Twisting it into a mountain, setting it free to flow – prose and poetry from the May workshop
As always there’s fantastic news from the Monthlies for May/June – talk about a group of women who simply and unerringly go from strength to strength! So don’t forget to click on the news page above!
Right at the very bottom of this month’s blog you’ll see info about submitting to Itch Magazine … …. … do have … a … look … at … this …!
Thanks as always to the monthlies whose words supply titles of categories and quotes for pictures. One thing I never have to do is visit quotation sites and look for inspiration!
In case you are wondering what happened to all the group poems you sent through – they have blended and merged with each other, offered lines where needed, scampered, strolled or walked with ponderous tread to new places in a poem of epic proportions called Bring Mountain The Monthlies Mountain has become herself. She’s been tucked away in the archives, because the poem is so long – far too many beautiful lines to choose from! Click here to read.
Mairexx
PS A very beautifully South African theme for this month’s blog – the images of mountains from create.design.co.za really do make us realise what a magnificent land we live in.
Hearing Voices, Dowsing for Words
Angel: By the time you were 5 years old, you had lost your voice. In the beginning you used to joyfully shout your wants, but then you were told to hush, to stop crying, to keep quiet. Your whispered wishes became softer and softer until you could only hear your voice in your head. The words no longer found their way to your mouth; or if they did they collapsed, lying jumbled on your tongue like stillborn alphabet.
Jewel: though I can’t speak I can dance.
Angel: Throughout your childhood, you tapped through your feelings. Your voice blind, trying to find its way out.
Jewel: My belly flexes, beckoning. Innuendo slides in the slow sinuous weave of my fingers, enjoying my power. Like flames flickering in the shimmer of my hips, the dance in me flares up, living bright in me like words burning, each fluttering movement rising from the ashes of my voice.
Angel: I dream of you, the child you were then; short dark hair cut straight at your chin, pale-faced, dark-eyed, mouth silenced over with white tape, a lipless shroud pressed flat. In the dream you are solemn, unnaturally quiet and when you look at yourself in the mirror, you discover your mouth has disappeared, leaving a smooth blank space of flesh beneath your eyes. You try to scream …
The woman dowses for buried voices. Words that were buried now find themselves poised on the tip of the tongue of her pen.
Jewel: Rubies and emeralds gleam luminous on my breasts, gold glitters in my navel. My eyes invite you but behind my veil, I am dormant. Only my dance is there, whirling more and more furiously, drumming feet, stamping feet, drumming up rage, rage, rage …
Angel: … and the scream surges up from your belly until …
… it runs like molten red hot lava into her pen and erupts onto the page in a splatter of words. Drawing blood.
Angel: and they always said to you you’re such an angel, so quiet and good. Only you longed to know: when will it ever end, being an angel?
Jewel: … because what my body tells them is only part of what I have to say.
And the woman pours forth words, bypassing her mouth, her body, redirecting them to her pen. She writes them into being and releases them, watching them dance and swirl and fly till they disappear.
Freed.
Conundrum
Holding It All Together
Releasing and letting it go
Twisting it into a mountain
Setting it free to flow
Between the tension of holding together
and the relief of allowing release
comes the terror of Falling Apart
that keeps me awake in my sleep!
I am the peak hidden in the swirling mists I am the craggy summit on a windy day (Ruth Mattison)www.createdesign.co.za www.createphotography.com
Sediment
In water I was formed.
I had to push up hard
into my parents’ arms.
I grew up in the slums,
cradled by the ground,
by the belly of the mother city.
There was no one there
except a mountain.
I played alone;
my legs hooked over a branch.
I stared up at the high peaks;
I knew I was born to higher things.
I embraced it all.
I knew this was never for me;
I’d just gone into the wrong room.
Sometimes I was so angry
people were afraid,
they’d climb over me.
I had no chance to talk;
I’d just swing upside down.
The longing for the cliffs,
the clouds whispering my forehead.
They said I should reach
my arms to the ground.
I fumed with fury,
wanting to change it.
Then one day my father came
and took me to the mountain.
The weather turned and
the images of my geography
came searching for me.
High among the clouds
I saw angels.
I made a leap, reached to them.
Sandstone and magma gave birth to
a person no longer me.
Someone forgotten
drew me like a bee
to my dreams.
I melted and allowed
them to come.
