then folds up the green mat, leaves it to one side. Which Aria tramples. "Aria, that's a prayer mat. The man knew it was azaan time, but he's working, couldn't go to the mosque...so he prayed right here." We stand in the residue. She wonders. Then-- "I also have a praying mat! And a spraying mat! I was busy, didn't have time to go to the zoo...so I just prayed to the animals..." And she is off leaping again, little Islaminist. We pose for pictures with the nurses. Pretend to eat pineapple cake. --Thank you Anna (she's a photographer...) for donating artwork... to all the ladies...the blankets...cushions...stenciling... "Is this all the food there is here?" Laugh at the pipsqueak. --making this room a better place for these mothers. --- "Do you celebrate Mother's Day?" (email from my great-grandmother) I bought myself pink flowers. Put them in Aria's Winnie-the-Pooh cereal bowl. Says, "So many pretty posies." --- Oh my...! Edward Weston book (photographs & journal), 1965 edition, found in my grandparent's dining room, top shelf. Now on the couch. Was Aria reading it? On the first blank page, a drawing in red. Clearly a nude. Did she do this? Looks very similar to his "Pepper No. 30 1930" and "Nude 1925". The Artist Child. Spine. Buttocks. Makes me cry. --- I hear this refrain: Silence stared me in the face and I finally heard its voice. (Dixie Chicks song) --- 
Wedding Reception/Cocktail Party, April 2008 --- Excerpts from Quick, by Anne Simpson: Like so. I swam out of my name. If we put out the blaze in one place, it starts in another. It burns. Let it. Carry each one you love. Carry the living heart, lungs and liver, wild sweetness of the blood. Carry the bones. Carry the fire in the bones. She’s a child in the house of her body. The doors open and close, open and close, open and close, daybreak to dusk. Eyes, mouth, lungs, heart Light poured through the windows from west to east. Sky, speaking. She has a brass bowl, a singing bowl, on the windowsill. It catches the light and holds it, depending on the time of day. Her body. A bowl, singing. A man can grow accustomed to anything, a change of seasons, each snap of the moon. Even when he’s stretched out on this slope he hears a steady thrumming. It’s a long way off, but he lies still, pretending. Once he put candles in each window of her body: a thousand wavering lights. Back then he knew about fire. If we’re cracked open, it’s only because something wants out. Not lost, held. Where was I? Held between setting out and arriving. Mornings She’s getting used to it. Each morning when she wakes, she sees fire on the palms of her hands. The flames are small but distracting. Whatever she touches starts on fire: the chair, the table, even the mirror. Now she’s teaching herself to pick up one thing at a time, carefully. She knows it’s a gift from the gods, but sometimes she wishes they’d take it back. Soon, though, she’ll be able to put it inside her ribs and take it out whenever she needs it. The rope with a mother at one end, child at the other. The body is only a riddle. There’s more. Inside each question, another question. Her arms encircle Where I’ve come from, where I’m going. Each of us is a threshold for the other to pass through. She goes into the spacious rooms, making me larger. One thing holds another. In the further ocean: blue and blue and darker blue. Ululations of creatures who’ve never breathed air. A world arranged in terza rima: one formal circle, another. We begin as fragile things: how little we change. We could be glass. A ting of forks as we move together, apart. She hears what can barely be heard. The tide tugs her ankles. She hears waves opening and closing. Inferno, paradiso. Can you hear that? How distant it is. A realm of sound—hundreds of millions of years—past silence. What can’t be voiced is locked inside, but there’s singing. There are worlds inside your head. And seas, moving from one side to the other. You could have been anything you wanted. Not merely human. Everything is sharpened around you. The ocean wants what it can’t have. It tries to swallow the heart, and what’s inside the heart. A constant rushing. No matter what we press to our ears, it’s half-heard. There—that phrase, repeated. The woman swims across the silvery foil of water. What’s brushing against her skin? She wants a body so sheer it can hardly be seen, wants it to dissolve into liquid. Water holds her: she stands in the shallows, wades to shore. Behind her, the ocean is an open cupboard. Lower down, a chill, and deeper still, the place where humans cannot go. Things get lost in the dim recesses. What matters is the surface, the beautiful doors. Return to the beginning with each breath. Listen. --- Powerful words. Thank you, Anne Simpson. My first reaction. "She writes in my voice!" Or I in hers. Does it matter? Recognizing myself in another. --- Because, on Friday, I went to the sea alone And swam fully clothed Towards a ripple Sploosh Held my breath No Breathe Asking for Connection A sign in the grey cradle tide Huff! A face Shell flip-foot Turtle... Hello...? I floated Waiting Maybe I am too tired to write poetry. Maybe I have forgotten how. I swam with a large sea turtle. On land--quad bikes, digger-generator-airconditioner, football players All shouting So I went under water seeking calm But heard a clamor Of tick-clacking, claw-talking | sound | | Part of Speech: | noun | | Definition: | The sensation caused by vibrating wave motion that is perceived by the organs of hearing. | | Synonyms: | noise, sonance |
And it brushed me I cannot explain how it felt. Why try? Swam out so far I was one of the creatures Whole--happy--full--empty One with. --- Ok. She explained it better. The turtle rose up out of the water and looked at me-- Making a loud exhale sound And I followed Breathe in... Exhale... And found the place between breaths. Peace. Stillness. --- I do not know how to end this, so I will just say Good night. | 
