Saturday, September 30, 2006

sweet kernel


{elm in the wind}


{reflecting pool, 115th street & alley near 77 ave}

"Season of mists & mellow fruitfulness." I am not really a fan of Keats but my mama is, she can recite all of "To Autumn". & I like the opening line, & when hementions the sweet kernel of hazelnut shells & being drowsed with poppy fumes & the rosy-hued stubble-fields & the gathering swallows twittering in the skies.

I have been having many photographic adventures lately, carrying my camera in my mitten in the morning & evening to & from school... wind in the dry leaf chimes & the long stiltwalking shadows & all the thick ripe light.

Today I was flipping through a number of Canadian poetry periodicals & kept coming across Sheri Benning's writing. The pieces published were very autumnal & lovely-sad... I have searched for them on the internet but they are nowhere to be found. I did find some of her work here, though, in Forget Magazine, which is rather nifty & Canadian... but for full appreciation, you need to read her seasonal ones. So go find the newest issue of Grain, it has a mixtape on the cover...

A poetry mixtape would be a very, very good idea.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

of the land (little poems)


{over the fens t0 the elk range mountains}

I'm going back in time for a moment here -- these are poem-bits from the early summer that I haven't gotten to posting 'til now. I've been working at them for a long time, stirring them about. My writing process is definitely becoming longer, it has this complicated distillation process now, that hopefully does help age it to some sort of goodness. Anyway, these bits aren't done yet, I don't think, but they wanted out.

As much as I love sub-boreal autumn -- golden crabapple - bleachedbone wheat - red amur maple - little shining scarlet kalyna - scent of deciduous rivervalley decay -- I have yet to visit Kananaskis in the fall-time & I would very much like to.

***

of the land

*one version of the Napi story from a Blackfeet elder, Chewing Black Bones

i)

i remember my father
saying to me once –

out of the trance of hiking bells
as we were standing on a ridge of kiska-tha-iyarhe
we clung to it lichens on rock –

i wish i could...

i remember my paper map fell
on the sweet sphagnum moss by the creek,
orange wood lilies bursting swift as thought –

i remember he looked over the peaks
to the west elk pass

& said i wish i could
expand

(could be the vast sea of coniferous trees,
could be cloud shadows unfolding)

wide enough to hold mountains in my arms;

& i often think of my father like this
the unconscious poetics of his words
encircling this place as it lay
unrolling home before him

i remember sunwarm juniper
thick in the air it was sticky
& everything was bright
bright bright as tears as the edges
of luminous cloud passing over us
out into the comforting vertigo of space –

ii )

i remember telling my father once
the story i heard
about napi

napi old man grandfather
whose heart is a mountain, belly
that austral river, nose a hill;
elbows reaching out over the arc
of those waterfalls, keeping us from harm –

napi made mountain goats
& bisons, sparrowhawks & hares
& people from the warm mud
& river silt, the living land –

now he waits in the hills,
hand to his forehead
squinting to see us over the rise –

holding us in his soaring gaze,
watery corners of bright glacial eyes –

iii)

when i was small
my father took me hiking
& taught me how to name the
trees & plants:

as we walked i’d learn
about the yarrow, dogwood, wintergreen

harebells, monkshood, reindeer moss,
bedstraw, timothy, tamarack,

we'd play a game;

i’d have to repeat all the names
to him or
we wouldn’t go back to camp.

& my father has brought me here
to these mountains
so many times

i feel now as if i never leave them,
that now my returning is seamless,
like thread woven trailing black mosses,

no break in time sewn
between body & land;

following my trails of wildrose,
wintergreen blue camas glacierlily

he gave me a map here
so much more than any written cartography,

a map in the lines of my palms
spilling over my hands:

this land of ours –

no
we are of the land

iv)

here i feel i’ve spilled
onto this fabric of rock once-liquid solidified,
where memory has inscribed its paths,
striations on the cerebrum, following

each one of my own footsteps,
remembering the scent
of juniper midafternoon

with the waters of the creek all troutglint silver
when i would catch my father
wordlessly in prayer;

remembering the shadows
of the opal range at sunset
slowing eroding luminous edges,
dissolving soul into dusk;