Now I was a mother city,
managing the controls.
I flashed my eyes
I was the cup holder,
known as the Flying Angel.
My name was my lucky star,
young and beautiful.
Someone with golden wings
gave me a hand up,
and taught me to fly.
We met quite by chance
and I flew by his side.
After all the years
I am alone again.
Peace comes over me like rain.
An angel like me
whispers.
I have time to write my memories;
I paint pictures
and dream
of hanging upside down
in clouds.
Mountain Memories
I am the peak hidden in the swirling mists
I am the craggy summit on a windy day
The Traveller
I was born upon a mountain top
My feet were nimble
my heart was free
From the summit of my rocky garden
I became curious to see
the unknown places all around
I descended from my mountain world
and followed the tumbling stream
‘til it became a river
that ran through vales and plains
When I met the tumultuous ocean
my Spirit called to me
‘Sail across these mighty waves
to meet your destiny.’
I am dark caves full of old bones from bygone worlds
I am crumbling ledges beckoning desperate fingers seeking lift
The Warrior
I was born in turbulence
The time was dark and drear
Storm clouds gathered overhead
Children cried aloud in fear
My parents kept the windows closed
and played their music loudly
but all the crashing cymbals
could not drown the weeping
Children’s cries seeped through the cracks
and pierced my ear like an arrow in my heart
As I grew up tales of derring-do
led me to believe that
I could make a difference to
all the children in the world
So I donned my magic cape
and set off to defend
those weeping ones
who had no one
to lend a helping hand.
I am mountain streams bubbling up from source
I am mountain embraced passionately by sky
The Grandmother
It was never my intention
to start a dynasty
I thought that I would travel
and be forever free.
But along the way the children came
and shaped my hips and breasts
to hold and hug and cuddle
for better and for worse
Motherhood has taken me
and made me strong and wise
Now that I’m a grandmother
nothing can disguise
the wisdom and the wrinkles
that came with babies’ cries
I still feel like a girl inside
fresh faced and full of fun
My Spirit soars and giggles
and keeps me on the run!
I am mountain timeless and full of wonder for all that I Am.
The perfect juggler
When comes the time to define herself, the words hide themselves. She feels scared like she has never before. Death itself becomes less ugly.
She sits and finds herself panting even before she throws the first ball. Then one, two, three, the juggling starts. How many balls? How many colours? Maybe a dozen, maybe more. She always wants perfection.
Blue ball in the air for the perfect mother, the mother of perfection, spreading her perfume of love around her. Always feeling guilty even when things get beyond her control. With no certificate, she has to adjudicate in the squabbles that are forever arising.
Red ball in the air, for the perfect wife, unselfish, erasing herself for him to be. Nostrils wide open to smell her perfume of love.
Green ball in the air, for the perfect house wife. Clean shack, clean pots, clean rags, made beds. Last to sleep, first to get up in the morning, a beaming smile on her face.
Orange ball in the air for the perfect breadwinner. Love smells stale when the stomachs are empty.
Pink ball in the air for friendship. She must chop her heart to satisfy the many hands waiting to be served. None is to be hurt or treated unfairly.
White ball in the air. Apprentice, she needs to be a perfect writer. She cannot allow herself to stumble. The spelling must be right. Each sentence well said. Punctuation must be right. A ballad is a ballad, not a ghazal. A ghazal is not a haiku. She needs to know the rules and follow them.
She must be true to herself. She has to find the right song, the rhythm that will sustain her balance. None is to touch the ground even if the juggler is left breathless. So many balls in the air.
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I guess I am the kind of person you don’t want to be in a disaster with. Not because I am unlucky, not really. I mean, I don’t die or anything. But if there is a weird thing going to happen I am almost always involved.
Not big stuff, though, not newspaper headlines weird, just odd. Like when I got on the plane, and I put the boarding pass between my lips as I went through security. You know, the whole scanning thing, and take out the lap top, and take off your shoes. And then when I went to grab the boarding pass, it was stuck to my lower lip. Swear to god. So I had to peel it off, and I’m buggered if there wasn’t a line of skin on the boarding pass, a semi circle, like the shape of your teeth, only in skin. And my lower lip felt all swollen, like I was in a fight with something. My tongue is still hunting for the soreness, and finding it.
