MAY DAY! M'AIDER! ¡Está el mes de MAYO!

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To my beloved, faithful readers...
I suspect my posts at La Charpente will be sparse in May, as I'm taking part in the May Day festivities. I invite you all to come visit - just click on the above title, or travel there via my profile. Either way, just get there because I'd love to hear from you!

^

missing Poon & Edi...<>

Across the Universe

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It’s a Tuesday morning in Autumn 1990, and I’ve decided, on a whim, to fly to London. Standing with my shoulder bag in Hyde Park near the B & B I’ve chosen to make home for a few days, selling newspapers to passersby because the man needs to pee and he trusts Canadian girls, I have the sensation of having travelled across some universe into a world both old and new to me.

I’m in the library at the British Museum, my fingers on the glass that protect the words I know so well, every last one. There they are, John and Paul’s scribbles of lyrics that in some real way had defined my entrance into that vast, frightening, exciting, life-altering hole between childhood and – well, you know. And with my first pay-check two weeks after my sixteenth birthday, I had purchased my first guitar, the same Dégas I still have and love today. I sit myself cross legged before my brother, where he is playing his Yamaha on the old wooden floorboards of our attic hide-away and say simply, Teach me. He does.

When I can’t sleep at night –which is often-- I never resort to counting sheep. Instead, I sing. I go through every Beatles song I can remember. There are so many, I never get through them all before sleep.

I come late to “Across the Universe”, the anniversary Beatles celebration musical. That’s okay; I knew I would love it when I got around to it. Even so, it has left me a bit breathless, recalling as I listen, what wonderful words these two wrote. This is why we still pay homage to them, isn’t it? It isn’t the C – G -- D combinations, though simplicity gives room to creativity, in my opinion. I have sung Beatles songs in any number of ways, whether in the bathroom or on stage. Only simplicity of notes can allow for singing the same songs in such varying melodies by so many over the years. But it’s their words that make these songs live on. Considering the vast array of candy they/we were all tripping on back then, John and Paul managed to provide us with insightful, meaningful lyrics. Poems put to melody.

Come May 1st, I will be taking part in a month of poetry alongside truly talented poets, artists who will keep me humble. But I’m willing and wanting to take part in this gathering of words, and though songs & poetry are not one and the same (though I dare you to take it up with Cohen), I've decided to take The Beatles along for the ride. They're in my well...

To all you Beatles fans, lovers of music & motion, lovers of words & stories; to those of you who recall the American promise to learn from history, to those of you who find true meaning in this photo; and to you, who dared individualism in a time when it wasn’t fashionable to have an opinion, I send out two thumbs up for ‘Across the Universe’.

Jai Guru De Va Om .........Nothing's gonna change my world

app.

Mariposa Libre

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at my sunroom window
spring’s first butterfly appeared
fluttering blue lucent wings
as if to say Look at me, I can fly!
from crawling, to confinement, now
it takes its virgin flight to freedom.
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espoir...hélas

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Il se trouve le nombril, se tâte sa grosse petite bedaine. Il me demande - bébé?
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- Non, bonhomme. Tu penses qu'il y a un bébé dans ta bedaine?
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Il fixe ses yeux sérieux sur son ventre, et décrit - Noooooon!
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Je ne lui dis pas que le bébé dans la bedaine à maman n'y est plus. C'est trop triste, ça, perdre la petite soeur, le petit frère qu'il ne connaîtra jamais maintenant. Pensera-t-il que nous sommes tous des menteurs? C'est difficile à dire. Il est si jeune...
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Je lui pose un gros sourire plein d'amour, si heureuse de l'avoir, lui, dans ma vie.

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I've been holding out on putting up my favorite Klimt, a bit like I hold off wearing my very favorite shirt too often. I want it to feel special every time I slip it on. I need that. This Klimt is called 'Hope' - isn't it perfectly named? I think so. Every month, by some miracle well beyond my understanding, I am reminded of what is possible. The idea that my womb can be home to a life beginning just blows me away. I mean, how wild is that? And where that possibility exists, there lies hope and it's free.
Now, freedom is a fickle thing, and which one of us can be certain what freedom tastes like? Kristopherson had it right, in my opinion. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. So, which one of us, in our heart of hearts, would choose freedom over feeling connected and knowing that we belong? Attached, it's harder to lose our way, and I suspect that if we did, someone would send out a search party. At least, one can hope.

.................... ...................................KLIMT

I saw two moons last night...

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Last night, I saw two moons on the horizon. The first moon was enormous; its waves melted away a few yards shy of where I stood. The second moon was small, to the right of the first one and lying higher up on a pink and orange cushion of air. I turned my head for just the briefest of moments when the man charged with helping me find my way home cried out, Look! The large ball on the horizon was suddenly eclipsed. I stood in the dark for three seconds at most, and then bright orange and red lightning bolted from whatever dark world had obscured the beautiful, large moon.