(that blueblackness
of the light-bruised sky)

& the whispering of labyrinthine
lodgepole alveoli down the valley
to the west, breathing arboreal language

from my oldest memory
sings me asleep

v)

official maps mark these peaks
as mount invincible, mount indefatigable –

two mountains named after british warships
that sunk in the battle of jutland

& i wonder if their old nakoda & cree & siksika names
have perished too, names of the shining
mountains lingering under layers of lichens

turning stone to sand

i wonder if anyone remembers –
my father thinks that even these
names will be forgotten someday. nothing lasts, really;

for these rocks it’s all slow erosion,

the paths running over & over the heart

effluvient: pulmonic echo of a rockfall,
the avalanche tracks traced on our cortex,
those mountains mnemonics memory
bled white in the sun –

& we hike & we travel & then, he says,

his own bones aching with the decay of marrow,
roots reclaiming stone –

we all get tired.

vi)

after napi created the land
he retreated to the mountains, forest
& lay down

for a long nap;

i know someday we’ll all grow weary
& let his rippling river of bowstring pull us in –

i can feel his arrow flying
between ridges of splayed stone ribs rushing
with creek veins & arteries running south to the
sweetgrass hills of his knees it will tether us

catch us, call us home.


Thursday, September 21, 2006

pyrohy, poetry, Paris


{spinning in the living room}

I am up to my eyes in the intricacies of grant applications, but otherwise, I am rather content.

School is full of the ecstasy of ideas. It floors me sometimes how fortunate I am to be in this program, with such supportive supervisors and good, diverse classes & really just so many opportunities. I'm really lucky to be able to receive this level of education, and this really continually inspires me to DO something with what I learn. I love teaching, too; love being able to convey things to people, make people think. After lecturing yesterday in Anthro 271 I realized that teaching has been sorely lacking in my life since last summer.

& today: delicious pyrohy, poetry reading tonight!
& Paris in exactly one month.

Friday, September 15, 2006

beneath the weeping willow tree...


{the magical bicyclette, illuminated by chris}

This is just to pass along a musical recommendation -- this past week as I've found myself in the middle of grant-writing, conference-paper-finishing, presentation-making, not-entirely-unenjoyable chaos, I have been listening to quite a mélange of music. One artist I've newly discovered is M. Ward. I previously knew of him only peripherally, through collaborations with Cat Power and Beth Orton, but recently I've become quite enchanted by his songs.

His voice is all warm & crackly & papery like leaves, & his songs are cozy, perfect to listen to while lying on the floor wearing cross-country ski socks & drinking chamomile tea, which is pretty much what I'm up to now. He writes simply but poetically, very much evoking the traditional folk song structure:

I sailed a wild, wild sea, climbed up a tall, tall mountain, met an old, old man beneath the weeping willow tree... He said, now if you've got some questions go & lay them at my feet, but my time here is brief, so you'll have to pick just three... & I said, what do you do with the pieces of a broken heart?

You really really must listen to the song & watch the video for his song 'Chinese Translation'. It's a little animated film with the sweetest watercoloury animation -- little pink birds! wise old grand-fathers & -mothers! faces illuminated in the bark of a tree, little cicada-like bugs with tiny lighters! Very, very sweet, I don't know what to do.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

in which a linguistic anthropologist muses about archaeological news


{this is not a pyramid. rather, a scene on the kitchen table i am rather fond of}


Apparently, there are Bronze Age pyramids in the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine.

Judging by the artefacts & ashes found in & around the structure, it seems to be that it was a place of sacrifice by burning, likely an altar to a sun deity. I'm not sure if it would be connected to the Dniepr-area Trypillian culture, but that would make some sense. That civilization lasted from about 5400-2700 B.C.E. & sun imagery/worship was definitely important then, as it was (& is, I suppose) for later Slavic cultures.