My glass of wine on the plane stung a little. It’s never good wine, but it doesn’t usually sting going down. That sort of stuff. It’s enough to make me feel, like, marked. Not in a 666 devilish sort of way, just that if there is a weird thing going to happen it’ll happen to me.
Like the time I locked myself between my own front door and the security gate. That was weird. I managed to get someone passing to call my dad, who has my spare keys. You have to have spare keys, with my kind of karma. The guy went to the bakery on the corner, and called my dad, and he came and let me out. Laughed like a hose, he did. He shakes his head when that sort of thing happens. Like he thinks I should be James Bond and always have a snappy comeback, or a martini. Not be keyless, in Gaza.
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like a queen protea, I lift my leathery arms and join my palms to salute the mountain (Cynthia Mac Pherson)
Now this is a pleasure I wasn’t expecting
clouds scudding rolling darkening, leaden on my shoulders
dark regrets – mistakes I cannot forgive myself
The fear. The worry. The horror of my husband’s death.
many faces of the mountain, many faces of me
moods filter across my face like clouds
The smell of aromatic wood crackling in this remote place. The river murmuring and hippos grunting in the reeds. This warm blanket around my shoulders in the cool evening by the fire, which reflects on round, shining, golden brown faces of the women around me. Dark eyes soft watch the flames lick golden, turning the logs to glowing embers and a bubbling black pot of spicy stew. Now I hold to my lips the communal clay pot of frothy beer, yeasty, gritty but delicious and later I sleep. This is a pleasure I wasn’t expecting.
like a queen protea, I lift my leathery arms
and join my palms to salute the mountain
In the bright morning sun, peeping over the mountain, is a verdant field of vegetables. I pluck a green leaf of morogo, tangy, refreshing, sharp as rocket. on my early morning tongue, furry from last night’s beer drink.
mist rises in lace carpets round my feet
many faces of the mountain, many faces of me
The woman, Thea, takes my hand. ‘You are welcome my sister,’ she says. ‘ Come with me.’
We walk to the swift flowing water of the mighty African river, dark beneath the trees, not yet lit by the rising sun. And here in a pool is a wonder of water lilies.
‘They are edible. The water is our goddess,’ Thea says.
bright morning lights sandstone, wet with night rain
mountain’s veld cover is green after winter brown and black of fire
‘Tell me your story,’ she says.
‘I left his body in the river. Oh why did we come on this adventure? We set off a week ago. We paddled each day and slept overnight on different islands.
‘ “Scatter my ashes here, one day,” Greg told me.
‘At the most remote part of the river, before the waterfall drops into the pools below, Greg and I sat silent our canoe drifting with the current, thorn trees on the shore moving slowly past. The heat was intense. I sat in front with him at the back, steering, and then he grunted and I turned. His face was ashen. Clutching his chest and gasping, he collapsed forward. I moved clumsily to the stern to lay him down and I saw his paddle floating away in our wake.
‘I knelt down, both hands on his heart, pumping and breathing with the kiss of life. Oh God help us! Make him breathe. I was sweating and panting, trying to keep panic from affecting my breathing. I gave up when he didn’t respond. In the bush cicadas shrilled. The hippos had disappeared under the
water and the canoe was drifting sideways to the bank. I sat motionless with the paddle across my sunburnt knees, feeling the sun searing into my neck. On shore a lone elephant grazed. The bank was steep, where the canoe nudged, and bright crimson bee eaters were busy on the sandy cliff high above me.
‘A bird called, “Too late. Too late. Too late.”
‘In the shallow water, a carcass lay stripped clean by vultures. Small fish surfaced, open-mouthed, and flies were settling on Greg’s eyes and mouth. What do I do? I prayed.
‘I had to use all my weight and strength to lean the canoe over on its side. Finally I rolled his inert body off. I left him there in the shallows. Pushing away from the bank with my paddle, I drifted on and on.
Thea encloses me in her arms. ‘You are welcome, my sister.’
I look across the veld at the wakening village. Women in the morning mist pulling close their blankets and children, round cheeked with glowing skins and strong bodies.
Clouds scudding rolling darkening, were leaden on my shoulders
dark regrets – mistakes I could not forgive myself.
