sweeping pine, swept-up poem.

{pine tree by Belgravia School}

{slushy tree reflection on my street}

{looking up into the centre of world that is in the pine branches of the tree by Belgravia school}

{self-portrait, observing the upper branches of aforementioned lovely tree}

{the red pine bark on that tree soft as my grandmother's skin was, once}

* * *

A number of poems are living inside my head, slowly trickling out like snowmelt. This one I'm posting is still very sketchy -- but I do find it really helps me, to put them up here, it lets me look at them critically. & I enjoy the half-finishedness, really, because reading them in their awkward states compels me to make them better, so then I can post a finished version that has hopefully evolved.

* * *

today would be
her ninety-second birthday;
[...] <-clearly unfinished stanza! bah

tuesday’s false fecundity
with all those pampushky ( little ukrainian shrove tuesday donuts)
& wednesday, ashen; winter
slowly ending, each droplet
of meltwater on the eaves

hits my eye with the
migraine-dull precision;
pools of slush hissing rotten
fuchsia & oxidized copper,
fingernail moon widening

its jagged eclipse, then disappating,
then pain; my icicles for eyes, just
lying in the damp washcloth darkness
while outside everything sways
in the sweaty arms of the chinook.

snow seeps, blackens the
red pine’s bark. peeling tendrils
dissolve into papery light nesting
in the branches, soft like the
skin of an old woman,

cool as the paper of her
skin i kissed just after she died;
& that’s when all it’s all there
again, sadness flaring aura-sudden,
weeping trails of light & i

dig my little treefingers down
through fibrous bones, i cling to
the roots of our sharing, singing,
suffering that leaves her soil
& grows straight through my pines.

& it’s her ninety-second birthday,
grave lying under snowdrifts, &
soon the ache will stop. & this
inherited hemiplegic memory
a nervous purgative it fills me

with an clean echoing clarity
with a closeness so luminous
an ache in the spine of the world
for how this pain can heal us,
how we are both birthed into the light

reprised.

{somebody lost their wings. left them under a tree in arts quad, or crashed there, icarus-like.}

I poked these two poems a little more. I am done (for now) with the first one -- it's not great but that's all it can be right now. The second one I think I am liking a bit better, but I'm still not entirely satisfied. (If I put it up here, I might be able to find a new angle from which to poke.)

prometheus or icarus?

i)

when my mother was young she feared nothing more than the flash of the bomb the rehearsed rush to duck & cover facedown & curled up

on classroom carpet, fetal turtle waiting for the shadows to pass, for ash to rain down like chalkdust, tasting the sicksweet bile of separation in her thoughts:

mother / daughter, flesh / skeleton, that’s what her brothers told her, they said it would be like being engulfed by the sun –

all the families on her street with their little concrete beehives built in their backyards, filled with their tin-can & water-barrel honeycombs, that’s where she’d run

if the siren sounded, where they’d all hide from the fire falling, & the long winter, ashen
& cursing a terrible creation, the theft of that blasted fire –

ii )

just this month white-coats slowly slipped the hands of the doomsday clock two dashes closer, now it’s sitting at five to midnight but i’m not scared of that –

i heard that up in iqaluit they’ve realized they’ve not yet got a word for the bird
with a breast ruddy as seal blood, they’ve never seen one before –

those robins gone north to warmth, & orange trees perish in frosty california.
a woman in the maldives watches her pearls, sands swiftly dissolving, her neighbours falling into the sudden swell of the sea –

& she isn't so worried about nuclear fission / fusion, no,
she knows we’re already melting our wings of thread & beeswax, all those people

with their wheels & their oil bring us

just seconds & seconds closer to the sun –

* * *

[no name yet]

when my father meditates
his spine gleams straight just like a winter birch
with each white knot of vertebrae
fecund & flowing with the ghosts of a sweet sap,
amber plasma / a healthy blood –

(the ash of last year’s platelets, clotted, hang
from broken branches, stems of the useless transplants)

yet down in the valley ice blossoms on water;
he sees the new white cells forming clean in the cold, lulling veins of the stream,
lymphocytes crunching, collecting on the bank –

somewhere in all this he finds
all these little benedictions, they rustle like
the peeling paper-bark, his breath rushing
in exhale / inhale –

(that sweet psychasthenia lets him forget his bones,
their bitter greenish marrow, empty homes)

just forget the body, only remember breath –

when my father meditates
he brings the whole world rushing
into his throat, lungs flashing their alveoli
of white weeping birches splayed across the sky
to embrace / to heal / to rest

wanderings in slush, last thursday

{walking in snow slushy & soft like tepid ice cream}

{someone's grade nine social studies homework in the bus shelter by mckernan school. it reads "gorbachev was an energetic young university-educated leader who wanted to make change"}

{my camera was propped up, causing some overexposure, but i do like the red of my leggings & the red trim of the bus shelter windows...}

{dried-up rosehip doorbell -- along 114th street just before university ave.}

{there was a little flock of waxwings greeting me from the elms along 116th st. when i got home...}

Song: Sad & Beautiful World -- Sparklehorse

typology of window-frosts.

