dance dance dance

mobile clubbing. iPOD on shuffle + sun + strangers + bus loop park near granville st. + black eyed susans = so much fun! I got a little bit of feist, some mr. somethingsomething, neko case and fela kuti. the perfect evening dancing mix! on thursday i'm going to bust a move on the cambie st. bridge. and hey, it's on next week - you wanna come?
can't wait to see you! soon oh soon.
ps: www.foolishoperations.com

sun

the sun shone today and dried the laundry in the backyard while i read on a blanket underneath the line, and fell asleep over page 230. it was the same sun that set hours later in a glorious blaze over waffle cones.

~

but i still do not know the name of the seaweed
left behind by the long ago tide,
that splays under our feet like a woman's underwater hair,
and i do not know the name of the bird
the naked man peers at through his binoculars
and points to, "there, there, see?"
i do not even know the names of the birds
that rise black above the water
and disappear between blinking.

~

east east east i come. with harry potter in my bag and too many skirts packed in my bright red suitcase. fingers crossed for a back garden margarita*

twirling

in a brief moment of sun, a whirl of my new bedsheet-and-pillowcase skirt. a fast sew...i made it with an extra panel (the flowered print) that folds over itself with some velcro and a button so that i didn't have to bother with zippers (bah!) or lumpy velcro on the side...she fits like a dream, she does....* now it's time to line her with a beautiful lace-edged table cloth i picked up. vancouver is all about the thrift store, eh?
it rains today. but a new fancy trench coat cast me east east to commercial drive for the car-free festival. street samosas and street sausages and and street salmon burgers and street shwarmas...all s-foods. much fun. kensington-esque. oh, and i found that bookstore and coffee shop you mentioned. l-o-v-e!
time to settle in for a few more moments before toronto seeps back in...

this dumpster is for...

mary-kate. and her favourite cousin who visits every summer, jessie may, the same favourite cousin mary-kate really hates because her hair is blonde and curly. and for arthur whose his left shoulder is just slightly heavier than his right, and for the pattersons who love jesus more than they love their dog, oscar. and for mr. tate who never takes off his fishing hat, even in the winter. and for the pair of grey squirrels who got the mange last year but made it somehow until now, tails patchy and not long enough anymore to balance them on telephone wires.

~

so good to chat today. to the pool i go...

a summer-y treat

mmm, raspberry lemon scones. there were some delectable rhubarb ones too...*

~

and entirely unrelated to the scone tasting, i saw a dance show last night that was a collaboration between two choreographers and a glass artist: a costume with glass tubes, like clinking gills above ribs, and a glass dome above a naked breast...underdeveloped choreography but some stunning visual images...

breathing from her heels,
she opens her throat
and lets her hair
fall to the top of her vertebrae.

~

sending you a huge pitcher of sangria for your new back garden.
off to the ocean.

grey-green-grey

above stones the colour of easter eggs,
the water runs grey-green and then grey again,
eddying in the pause between
an afternoon kiss,
and another.

~

the glass is held tight by long ago paint
but wants only to shudder against the july evening,
waking sill.
waking blinds.

[in reponse to this quote:
"the weather of doorways, of windows, distrubing a room"
~ from daphne marlatt's novel, 'taken']

peeling

the only peeling i had known until last weekend was birch...and i wish i could write about the arbutus trees that burned red, as if in mid-day they were caught in sunset, peeling back to the smoothest skin my hands have ever touched.

~

sandwiched between a soccer game
and a waterballon fight,
the evening curls around,
then away from
my tucked-under feet.

~

how your garden stories poems have inspired.

summer has finally reached vancouver. humidity-less sunshine. glorious. i can't stop listening to a singalong with justin rutledge recorded live from the cameron house and melissa mcclelland's thumbelina song. glorious music to end the day with...off for a hiking adventure this weekend.

lovelovelove to you lady r! wishing i could be stuffing monsters alongside you*

through a hole in the fence

an abandoned lot in downtown victoria

~

and from the book I'm reading ("the archivist" by martha cooley):
"reading is like trying to intercept a butterfly. It comes so close you can see its markings, the luminous wings, and then as you extend a hand, it's gone...there's pleasure in this approximation...and even in the failure to apprehend."

and a t.s. eliot line from the same book:
"where the grey light meets the green air"

salt

a strip of sky
ignores the words
that bleed themselves into stone.

and a single trail of white,
like a too far contrail,
like a salt-softened throat
pauses inbetween

~

Off to Victoria for four days. Ferry rust and piles of ropes and sails and salt-soft wood abound!
an oceany kiss*

mast

splaying against
the mid-june blue,
summer fingers
stretch themselves into sky,
wishing for
the thwack and catch
of wind into white.

~

Have you seen the Red Violin? oh. oh. so stunning...

Nest

a bare cage
mostly bone
black stains
biting out
of april's
blue blue sighs

highway wandering

Shadows of clouds
crowd the highway,
and wings tangle and untangle themselves
above the forever telephone wires.

The highway is the tired grey of old dish cloths
brightened only by redwing black birds
who puff their sleeves, brace themselves red
and watch us pass.

Next to the road,
fields blur green,
and sometimes open themselves into long dark hallways,
that close again just as quickly.

~

A quote I read yesterday, next to the ocean:

I wish you would take my hair into your mouth,
enough for a nest.

~ from Esta Spalding's, "The Wife's Account":

trees and telephone poles

Static replaces CBC
and wings skid across the windshield,
as the highway takes us past Nobel,
flanked by walls of rocks opened north
by men who breathed stones into their lungs.

These walls are painted now
with post-prom spray paint:
LEE
Carl 2001
Emmaly 2006
GK + TR
I love you Jenna
letters still drunk on stolen rum and Mom’s diet Coke.

~

In response to your yesterday post...

Above slightly burnt shoulders
that are buried now
in dug up sweaters,
eyes narrow west
sunglass-less and squinting.

For our thoughts...

our eyes focus on the colour of sun
dimmed for safety
splayed in bright directions
then falling south