The fear. The worry. The horror - fall from my body.
cool wind off the river chases hot air and
my black mood of sorrow and anger
He lies in the river that he loved.
like a queen protea, I lift my leathery arms
and join my palms to salute the mountain
The Spinster, the Mountain and the Traveller
I am strong, I endure quietly. On the surface I am busy, but underneath are layers of darkness and silence. I was born here and never left, it was only fragments of myself that were hacked off and carried in suitcases to other parts of the world. And now some of the fragments have returned to form a new layer of myself.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Magdalene is my name, Maggie for short. I never married; the old fashioned word for me is Spinster, a woman who spins. Single, unloved, dry, left on the shelf, a maiden aunt, but not lonely, never lonely. I am safe in my solitude. I could have been a nun and gone into a convent and taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Poverty and chastity I can handle, but obedience goes against my nature and the choices I made. The choice not to get married and not to measure myself against other peoples expectations and rules.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
I have been travelling for a long time, spinning around and around, as the earth spins around. I am homeless and restless. My family slipped through my fingers. Too much drinking, too much fighting. I wouldn’t recognise my children now. I have lived in a lot of cities with no connection to people or places. I survive quietly, slipping through the cracks. I know how to make myself invisible, how to blend in. I don’t look like a homeless person; I look like Mister Average. The only tell tale signs might be my eyes, women become uneasy when I look at them, but usually I wear dark glasses.
……………………………………………………………………………..
Maggie can see me from her window. I am the reason she never gets lonely. She studies my moods; she knows me intimately. You might think she was my lover, the way she explores all my paths and hidden nooks and crannies. We have a marriage of sorts; ‘ till death do us part’ but Maggie will be gone from here long before me.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Today is my birthday, as a gift to myself I will climb to the highest peak of my mountain. The spectacular view is always my favourite gift to myself. My mountain and me will spend the day together.
…………………………………………………………………………………
A stranger has climbed up me, he has the energy of a ghost, there is nothing solid about him; it is almost as if he is no one. It is hard to tell where he is from, he is restless, disconnected. He has climbed up to the very top of me and is looking down into the city. He stands on a ledge, he might jump or fall, there is very little to stop him disappearing into the void.
…………………………………………………………………………………
I am tired of wondering from place to place. I could settle in this city below me. By now my traces should be safely covered. I must put my guilt aside and reconstruct myself, forge a new identity, one that feels authentic. I have enough money to set myself up and live modestly. I made a killing, literally, but I must put that behind me. Too bad people had to die. Remorse and sleepless nights won’t bring them back to life. There is a strange woman walking towards me, she is alone, vulnerable. It would be easy to vanish on this mountain top without a trace.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Some one has got to the peak before me; he will spoil my view and my birthday party. Why has this man come here?
I should push him off the ledge, he has ruined my solitude. I don’t like men climbing on my mountain, you can’t trust them.
…………………………………………………………………………………
I watch Maggie looking at the man; I can see her muttering to herself. He looks back at her, he thinks she’s mad. Maggie has climbed up to the top of the peak. He smiles at her and doffs his cap; he is standing too close to her, she can’t see his eyes behind his dark glasses. He is saying something to her. He has a crisp white handkerchief neatly folded into a triangle in the top pocket of his jacket, he looks the perfect gentleman.
He slips his hand into his pocket, inside is something dangerous, sharp and shiny; I can see Maggie is uneasy. A body hurtles down my slope, followed by a fluttering white handkerchief. I can see Maggie. She is laughing to herself as she cuts her birthday cake.
…………………………………………………………………………………
I could have been (or, The Secret Lives of Mountain Me)
[The stage is bare, the backdrop a mountain that seems to grow from the wall. Spotlights illuminate three stools arranged in a line leading to the foothills. A figure is seated on one of these. The narrator’s voice-over comes from the heart of the mountain. If desired, lighting effects may be devised to add atmosphere]
Narrator: Magma rising, pulses racing, two young people meet in the middle of a marital bed and I am conceived.
[Seated at the very front of the stage, the first voice speaks. The actor wears a shawl and smokes a cob pipe.]
Maud: Where shall I start now? Ye want me to say where I was born? T’was in a tiny snip of a village, a blink away from the cliff face, in the shadow of Galtymore. I don’t think ye’ll be finding it on any map, although ye might now, if ye had one of them fancy yokes my grandchildren are always on about – that go zooming in to the very house a body lives. No thank ye I told them, I’ll not be wanting Mr Google checking the state of my garden, or my curtains for that matter. And don’t they think I’m very funny then, so I play along a bit and tell them to put that camera’s eye agoggling and agoogling on Aine O’Neill’s mess of a garden because haven’t I been asking her to see to that lawn of hers for the last twenty years? And does she? Not a bit of it.