{bedroom window, lightning strike surrounded by fern-waves}

{bedroom window, stray seed surrounded by mimosa fronds}

{front window covered by icy swiss-chard like leaves}

A note: There will be fewer words & more images in this space now. {It's easier to maintain lucidity with pictures than with sentences} Poem-bits will still show up -- they like the fresh air before they are finished & put into a chapbook or zine.

Tse vse.

* * *

Dust of Snow (by Robert Frost)

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

spelunking.

In attempts to avoid doing things I'm supposed to be doing right now, I went spelunking about the forgotten folders & files of my computer. I found things from the summer that make me happy. Item 1: The above pictures, of sunsets coming down from Highwood Pass in Kananaskis just past solstice. Item 2: Tiny fragmenty poem-thing, the equivalent of archaeological pot-sherds. That is all.

[poem-fragment]

came over aeolian plains to nato-oh-siskoom
i am sitting in the holy springs
against the cold glass railings, the shadows
of tamarack, hemlock

blind & soft into the dark, black mountain;
dissolve into the indigo of the sky, wings flutter urgent /
gentle over the envelope of the valley,
comfort of omnipresent rock –

i pretend i’m calm / i pretend i’m permanent.
floating here in the pool,
my heart crashing up again the sky
like the mooncoloured belly of a moth –

[that was written in banff in august in the hot springs pool. well, not written down whilst i was in the pool, but it came then & i remembered it for later. nato-oh-siskoom is the name for banff in siksika (blackfoot) ]

prometheus or icarus?

{a furnace in the trees, looking over the river valley from sask. drive, last last wednesday afternoon }

I'm not overly fond of the sound, the phonetic texture, of the German word Weltschmerz ('velt-shmerts'), but it really is so evocative, so apt. It's not just summed up by a gloss like 'world-weariness'. & it's not necessarily pessimistic. You can feel it, but not be tired of the world at all -- you are just feeling such a profound sadness, something that aches because of all that is bad, cruel & abhorrent in a world that is, (I believe) at its heart, so wonderful, divine, & good.

* * *

I admit I wasn't immediately taken by the music of Joanna Newsom. Bu, oh! soon I was smitten. Her turn of phrase makes me smile, & her harp makes me ache. Here is 'En Galop' (mp3!)

And I go where the trees go,
and I walk from a higher education
(for now, for hire)

And it beats me, but I do not know. [repeat]

Palaces and stormclouds
the rough, straggly sage, and the smoke
and the way it will all come together
(in quietness, in time)

(Joanna Newsom, 'En Galop')

* * *
Petition here.

Rough notes (which may grow into poem) below:

i)

when my mother was young
she feared nothing more
than the flash of the bomb, the rush
to duck / cover
facedown /curled up

on classroom carpet,
like a fetal turtle
to wait for the shadows to pass,
for ash to rain down like chalkdust,
nauseous at the thought of separation--

mother / daughter
flesh / skeleton, that’s
what her brothers told her
it would be like being
engulfed by the sun –

families on her street
with their little concrete
beehives built in their
backyards, filled with their
tin-can / water barrel honeycombs

that’s where she’d run if the siren sounded,
where they’d all hide from the
fire falling, & the long ashy winter,
cursing a terrible creation,
the theft of that blasted fire –

ii )

this month white-coats slowly
slipped the hands of the doomsday
clock two dashes closer / it’s sitting
at five to midnight
but i’m not scared of that –

i’m more concerned
that up in iqaluit they’ve realized
they’ve not yet got a word for the bird
with a breast ruddy as seal blood,
they’ve never seen one before –

those robins gone north to warmth,
& orange trees perish in frosty california.
a woman in the maldives watches
her sands swiftly dissolving, thousands of lives
falling in the sudden swell of the sea –

& she isn't so worried about nuclear
fission / fusion, no, she thinks,
we’re already melting
our wings of thread & beeswax,
those far-off people with wheels & oil bring us

seconds & seconds closer to the sun –

get ink, shed tears.

I took these pictures of myself out on a walk a few nights ago. It was getting colder but I desperately needed to feel like I was breathing, I've been feeling a bit strange like that lately. I ended up swinging on the swings at the playground a few blocks south of my house for quite some time, gently gliding back & forth with quite a bit of glee. It was a very comforting motion, to swing in the dark, unnoticed by passing cars & raucous hockey players under the loud fluorescence of the rink nearby. Only a stray snowshoe hare watched me as it rummaged under the icy snowbanks. After swinging left me a little dizzy & much colder, I wandered by the elementary school, & took these pictures on the basketball court, having much fun playing with the one glimmering ambery light on the side of the building.

There's a Regina Spektor song, Après Moi (mp3 here), that contains a few lyrics from Boris Pasternak that I really love, that are somehow a summation of my feelings, & of February:

февраль достать чернил и плакать
писать о феврале навзрыд
пока грохочущая слякоть
весною чёрною горит

February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.

