the deer and the plane

riding my bicyle in the fields
i see a white patch in the distance
among the yellows and purples and greens
i look closer
it is a deer
watching me from across a
stream, so still
then, suddenly, bounding away, higher than
the goldenrod

coming down the path at the university
i hear a sudden noise
look up, and see a fighter plane,
flying so low, i've never see one so low,
taking up the sky
black mass against the blue sky
propellers spinning
i am struck, immobile, terrified
awed

the first thing you think
as you freeze and stare is
will you crash into me?
myself this small thing in the fields
watching, amazed
and then it passes
and you bound away into the fields
marvelling at the strangeness

Birth and travel

I dreamed this morning

Of a long road to water
Bravely trusting in the need of a friend to find it
Bravely travelling
Of the unexpectedly short road back
The long road there, part of the need

Of a house by a flowing stream
snow covered, made of branches and trunks
With wide doors

Of laying my body down next to hers
during the pains and heat of coming childbirth

The centre of necessity
The road there and back
Always waking before the final return

american sign language

signing under the moon and
red yellow green leaves
dusk in the park

signing on the line between
shorn soy fields and the hedgerow
at bright noon

signing in the kitchen
under quiet yellow light
the smell of cooking and night air

sunday night, i write while she sleeps

light remains at the bottom of the sky
deepening to dark blue towards the dome
that holds us all, this autumn night

soon constellations will appear
myself, at another time, in a wide cold field
becoming acquainted with the darkness

tonight, in blankets
my mind tastes applesauce and cinnamon
i wait for her to wake
while i delight in the quiet of her sleep
the gentleness of her body in the dark
as i imagine it in my mind

map a mundi

"The objective behind creating a map would be to somehow ... impose order on a city which is always moving, which is always growing, which is always changing, which is falling apart as it's burgeoning at the same time"
(from 'the beauty of maps')

"A map is a city without the people.A map is a monument to building but is not a monument to human behaviour."
(from 'the beauty of maps')

"All we know of Morgan's fate, was that he never made another map. Only in his 30s, he sold the plates of his wonderful map to another publisher, and was never heard of again."
(from 'the beauty of maps' about the creator of the first Enlightenment map)

1.
the city is the
noise of being human
dirt of being matter
residue of having feelings

the expression
the gladness or frenzy or necessity
of being alive

the living, crawling, shouting, moving, breathing
hive of us

our clean maps which were born from the Enlightenment
are not enlightened emptiness but
dual, caused, born and dying, forgetting,

illusion of empty

i trace my future journeys on a map between the walls
of my own identity, in the shell of
my home, in my square of the city

how hard can it be? to travel
through the silent, steady landscape
that the map shows me?
from here to there, no anxiety
just lines and spaces

on the road
the line becomes movement
the pen trace becomes the energy of the legs and heart
the eye moving across the page becomes the eye surveying the possible
dangers: visions, sudden movements, memories

on the road, off the map
ah

when i looked at the map, i thought i forgot myself
in the lines and spaces and shapes
but actually, i was there all along,
bending the city to my desire
so effectively that i became desire
and there was nothing else
and everything seemed quiet
and calm
and good

now, as i travel, i remember myself, nakedly
tremblingly, vividly
small
the city is me, is us
shaking and flushing and crying

2.

the Enlightenment map is not a monument to us
to our relations and our fears

the Medieval map a mundi comes much closer
to the experience of traveling through memory
vision, uncertainty, and fearful imagination

3.

on the way downtown, to the edge of my known
world, ("here there be dragons")
on moore st.,
i stop my bicycle by the graveyard and smell spring
in the soil
i stop for a moment to watch a
pine branch move in the wind

all maps empty out
from my mind
and there is only this place
in the spring and in the wind
a monument to no one

morning

more quiet
this sunday morning
more happiness
slowly

the cat
watching me from the hallway

in the early sunlight

the rushes

in the silence of snow and conifers
in the conversation of trees
i take refuge

and recognize that refuge is not
escape

but living

in the shiny boxes
of conversation, merry christmas,
get it done, formal shoes,
i feel dark thoughts descend
and yet, i can no longer call them dark
for they are not the velvety darkness
of trees in winter

they are darkness as seen uniformly
through a square window in a room
filled with electric light and voices

the darkness of separation from night
from emptiness, from silence

the darkness that is feared by electric
people, by people who can't slow down

the rushes
the steps i take to prove myself professional,
human, active, responsible, conversational

the rushes
creaking in moonlight, brushing and sighing
in the solstice wind

my hope for salvation, for refuge
for life

- for heather