The man who had yelled out ‘look’ turned to me then, smiling the smile of one who has just witnessed a miracle. I smiled back, but I was preoccupied with getting somewhere. How I envied his ability of being there, in that moment. What I received from the amazing lunar show, I knew he had experienced ten-fold, and I was aware of having missed out on the miracle, somehow. My heart grew heavy. His smile was a sign of just how lost I really was...
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found

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They arrived every summer, men seeking work and a place to lay their heads at night. The war had stripped them of what little security they had assumed. Memère and pepère struggled also, barely keeping ahead of the banks and the church donations, while caring for their seven children. But land had to be cared for, even (especially) during the Great Depression. Grandpa had no choice but to hire help, lest the fields be eaten by locusts or be buried beneath the October frost. The out-of-towners would be paid a few bits a day and found. For this, the men worked the fields six days a week, twelve hours a day. Some days, the prairie sun proved too much for any of them; they took respite in the Rat River that snaked along the East field.

Grandpa died before I came around; the stories I have I received from my beloved memère, who managed always with a good deal of grace and humility to tell me what it was like preparing food for all those hungry men, and caring for her children and their home. Her stories always ended with how much she missed her husband during those summers. Perhaps it was her greatest hardship.
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The Artist?

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Okay. So you want to know where Lena is or what happens with the distanced sisters. And what about this 'artist'? Nothing is known of him yet.
Well, you just might have to wait for the book to come out. (Oops). Their lives are complicated, what can I say?
: -)

Prairie April Haiku

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Autumn's pine cones cushioned

On wet green grass, found:

Joy to the nest builders.

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El tiempo que perdiste por tu rosa hace que tu rosa sea tan importante.
Los hombres han olvidado esta verdad...pero tú no debes olvidarla.
Eres responsable para siempre de lo que has domesticado.
Eres responsable de tu rosa...
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El Principito

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Les circonstances font l'homme.

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The Artist - "Lena's Letters"

part viii:

i tuck my toes between his calves and eventually
manage to squeeze in most of my cold feet without
too much protest. my arm wrapped around as
much of his thick midriff as i can, my right cheek
rests just below his shoulder blades. it comforts me
to feel the up and down motion of his lungs, to hear
his breath. i try and synchronize my rhythm to
his, without success. how does he sleep so soundly?
almost like he doesn’t know i’m here, in This bed,
our bed, caressing the length of his thighs, feeling
him, wanting him.

honey. ho-ney? are you awake? is what he said to
me tonight when he climbed into bed after a
night out with the boys! god, Richard, did
you really think i was awake? well, i was, but
how would you know. did you really think
i wanted to make love with you with your breath
and brain full of whiskey.
FUCK!

would you mind if i pretended i
was someone else

you told me tonight that you loved me. Just like
that. No reason. We weren’t making love or
anything…I was doing the dishes. Richard – you
had a tear in your eye when you said it. I don’t
understand…I wanted to so very, very much…i
reached to touch your tear but you blinked just
then.

here i lay on my back staring at the ceiling, hoping
my ink won’t flow south for a bit…he’s beside me,
of course…well…his back is. snoring. how did i
get here? was this my choice, once? i mean…how
did i feel that day, when i decided? did i know
this day would come, the day where i would dream
of being anywhere else but here?....
so now what? what would Richard say if i got out of
this bed this very minute, got dressed, grabbed my
purse – oh geez…i’d need my warm coat, wouldn’t i...

the nights are getting cold - and walked out
the front door, just like that?
HA! would he even notice…

i was at the IGA today trying to decide what to
make you for supper. and i bumped into dave!
remember dave, what a crush he had on me in
high school? i don’t know…maybe you don’t.
actually, you probably never noticed…you took
for granted i would always be faithful to you.
i think i found that endearing about you
then, your faith in me…
well Richard,today i actually considered it – not
being faithful. oh, when he smiled at me, and that
glint appeared in his eyes..well..i might
have said yes. if he’d asked me to. in my mind,
he grabbed me right there in the middle of the
IGA and kissed me like …
you probably would never have found out though,
never noticed anything different about me, would you
Richard?

I hate you sometimes. Today. I hate you for not even
pretending to care. I really needed you, Richard.

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What shakes the eye but the invisible?

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THEODORE ROETHKE

The Artist - Lena's Letters

part vii:

Tucked under her nighties, Nancy found scraps of paper. Soon she had gathered bits of words from shoe boxes on the closet's top shelf and from between the mattresses. There were more, she knew it, but desperate now to begin piecing the undated journal her sister had left behind - evidence of the last ten years - Nancy had to read what she could before Richard returned.

She formed a paper mountain in the center of the bed, where a valley must have begun to appear some time ago already. She picked one up, taking in the handwriting she had seemingly not forgotten. The first one was in pen and scribed on a torn sheet of full-scap...

i tuck my toes between his calves and eventually
manage to squeeze in most of my cold feet without
too much protest. my arm wrapped around as
much of his thick midriff as i can, my right cheek
rests just below his shoulder blades. it comforts me
to feel the up and down motion of his lungs, to hear
his breath. i try and synchronize my rhythm to
his, without success. how does he sleep so soundly?
almost like he doesn’t know i’m here, in This bed,
our bed, caressing the length of his thighs, feeling
him, wanting him.

...