And these words, in turn, reminds me so much of a book I just read, by Marusya Bociurkiw, a writer I am really, really enjoying right now. First through her poems (especially those about her baba) in Halfway to the East, and then through her novel, The Children of Mary... about three generations of Ukrainian-Canadian women, about how the past is inherited & resolved within a family, how the haunting of that river is inescapable. Really lovely & achy, especially in the imagery of water, the image of the rusalka... I highly, highly recommend it.

"Who was it that said, you can't cross the same river twice? The river I step in is not the river I stand in. Stuff rises up, you never know when. Sewage, overflow, effluent, the ebb and flow of time. We want to think we control things, we're only human that way. But what was it Baba used to say? Nature so-o-o-o stubborn, always have its way. And the rusalky, those haughty demanding sirens, lurking even in these buried rivers, pretending to call me home. Your sister, your mother...

Rusalka die only because people make her, my Baba once said in her gruff, cryptic way. People having to live better, then rusalka can rest.

The river is always there. The river is letting go."

-- p.205, Marusya Bociurkiw, The Children of Mary (Inanna Publications, 2006)

It will make you weep, but it's definitely worth it. Definitely definitely. & if you need some comfort & nourishment after the book, Bociurkiw also has a food blog with some very succulent-looking recipes on it. She also has a food memoir appearing soon, called Comfort Food for Break-ups, which intrigues me & entices me, based on the very small excerpt posted on the link above. Very sumptuous indeed. Meanwhile, I need to try her Jamaican soup...

little raptor!

This photo is of a little raptor-like dinosaur lurking in stencil-form on the outside of the Blood Services building on the southern end of campus. I first saw him from the bus one day & I later walked past on purpose, in hopes of catching a good photograph in his natural habitat amongst the (very Cretaceous-looking) pine-bushes. This city has some very whimsical stencil-artists.

This reminds me of how when I was 5, I really wanted to be a paleontologist when I grew up. I spent a lot of time reading about dinosaurs & collecting stickers in this little book, learning all the Latin names. Sadly, I've now forgotten most of them... my geography obsession (which led to the linguistics-anthropology obsession by the time I was 12) really kicked in soon after & the dinosaur-names faded. However, I'm fairly confident that the specimen above is a Velociraptor... or perhaps a Deinonychus? The arms are a bit long, perhaps. Maybe it's a fantastical invented species.

I recall that when I was young, I liked the raptors a lot, but was most partial to the friendly plant-eating hadrosaurs with their duck-bills & head protrusions.... I also felt sorry for the Tyrannosaurus, because although powerful, he wasn't too bright... & had stubby little arms I thought were cute. But my favourite was the earliest of the birds, the Archaeopteryx, despite its similarity to a primitive sort of magpie.... (Did you know loons are the oldest of the 'modern' birds? Perhaps they're implicated in so many of the Earth-Diver creation myths across the northern hemisphere... ;) )

Dinosaurs being (linguistically) silly in DinosaurComics:

Spicing up their verbs!

Pondering the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis!

Undermining the very foundation of language!

Un dinosaure qui parle français!

waxwings = love.

{between the elms & the chokecherry}

{having a chokecherry feast}

{departing from the chokecherry}

{further away & filling the sky}

{all 4 pictures: waxwings in my neighbourhood, flying between the chokecherry tree in the back alley & the elms two blocks south, jan. 22/07}

I've waxed poetic about my love for waxwings many a time before (oh my, 'waxed' & 'waxwing', please forgive the pun) but I shall say it again: I adore these birds & witnessing them flocking & feeding makes me feel just like the universe is giving me a lovely gift. When they fly, they dart so intricately it looks like emphemeral embroidery patterns being stitched on cloud; the wings of a flock in unison like a sharp intake of breath when your heart swoops, skips a beat, & again with wave after wave of their soft calls like a wind sweeping through & dissolving into the sky.

I wish I could post a song called 'Waxwing' by Alasdair Roberts, but his new CD just came out today & hasn't reached me yet. In the song he sings of a waxwing who will 'bring thee amber the tide has gathered on the northern seashore' & since both amber & waxwings are among my most favourite things, I find it especially endearing. You can hear that snippet of this song (& others!) here.

frost-ellation {+ poem}

{window frost constellations, my kitchen window, last week sometime}

{weeping birch through the frosted kitchen window, last week sometime}

* * *

{another poem draft out for a walk}

when my father meditates
his spine gleams straight just like a winter birch
with each white knot of vertebrae
fecund & flowing with the ghosts of a sweet sap,
a healthy blood –

while ash of last year’s blood clots still hang
from broken branches, stems of the useless transplants –
yet down in the valley ice blossoms on water;
new white cells forming clean in the cold veins of the stream,
little lymphocytes crunching on the bank, little benedictions

that rustle like the peeling paper-bark, the breath rushing
like his exhale – inhale that sweet psychasthenia[1]
that draws him into that forest, makes him forget
his bones, their bitter greenish marrow,
forget the body, only remember breath

rushing, rush to leave
the throat, lungs flashing their alveoli
of white weeping birches splayed across the sky
to embrace that space, return
& heal–

---

[1] denotes something like a ‘disturbance in the relation between self and territory’. kim sawchuk in the book ‘radio rethink' calls it ‘[an] embrace of the space beyond’.

poem out for fresh air + song...