Now, the discovery of pyramid-like structures is not new in Eastern Europe. I had heard about the possibility of the Visočica "pyramid" in Visoki, Bosnia... but it's difficult to get any real information on it as one of the main people involved in the excavation has constructed a diffusionist pseudohistory about Illyrians & Atlantis, etc etc. using numerology & whatnot. I don't know. I get quite skeptical when people start talking about lost continents & energy-portals leading to other planets, & such... There is a very thorough critical article here on the pyramid.

Now, I'm not an archaeologist by any means, but it seems to me that the structure at Visočica could be part of a human structure. Hills usually aren't quite that pointy, but then again I'm not a geologist either, so... it could just be a pointy hill. I would be interested to see how this "pyramid" and the Ukrainian ones compare, if anyone else besides Sam Osmanagić gets to excavate in Bosnia, and if indeed it turns out to contain more evidence of human-made structures or buildings. With the focus on the Near East in looking at how all the 'great' civilizations developed, it's fascinating to see how in the last 30 years (with the Trypillian discoveries), older evidence is creeping northward into areas once seen as the domain of peripheral cattle-herders.
I guess this all just interests me because I like to see how our previous conceptions of human history shift like this. How we can be set on one idea for so long (e.g. The Tigris-Euphrates as the Cradle of Civilization) & all it takes is one little discovery for it all to change.

& you know, I've never been terribly enthralled with the so-called 'great civilizations' like Egypt & Sumeria & such... because it seems that a lot of our views of these societies are both informed by & inspire our Western industrialized notions of linear progress. Certainly, I'm not denying that building massive ziggurats is quite the feat! It's just that... I don't know. These grandiose civilizations all collapsed, falling apart, imploding in on themselves, whilst all the pastoralists & farmers & hunter-gatherers kept on herding cows & planting corn & catching fishes, (& feasting!) & many of them still continue today. & I guess I've always been fascinated and inspired by growing things, & how things regenerate.... & the resilience these sorts of cultures have shown, following their cyclic patterns... That is just as great & as advanced an accomplishment, I think, as building large things.

(Manda, have you heard anything about this -- either the Ukrainian discovery or this Visočica business? What do you think?)

Monday, September 04, 2006

conscious commemoration.


{leaf on my lawn...}

Maybe it's just my complete immersion in academic life, but I still find it odd that New Year's Day is in the middle of January instead of sometime in the first full week of September. I don't know -- even regardless that it's the start of the academic year, it just seems more fitting, as liminal sort of time, with the switching seasons. & maybe a better time to reflect that spring, because summer leaves the sense of fullness & richness (as opposed to winter's sort-of-stagnant holding pattern)...

Bryna played Mirah's 'Oh September' on Radio Eve last Friday & it was perfectly perfectly fitting. Lovely joyful sweet folky song.

i say wouldn't it be nice, could be a mountain paradise / we'll leave the sheets out in the rain & listen to the lonesome train / summer slowly turns to fall, tomatoes ripe we eat them all / tangly vines around our shoes / we conquer everything we do

This summer has been very good for me. Working was mellow (if unfortunately a little solitary), our little abode (that i am so, so happy about, so content in) is truly a cozy oasis of counterculture, & thus I had time & space to of unravel after this past year. It went by all quick & tumultous, but I think despite lingering worries, & my lack of control over certain things, everything is good.

& Bryna's feeling of anticipation -- that lovely sort of unanchored feeling that something exciting is about to happen -- has been contagious, I think. Because I am starting to really feel a deep sense of hopefulness & potentiality for this next while. & I am so grateful for that.

I had another dream about my baba recently; it was very simple & beautiful. I'm still really processing it, trying to really understand it, but I do know I was left with a very striking feeling of comfort... & this dream, combined with my sock-knitting spree, has made me think a lot of how I want to continue to commemorate her life.

I've been thinking about how perhaps the most meaningful & respectful thing we can do for someone who has died is become their living memory; to carry on doing what it is that most reminds you of the person, what they did that was so good & beneficial to everyone. To let them continue to exist not only inside memory, but to be through you. It maybe would be easier sometimes not to listen to tapes of my baba singing, not to knit or plant flowers or go visit the ikons at St. Basil's or do anything else that remotely reminds me of her -- but the lack of those elements in my life, the neglect of them is even sadder. & doesn't resolve any ache of the loss. I think this kind of conscious commemoration is a way of keeping such a mindful connection to them, & I think it's a way to properly grieve.