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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The Artist

part vi:

They stood in the kitchen on Magnus; neither of them uttered a word. Richard had told Nancy what he knew on the drive from Richardson Airport, which was pretty much nothing at all. She had vanished in the middle of the night, he said. A deviant wouldn’t have bothered to stop for her coat and purse, so it seemed fair for Nancy to assume that she had walked out on her own.

The silence the two near-strangers shared was not shared, really. Richard was fragile and desperate for answers. Nancy was too busy grieving the woman she didn’t know. She took in her sister’s home, running her fingers on the countertops, breathing in the smell of their mother’s piroshkies and cabbage rolls that lingered in Lena’s kitchen. The vacant thud of her footsteps on the tiled floor held such a lonely sound. Were these the same footsteps her sister heard?

“Well. Like I said, I got to step out for a while. But make yourself at home, k? An’ ah... I’ll see you in a while then.”

“Okay, Richard. Thanks.” Nancy stared into his eyes for traces of her sister, and when the door shut behind him, she paced the length of the house in pursuit of something lost. She didn’t know what she was looking for until she entered the bedroom, the one Lena had shared with Richard until six days ago.
.

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Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.

AGNES DE MILLE

The Artist

part v:
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“Hey, Nance!” Lena yelled up, “Dad wants you working in the store tonight.”

“I can’t! Tonight’s the ---”

“I can’t hear you, Nancy.”

“I’m cooo-miiing.” She stood on the landing in the black chic she was prone to wearing these days. Her lips and nails painted a deep burgundy, her bangs sweeping over the sixteen year old’s deep brown eyes. In the briefest of moments, Nancy went from sexy to sullen. “Mom. Mom? You promised!”

“Jes’ go down an’ talk weet your fawder.”

“But mom...”

Her mother mumbled something in Polish and Nancy knew her fate was already sealed.


“Nancy... Nancy?” Richard’s voice brought her back to the baggage carousel where she stood waiting, wondering if some guys in the back we’re busy duct-taping her luggage back together.

“Richard? I’m sorry. I must have been... How are you? I mean...Hi Richard.” She leaned to kiss him on the cheek.

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Listening is a form of accepting.

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STELLA TERRILL MANN

The Artist

part iv:

Nancy didn’t hear the flight attendant at first. The moment she had boarded the plane, her thoughts were bombarded with memories of her pre-John life. She had done a good job of forgetting, she thought. Only now she couldn’t account for a missing sister.

“Ma’am? Would you like chicken or vegan?”

“No thank you.” The cart moved passed her, the brake applied with the woman’s three hundred dollar Italian pump, regulation two inch heel. Nancy had once written an article on "Life in the Skies".

The captain came on, announcing their altitude, flying conditions and estimated arrival time in Saskatoon and Winnipeg. Nancy had one more hour to get her thoughts together, although really, there seemed nothing to assemble but memories. Growing up in Winnipeg’s north-end, the life of a young girl living on the prairies during the Seventies. What was there to remember?...
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Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if
at the same time she manages to be a good wife, good mother, good-looking,
good-tempered, well-groomed, and unaggressive.
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LESLIE M. MCINTYRE

The Artist

part iii:

“It’s for you.” John passed the portable to Nancy, who reached for a paper towel to wipe her mustard streaked hands.

“Richard...” Her brother-in-law had not once called Nancy in the ten years he had been with Lena. “Is everything okay? Is Lena okay?”

A silent, confused Nancy put down the phone. John hadn’t met any of his fiancée’s family yet. They were mentioned names of strangers who lived three provinces east of the island he had called home for four decades. Nancy hardly spoke of Lena, but seeing her troubled face now, John realized how easily he had dismissed her family or the life that took place before him. And so when Nancy said she had to go home in the morning – how strange those words sounded to him -- he could think of nothing to say except, Yes, of course...I’ll drive you to the airport.

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in the brush doing what it's doing,

it will stumble on what one

couldn't do

by oneself.

ROBERT MOTHERWELL

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The Artist

part ii:

John had spent all of Thursday in the studio. He walked into the kitchen where Nancy was pouring over brochures – caterers, flowers, music. It was endless, planning a wedding. How it had all fallen on her she couldn’t remember. She did have a vague memory of wanting to elope. But John had explained the necessities of presentation, what with the Gallery show this coming winter. And then there was mother, of course. Nancy had pushed back her book deadline twice already. The thread of her novel seemed lost now anyhow, spread out on this kitchen table somewhere between orchids and taffeta and four piece orchestras.

John was painted in blood red and Nancy asked him how things were going. “I’m so tired, darling. Do we have any food?” he asked.

She knew that was his way of asking if she would make him something.

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There is no must in art

....because art is free.

WASSILY KANDINSKY

The Artist

part i:
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To him, words were foreign little countries lost in a vast ocean he had never yearned to visit. She read him her poem and he said, I like the bready clouds. I liked that. And she was sad at knowing that her words were lost on the man she would soon be calling her husband.
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He was a brilliant painter. She got that. But anything beyond his canvas didn't seem to come to life. Many nights, after he lay sleeping soundly beside her, she thought of tip-toeing to his studio to paint words amongst his linear patterns.
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