{elm branches & cloud, just outside my house, jan. 16th/07}

"And all that we built,
and all that we breathed,
and all that we spilt, or pulled up like weeds
is piled up in back;
it burns irrevocably.
(we spoke up in turns,
'till the silence crept over me)"

-- Joanna Newsom, 'Sadie' (mp3)

* * *

(first draft of a poem i'm in the midst of working on, that wanted to get some fresh air...)

we are driving down the highway south
& i am knitting away at my thoughts,
a quiet clicking & you are listening
to your meditation tapes, a man’s voice
deep like thrown stones but in the pools
between his words i can hear you almost cry –

what to say? i watch the trees running
beside us, stark winter architecture all
aching joints & crooked capillaries, nothing
hiding the lacy needle-scars & age-spots, in
the peeling bark of black birches i can map out
the revealed relief of your heart –

i know that everything is a little too close now,
for you all those dark objects in the mirror
closer than they appear. & i have never
felt dying any closer than the shadow
of highway crosses, the terrible origami
of a deer’s body, a roadkill feast for the crows –

but here, driving over the plains i watch
you gaze over the rolling ice of the coulees,
the slow rise of the foothills following your eye
& though you are right here beside me you
are already much closer than i to that place
where the hills become luminous snowdrifts

of mountains, the place where the horizon
turns into the sleeping light of the sun –

* * *

remedies

{through the bus shelter window, dried up weeds...}

{bus shelter windowagain , pretty weed shadows on snow}

This week I have spent with a sick frog dwelling in my throat. (Je pense que je préfère l'image en français, avec 'un chat dans la gorge...' les chats sont plus agréables...) Anyhow, this snarky creature alternates between fits of dry coughy pain & intense mucosal productions. Blahhh. Anyway, my mother has just lectured me on going-to-the-health-centre-immediately! (well, tomorrow morning anyway...) But I don't really want to, because there's little they can do for me. If it's viral, I'll be told to take cough medicine for the symptoms, & I can't because it will cause a reaction of doom with other medicine I take, & I don't want antibiotics... I mistrust them, because of their overprescription (in which they only rival anti-depressants & birth-control for most freely given prescriptions) & also because I don't think I've had any since the disgustingly delicious 'banana medicine' of my childhood which often proved useless.

So, I have been attempting to soothe myself with tea concoctions. I have found after many cups over the last few days, the best for appeasing raw throats is a simple mix of:

-- 1 tsp. fennel seeds
-- 1 (heaping) tsp. wild mint

steeped a good five minutes. This mixture is traditionally good for annoyed stomachs as well, but seems to coat my throat as well in a rather heavenly manner. If one can find them, boiling the leaves of fennel & inhaling the steam is good for throat & lung issues.

Another useful mixture is a little more complex, with more dried herbs needed... It's really lovely for relieving headachey-ness & tension, as well as cold symptoms, & also, I'm told, the after-effects of imbibing...

-- 1 tsp. rooibos tea
-- 1 tsp. wild mint or peppermint
-- 1 tsp. fennel seeds
-- 1/2 tsp. chamomile flowers
-- 1/4 tsp. yarrow
-- 1/4 tsp. mallow
-- a few little pieces of dandelion root

Or, take a heaping tsp. of Chickadee Farm Herbs' 'Everyday Herbal Tea' & add a little rooibos, some extra mint & a nice pinch of fennel & dandelion root. The rooibos is especially nice (gives it some depth of flavour + b-vitamins!) Let this mix steep for about 3-5 minutes. You can add honey if you like.

Then, of course, if this isn't helping your throat, there are stronger draughts to drink. Like my baba's more formidable concoction of:

-- very hot water
-- lemon juice
-- honey
-- a nice fat clove of raw garlic, minced or pressed (it really does cure everything)
-- a generous splash of vodka, (in case, you know, it's bacterial & this will kill the germs.)

I'm tempted to prepare some, but I have no vodka in my possession. Maybe I'll add more garlic... (& then not only will my immune system rejoice, my blood will be toxic to vampires...) or, at the very least, tomorrow I'm going to Café Mosaics & eating a very, very large bowl of tomato-garlic soup.

dreamlife in which I fly in space, track moose, & spend a lot of time in the river.

{my messy but so very cozy bedroom, 2 a.m. jan.12}

Well, I am happy to report that I am thoroughly enjoying the courses I have this semester. Though of course I still have been succumbing to procrastination this past week, the time I have spent reading for school has been pleasant. My classes right now, one on Oral Histories & the other on LanGscaping (about language planning and policies) are taught by my favourite profs & also relate directly to my thesis! (Last term I was just jumping through hoops, taking classes because I had to get credits; while I don't deny that they were certainly interesting, they were certainly tangential in regards to my own research interests).