* * *

School tomorrow. I've missed it this year, despite my job & all... it will be very very good to be back as a (grad!) student -- I look forward to the studentish sort of community, being around the university when there is so much happening (not all alone up on the 15th floor with only a computer). Field work still seems intimidating, but that's why I have classes first. & a conference in Paris in October, which still seems to be a figment of my imagination.

* * *

There are so many poems in my head. I used to let them spill out more easily... but I am finding I have become quite obsessed with distilling them very precisely, then letting them steep. A little more like tea, not water. (Or what with the distilling metaphor, whisky not water. But I don't like whisky, so.) It's certainly not a bad thing, just different. Sometimes I get impatient with myself.

Speaking of things to imbibe: lavender lemonade + little tiny white xmas lights + jazzbeat on cbc! + night air that smells like chilly smoke & wet leaves/grass, moon getting quite ripe + plus cozy bed & friendly person = so much goodness & contentedness i could burst.

this lavender lemonade (ambrosia!) is made like this (proportions are obviously very approximate):

steep a little satchet of pure lavender tea for a long time... in a smallish teapot. pour it into a pitcher with lots of ice cubes & add 1/2 cup sugar. stir well til dissolved. next add the juice of one nice big juicy lemon. stir the sort of greenish-looking tea until a magical colour change occurs. enjoy! for more people, make a full pot of tea & use another lemon... & enjoy extra much.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

shkarpetka!


{a hand-knitted sock}

In other news, I have finished knitting my first sock. My first sock with a heel that is; I once made a saggy little tube-like sock. This one is much more sophisticated, I think.

On to the second of the pair!

My love of knitting is seeing a resurgence, as it seems to be just the activity to assuage the twitching my anxious brain. Everyone I know will be getting something knitted for Christmas... socks & armwarmers & toques & legwarmers oh my!

Yes. As well as being a 'mountain (wo)man in training' under the tutelage of my father, I must say I am also a dedicated baba-in-training... I don't think I'll ever have children, but I think that by fully mastering the arts of borshch-making, spontaneous folksong-singing & prolific knitting, I think I can achieve at least minor baba status in this lifetime... ;)

My own baba knit at least 100 double-bed size afghan blankets. It is indeed a good idea to start young.




Friday, September 01, 2006

hmm. not a complete hermit.


{sunflowers -- sonjachky! -- in that little random garden park on university avenue & 112 st}

I am usually not one for the ubiquitous internet-quiz, but this one was somewhat intriguing, looking at personality traits & location. I wish they'd list the statistics for Canadian cities -- none of the American ones appeal to me at all. The country distribution is rather interesting though, with the Eastern European & East/Southeast Asia focus -- I certainly have always seen myself as fitting in decently in Austria, the Czech republic, and Ukraine considering the culture, so it amuses me to see my particular temperament seems to mesh nicely as well. & Thailand, Malaysia... hmmm. Definitely interesting.

What I also like about this test is that it reports on how people describe themselves, how they feel they behave -- so it isn't based on outsiders' or even anthropologists' observations or collections of statements about how people in certain places are. It could even be useful for challenging certain cultural stereotypes, or even just comparing these self-descriptions with those of foreign observers. I mean, of course cultural prejudices & long-held beliefs are going to play into how either side describes the culture in question, but I would be curious to see similarities & contrasts. Of course, if it were a study done a little more widely -- that is, non-English speaking people who do not have access to the Internet shoud be included too.

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Your personality type is SLOAI
You are moderately social, moody, organized, accommodating, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Tucson, Phoenix, Memphis, W. Palm Beach, Portland/Salem, Louisville, Cincinnati, San Diego, Los Angeles Area and these international countries/regions Ukraine, South Africa, Greece, Indonesia, Austria, Thailand, Turkey, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, Portugal, Japan, Czech Republic, Guam

What Places In The World Match Your Personality?
City Reviews at CityCulture.org