A Poem
Dear Fellow Dreamer,
July greetings! As promised, I’m sending you this letter—a poem—to say hello and let you know I’m thinking of you. How has your summer been? Any highlights to share? As ever, I’d love to hear from you.
Over here, in the long light, much has been happening. I’ll have new things coming this fall. Look for a more detailed newsletter from me later in August. In the meantime, here are a few of my own life highlights since I last reached out:
- Summer travels with my family in Ontario
- New writing emerging (much of it poetry)
- A self-directed artist residency at my home, in late June, with another yet to come in August
- Being invited to read my work in great company at poet Laurie Koensgen’s launch of her gorgeous new chapbook, this clingstone love, in Ottawa on August 21st—such an honour
- Immersion in some of the transformative principles and practices I teach, which has given rise to the idea of creating a unique series of online writing workshops (all levels); let me know if you’d like to learn more
- Embracing deeper, yearlong studies in Celtic Shamanism with one of my favourite teachers, Jane Burns—a dream come true; as with all my practitioner trainings, it will help inform how I serve others
- Reading, ever bordering on enchantment: one of its many essential gifts
I wish you a beautiful month ahead, in peace, spaciousness, and the magic of the season. Now for the poem…
Life Review
I am grey feather
on the gleam-water, choppy passage foam
Here is the mouth painter
see him bend, drip red, wet-blue
you are a tube of light
I am four—all things cornered and beaten
deep in Earth, foundation stone
Here is the Baker's Man
baking a cake as fast as
you, blue glowing comma
brilliance of night water
lapping strait—
passage from one state to another
moving between continents,
daisy petals, sleeping bees
I am turquoise heat—
desert reaching to bloom
in sharp flowers
pungent needles, hot-pink and yellow
as Sun
Here is coiled Snake
in the deep spine of dancing
barefoot in dust
you are dust
under my dragonfly feet
playing at being solid, and vapour
waiting for rain
I am rain
forgetting body—grind of skin on skin,
lost in altar and drum,
the running horse
Here is wet cardboard
bloated on life force
in the smoky garden,
kale curls to chew
Two plus two equals
De-sire—of the Father?
Matter—the Mother?
who
are
you?
bare leather soles pad a path through tall grass
shimmering
I am the sound of lightning
pause and rumble,
kiss, squeeze, tremble
Here is a waltz
dripping melon, tasting fig
on that bridge above the gorge
our picnic place
inhaling cedar
You are Crow circling—
black glint of wing
songbook of prayer
words
like a purse shaken angel-open
worlds
falling
I am wings—
drop a grey feather
on the Bosphorus
Here is Child dancing
crushing ants
you are Goat turned to stare at me across the terrace
through daisies
water flashes and flows
we are sailing today
© Robin Blackburn McBride