So now, when I'm doing the (very well-chosen, well-written) readings for the classes, I also find myself taking copious notes for use in the first chapter of my thesis. It's delightful to be discover little theory tidbits & case studies that relate to exactly what (I think) I'm doing. I feel like a little magpie when I read, selecting all the shiniest bits to inform my thesis nest-making.

* * *

I had a terrifically epic dream last night, that I want to write down here for posterity. I promise I ingested no substance stranger than a cough-drop before sleeping... yet, I dreamed the following:

-- It began short episode involving being on a spaceship very similar to one on a television show that starts with 'st' & ends with 'artrekvoyager'. The captain had a very bad headache. We had to go find her something to help it, so my dad & I went out in a little pod that swooped around a lot. I'm a little concerned by this.

-- Suddenly we weren't in space anymore, & my dad dropped me off on Whyte Ave. because apparently it was more important I go meet my mother, aunt & sister for lunch. Tried to meet them but we all ended up at the restaurant at the wrong time. I ate good soup though.

-- suddenly, I was then wading through the river (near Hawrelak park it seemed, by the Groat rd. bridge) with my dad & sister, because we were looking for moose, for some reason. The river was silty & resembled the Robertson Glacier floodplains, with taller grasses & more places to walk... then we got up onto a bridge & headed over to that park on the other side, because I thought there might be more moose there. No, just mountain bikers. I headed up a trail on the bank, intending for my sister to follow, but she wouldn't. (Typical) No moose there, either...

-- ...because now I was in a concrete tunnel, covered in graffiti, that reminded me of underground parking garages & a subway tunnel all combined... every so often a garage door divided the tunnels, and this little girl was with me, asking me questions about music & philosophy. If I answered, the door would open & I could keep going. Also, we were speaking French, & talking about ancient Rome & Neko Case.

-- The girl then just started opening the doors then, pushing them out of the way instead of asking me questions. We surfaced from the tunnel in Lacombe Park, by the man-made lake, which was now a tiny pond in the middle of an opulent garden, it was covered in pink & purple & yellow flowers, & floating lily pads & alfalfa sprouts. In the pond a man & woman were swimming, floating all leisurely on their backs, dressed up in Edwardian-era finery...

-- the man said he was a poet, he was writing teeny-tiny little poems on Lindor chocolate wrappers. Some of his books were frozen under the water that was ice sometimes, & water other times. He said he was starting a literary journal, & would I like to contribute?

-- then suddenly, the (very British) prof I T.A.-ed for last term appeared out of nowhere, asking me how the class did on their final exams. I told him, for some reason, that the girl who had been with me in the tunnel had answered everything correctly & should get a prize.

-- Prof then tells me he has something to show me, & I'm inside a film strip, watching multicoloured aeroplanes swoop low over the North Saskatchewan river. Suddenly one plane expels hundreds of also-multicoloured capsules, little round spheres the size of a person, that land in the water, then disappears.

-- Then I am in one of the capsules, now like half an eggshell, bobbing along in the river with a number of people. All from my junior high school. Apparently, I had been in the plane flying to Yukon, but the engine stopped working. We were sent out of the plane in safety-capsules, which are apparently safer than parachutes.

-- We all pull ourselves ashore, which is now the sunny grassy spots along the Sturgeon River by the library. People are disrobing & running around quite naked, but I decide to remain soggy because I suddenly remember I really need to go into the library & find my shoes.

-- In the library there are a coffeeshops & people everywhere. I don't find my shoes, but I call my mother to tell her I'm okay, but she already knows it, the newspaper told her "all the grad students are safe". I'm impressed by the swiftness of the news service, & she comes to get me from the library. I still have no shoes, but am wearing fishnet tights.

-- Then I woke up, sort of tired. That was all.

koly vzhe vam tak ne terpyt'sja za teplom...

{dried clematis flowers on the gate}

{clematis gazing at its shadow. i thank bryna for helping me crop it so nicely!}

These pictures I took yesterday remind me of Oleh Lysheha's Song 252, available here for reading in English (yes, another Ukrainian poet). In the poem he doesn't talk about a clematis plant (though I do know a funny story regarding the pronounciation of said flower) -- he talks about a horseradish -- but really, the sentiment is the same, that there is such loveliness & solace & profundity in the littlest details.

"Don’t go near those skyscrapers —
From the one-thousandth floor
They might toss snowy embers on your head..
If you need warmth
It’s better to go to the snow-bound garden.
In the farthest corner you’ll find
The lonely hut of the horseradish.."

-- trans. James Bradfield w/ Oleh Lysheha

I have a strange obsession today with playing the following song on repeat in my ears: Lonely Lonely (Frisbee'd remix) by Feist on the remix album Open Season. I don't like any of the other remixes at all AT ALL -- but this one has these lovely little xylophone bits that sneak in amidst her vocal bits, & the repetitive reverberation of the drums creates a pleasant little ear-cocoon... that's really quite warm & hypnotic & I listened to it in the snow walking today & it felt really lovely... though I wish the sun would come back. I don't care if it's -40, as long as the sun is shining & making long afternoon shadows -- it's not the cold that upsets me, I am just highly dependent on light. Phototropic, yes.

beet tales.

{beet tails, whilst making Xmas borshch, jan.6}

Yesterday, Ukrainian Christmas; tomorrow, back to school. Well, not even, I don't even T.A. to Tuesday afternoon, so tomorrow will be a day of bureaucracy & related errands. However, there is leftover borshch, holubtsi, & naleshnyky to encourage me to get out of bed in the morning...

Whilst eating with my family last night, I was thinking of all the times I'd heard northerners, Inuit people in particular, talk about how much they missed 'country food' -- arctic char & caribou & seal -- while staying in the southern cities... How other foods could sate hunger temporarily, but not truly 'nourish' a person... because it was not connected to the land in the same way the meat of a caribou was, for example... & so at dinner I was thinking about not only how lucky I am to eat such abundant & healthy food without want, but also how I definitely feel that are certain foods for me that also nourish me wholly, beyond the sum of their nutrients, even their effects on my palate. Borshch -- beet soup -- would have to be my favourite example of this sort of food. I love eating it, I love making it. Beets are the most gorgeous vegetable, with their woodgrain centres, & I love how the scarlet-purple juice stains my fingers around the nails, dries my palms so they feel older, like a baba's, makes them smell like clay & magical garlic. Eating it always reminds me of being three years old & sitting at my baba's kitchen table & eating my weight in borshch every lunchtime. & the memories go beyond my own lifetime, I think -- because as in my borshch-poem, with borshch I really am eating my 'roots'.

{In the June archive scroll down to June 6th see my own borshch recipe; it's based on that of my baba's (but no lima beans!) & my mamas (less tomato)}

* * *

Also, speaking of things Ukrainian & poetic, I am enjoying muchly the writing of Halyna Petrosanyak. She's a Western Ukrainian poet from the Carpathians who writes a lot on belonging to a place/home as well as travel & effects on identity -- as well as more myth-y, allegorical pieces. Interestingly, she studied extensively in Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanislav), which has been an epicentre of Western Ukrainian art & literature (esp. poems) since the 1990s, and is named in an article on this very 'Stanislav' phenomenon. (Stanislav is the largest centre nearest to the village where my relatives are from, & so I am especially pleased to know poetry is flourishing in their area)

But anyway, I would recommend reading Halyna's poem "A tiny town..." as translated by Michael Naidan. The image of the internal string inexplicably holding you to a birthplace like the insides of a wood-nymph is so delightful & visceral & so distinctly Carpathian*. Her aesthetic in some poems makes me think of Seamus Heaney, but so so Ukrainian. Mmm. "To remain at the Dominican school" is good too.

*should explain that some Ukrainian forest spirits look like humans from the front but have transparent & ghostly backs so their guts can be seen, sometimes trailing out behind all diaphanously...

give your language a gift.

{little redpoll in the mayday tree}

As many of you may have likely been aware over the past couple years, there has been quite a massive (& inspiring) upsurge of political activism in Ukraine. Most of this has been primarily focused, of course, on increased democratic practices and loosening Moscow's little leash on Kyiv; however, the Orange Revolution has also included a lot of 'Ukrainian' cultural actions. While the spewing of the far-right neo-conservative groups, with their 'Ukraine for Ukrainians ([meaning 'ONLY, so get out Russians/Tatars/Roma/Poles/etc']) attitude, is profoundly disturbing, the moderate yet passionate activists working to increase the presence of the Ukrainian language in the Russian-language-dominated cities makes me quite happy

Many people aren't aware just how much Ukrainian suffered under Soviet rule. It is mostly due to the Western Ukraine's relative isolation and position as a traditional cultural and nationalist stronghold that the language is surviving. In most cities in the eastern part of the country, as well as areas in the centre (like the capital Kyiv) the Russian language still dominates. Thus, I am delighted to see these sorts of campaigns appearing, such as the one here at "Ne Bud' Baiduzhym!"

'Ne bud' baiduzhym' literally means 'Don't be indifferent!', or essentially 'Give a damn!' I haven't yet had a chance to read about it in much detail -- it looks like something I could definitely study in depth for my upcoming class on LangScaping/Language Planning -- but basically, the banners translate to something like "Give a gift to Ukraine for the New Year! In 2007 switch to Ukrainian!"

Here I'm loosely translating -- the organizers state that "We want to help people, who live in Kyiv and who want to speak Ukrainian but are ashamed to [in the face] of the Russian majority...". They want to "break the cycle" of people who state "I never speak Ukrainian, because I [never have the opportunity] to converse" -- they want to inspire as many Kyivans (& Ukrainians in other cities I'm sure) as possible to switch to 'only Ukrainian' on the streets on the first day of January. They go on to give reasons for getting involved and 'levels of participation' for people to commit to (especially if they aren't fully fluent).

It's really exciting for me to watch this unfold; grassroots language planning and language ideologies (which here is intrinsically & explicitly tied to nationalism!) will be important elements in my thesis (though in Yukon, not Ukraine)... still! this is quite fascinating. Speech (& conversely, silence) are peaceful forms of activism. And here, it can even be something so seemingly mundane as answering Russian greetings on the street with their Ukrainian equivalents... I think this will be quite positive for the language.

As well, it's given me the idea for my own New Year's resolution -- a rare thing, yes, but this time, something I can actually keep. I too shall give Ukraine a gift for Christmas (which is tomorrow) by resolving to write at the very least 200 words a day, journal-style, in Ukrainian. I need to use it more often outside my head, outside small smatterings here & there. I don't think I'll type them, though, my keyboard will do Cyrillic but it's not designed for it, alas, making things quite peck-ish. Nevertheless, any particularly good excerpts may be posted. Especially if I make any decent poems. We shall see.

In the meantime, veselykh sviat'! I bought organic beets & fresh garlic & beeswax candles at Roots today for dinner tomorrow. I feel very luxurious & fortunate. Tastyness, indeed.

moon on tongue (poem) + music

{first quarter, the acreage, dec.25}

Happy New Year #2007-according-to-the-Julian-calendar, slightly after the fact, I know... As of late, I've been a lucky, spoiled cat lounging around sleeping/knitting/writing/x-country skiing/eating/playing scrabble whilst at my parents' house -- now I'm trying to organize myself for return to classes & TA-ing & thesis-prospectus writing, as well as a myriad other little things.

I'm not one for resolution-making... & really, January is not so much the start of a new year but a new term for me & my ingrained academic rhythms.... however, since a new term is regardless a good time to start things, I have been thinking of things I would like to remind myself to do. Things that have less to do with school & more to do with relaxing & being useful & social. For instance, I am looking for a place where I can volunteer with seniors. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but shied away because I was missing my baba so acutely. Now, I think, it would be good for both me & for grannies & grandpas that I did this. There's one place where they need Ukrainian speakers as well as people with knowledge of French, so this may be promising.

What else? Some exceptional songs, courtesy of Basia Bulat, can be found at what I think is my favourite music blog (Said the Gramophone). Fascinating music to be found there, as well as really delicious, evocative writing about the aforementioned music. But yes -- through that site I discovered Miss Basia, & her lovely Feist-y voice. (Which is both Feist-y & feisty, really). More of her songs can be luxuriated in here. They have such textures, all intertwined & tumbling & plucky. All the instruments together like rocks in a rock-polisher with her sweet voice.

Also, here is a poem I am making that is very much not done, but wanted to get some fresh air. (I've been having dreams with very vivid imagery lately, despite the fact I have not been drinking the allegedly 'dream potentiating' tea I gave to a friend for Christmas.)

* * *

[moon on tongue]

4 oclock dusk and the last light on cheekbones
frozen sharp as ruddy riverbanks shadowing scarves
over mouths now rough & red as elm-bark touching
in the coming dark –

now i’m home with the cold sliver of moon a tongue
frosted to the luminous gunmetal
of a sky licking & lonely it's

like waking in the middle of the night
in the light thick & blue & everything is
only the suggestion of its shadow
paralysed in sleep --

when i am fumbling around for something warm
like you
the old sweater with wool worn softer
than my skin, something i’d cling to, yes

cling to

so it’s easy now to be melted
by the littlest gesture, you reaching for my arm
like telephone wires old & derelict
& i know we’ve done this before
& maybe there are mothballs
maybe there are holes but you

know i am so grateful & i

would do it again now i
need something like this to fall in to it’s
so easy to fall in love with the familiar

(something to understand
when there is so little now i do)

* * *

veselykh sviat'! & a musical gift

{sunset, riverlot 56, dec.26}

{waxwing fluttering, elm tree 76th ave - 115st, dec.30}

{sunset, pine tree & christmas lights, the acreage, dec. 25}

{aspens & birches + blue sky, riverlot 56, dec. 26}

Here are some songs to sample, a sort of best of 2006 in no particular order. I've tried to provide mp3s for as many as I can, but I'm having some technical issues, so some are missing or linked to other sites where you might hear the songs. Nevertheless, enjoy! Please let me know what you think... If you would like a mix cd consisting of a similar musical mélange, do let me know, it could perhaps be arranged.

1. Lion's Jaws -- Neko Case (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood)
2. Lived in Bars -- Cat Power (The Greatest)
3. Scenic World -- Beirut (Gulag Orkestar)
4. On the Radio -- Regina Spektor (Begin to Hope)
5. Green Grass -- Cibelle (covering Tom Waits) (The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves)
6. Wild Sage -- The Mountain Goats (Get Lonely)
7. The Modern -- Frida Hyvönen (Until Death Comes)
8. Willow's Song -- Isobel Campbell (Milk White Sheets)
9. For the Turnstiles -- The Be Good Tanyas (Neil Young cover) (Hello Love)
10. Chinese Translation -- M. Ward (Post-War)
11. Emily -- Joanna Newsom (Ys)
12. Ramblin' Man -- Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan (Hank Williams cover) (Ballad of the Broken Seas)
13. Golem Hora -- Golem! (Fresh Off Boat)
14. Parentheses -- The Blow (Paper Television)
15. Hypnotize -- Ani Di Franco (Reprieve) -- hear the track streamed here
16. I Was A Lover -- TV on the Radio (Return from Cookie Mountain)
17. Put in a Penny in the Slot -- Fionn Regan (The End of History)
18. Listopad 2004-oho roku -- Haydamaky (Ukraine Calling)
19. Benton Harbour Blues -- The Fiery Furnaces (Bitter Tea)
20. Vincent and Theo -- Jacob Borshard (The Last Brontosaurus) -- can be obtained here in its entirety on Jacob's webpage
21. May be the last time, I don't know -- Ndidi Onukwulu (No I Never) -- listen to a sample here
22. Springfield (or Bobby had a shadfly caught in his hair) -- Sufjan Stevens (The Avalanche)
23. The Gates of Istanbul -- Loreena McKennitt (An Ancient Muse) -- you can hear a snippet here
24. Mountains -- Sparklehorse (Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain)
25. The Ukrainians -- vitaminsforyou (The Legend of Bird's Hill)
26. Pieces of Sky -- Beth Orton (Comfort of Strangers)

I could make another list of other music I have been saturated in over the course of the year that was not produced in 2006, but that would be even longer...

language change (poem)

{little weed-skeletons over the ice, north saskatchewan}

{north saskatchewan riverbank, looking north to hawrelak park}

language change (in progress)

“we used to speak / a different language / i wasted my breath / on words soon forgotten / left unattended / they're moving their feet -- but nobody's dancing” – low, ‘like a forest’

speaking to eachother
now we find ourselves unintelligible.
you’re not listening, yer not
lissening, yuar nalissineng
there is so much accusation
but really i do hear you
you just sound like a bird
singing with water trapped
in a cold little throat –

through glottochronology
we can see how
time has elongated my vowels.
since i moved across the river drift
became inescapable.
visiting less & less & less
soon i found new names for things:

first for the tamarack,
then the blue-jay
then the pinecone
then slowly through these
lexical half-lives
i began to pronounce other sounds for
such universals as attraction
& compromise
& lust.

now when i speak
i am calling upstream to you,
into the past, against a current
with a tongue weighted down
by delta silt
& the words all waterlogged
just float further away –

banks erode slowly
& we filter differently
through the gravel bars, the eddys
& oxbows that can’t quite be bridged
without translation –

never thought we’d be
such stubborn monolinguals,
not then. though
it could still be argued,
really, that we still speak
dialects of the same language –

yet we insist that
our mutually intelligible ancestor
has passed away, one
wrote her down
& now we’ve become too proud,
too politicized
to admit, acknowledge
that maybe we still
understand –

perhaps in the future

some linguist
will want to study us,
reconstruct our old tongue,
recreate that proto-speech
with its slippery soundchanges
& forms & asterisks,
study the strange dialects
that arise with movement
& the lessening of someone’s
love.

pomegranates.

Last night I was watching Bryna cut up a pomegranate {see above} & it made me dream about pomegranates... I was in a kitchen that was not mine, & I was chewing palmfuls of the seeds, then spitting them out into my hands, & smearing the juice on my nightgown. It was quite bizarre, with little pools of red juice all over the floor. I am not exactly sure what this signifies -- I know what may have provoked the images, obviously, but the eating-spitting-smearing is not how I usually interact with pomegranates. I like to eat them in pilaf or just by themselves. My only theory is that I was Persephone, you know, & I suddenly realized if I ate all the pomegranate seeds it would be winter forever. So I thought that I'd spit out a few, to keep the season a little shorter, perhaps, because my mother (& I'm sure, many other people) would be disappointed if winter lasted toooo long....

Speaking of pomegranates, remind me of when I was in Grade 2 & brought a pomegranate for show-&-tell, but it was almost gone by the end of the day because I kept it in my desk & kept stuffing the kernels into my mouth.

Pomegranates also make me think of Loreena McKennitt, who I just discovered made another CD! She hasn't done that in nearly ten years. So, so lovely. Her music always reminds me of being 14 and reading The Golden Compass series & faerytale books late into the night & listening to her music & crying because some of it was so thoroughly gorgeous & writing poems that sounded too much like Yeats & hiking in the snow in Jasper at Christmas & dreaming about someday wandering across Scotland or taking the Trans-Siberian Railway across the Urals... & just being a strange little 14-year-old, but in a good way. The really idealistic, hopeful sort of way, being lost in the things that I love.