[As the narrator speaks ‘Maud’ walks to the second stool, removes the shawl and puts on a flat cloth cap and tweed jacket.]
Narrator: And once attached, I settle into the warm ruby of my mother’s womb. I lie, I divide, I multiply, I am.
William: My friends call me Bill. I prefer Liam, so that’s what I put on the first brass plaque. Liam Morris. Small offices and a private practice, that’s all I ever wanted, but Carmel had other ideas. Can’t blame her I suppose. A woman marries a lawyer, she’s bound to have certain expectations. And so, after the boys were born, she decided we had to move. To the city she said. I’d never hankered after it like some of the lads in my class. But, as my father, God rest his soul, used to say, anything for a quiet life.
[‘William’ moves to the third stool, removes the cap and jacket and ties the shawl under the chin. [This movement from stool to stool continues as each name speaks.]]
Narrator: Flipper-finned, my head larger than my body, I float and wonder who I will become.
Niamh: The master did a reading for me today. Of course, being the cantankerous old diabhal he is he wouldn’t say what he had learned. Unfair I thought. This is my life. What right do you have to hold its secrets from me? But all he did was run his fingers through his long beard, look at me from beneath the overhang of his eyebrows. He reminds me of tangled wood does my master. All overgrown and grown over and impossible to penetrate.
Narrator: Slowly, inch by inch, pound by pound my mother’s belly becomes a hard rounded mound.
Maud: Maud, not a name I would have chosen for myself. And didn’t Kevin think he was the fine clever boyo when he’d wink at me and say, Come into the garden Maud? And Mammy would raise her eyes to heaven and mutter, Jesus, Mary and Joseph don’t we all know the man is a school teacher? Mammy herself was mad on William B, and that is who I was named after, none other than Maude Gonne. Put that in your pipe and smoke she’d say to Kevin.
Narrator: I squirm, I shift, trying to find place for my long arms, my curled up legs. I hear voices, and through the tight stretched membrane of her stomach I sense a burning light.
William: You might not think it to look at her now, but Carmel could be very demanding. So off to the city it was. I was sorry to leave my childhood home and the mountains too. Life here is easier, less rushed than what we rushed into. I was good at my job, there’s no denying that, and soon enough I was in demand. A partnership. My name on a different plaque, up with an entirely different league of men altogether.
Of course when Carmel became so ill, the boys were the ones who decided. It’ll do you good both good, Dadda … and so, back we came, to live in the shade of the Galtees, to the town at the foot of the mountain where Carmel and I were born and baptised.
Narrator: From the very depths of her I travel, down a dark passage that pulses me along and out into a world that is bright and loud and disturbing.
Niamh When I looked at him he shooed me away. Soon enough child, soon enough. Now be off with you. I sighed, picked up my leather satchel and made for the door. It was cold and I didn’t feel like venturing out to the other cave. His laboratory he calls it. A fancy word for a hole like a dark eye in Sléibhte na gCoillte where odd and unusual things happen. Not that he lets me see much of what he does. All in good time girl, he says when I ask. And in good time I will no longer have the name my parents gave me when I was born. He will take me deep into these hills and we will climb mountains and walk and walk until my name comes.
[The stage lights dim, one by one, until only the mountain backdrop is illuminated - before the narrator says:]
Narrator: All is new and all is as it has been. I lift a hand to my face and look at my fingers. Tiny, tiny so tiny. Yet each carries the whorls of a new me.
diabhal - devil
The Galtee Mountains or Galty Mountains (Irish: Na Gaibhlte or Sléibhte na gCoillte) are a mountain range in Munster, Ireland. The name “Galtee” is thought to be a corruption of the Irish “Sléibhte na gCoillte” - “Mountains of the Forests” in English, however this Irish name has fallen out of use. The highest peak in the Galtees is that of Galtymore.
Huge cumulus covering cloths blow the pilgrim stones (Gillian Barton)www.createdesign.co.za www.createphotography.com
Mountain Ghazal
In my chest there is a mauve poem
I can find in me many earth-coloured poems
Canyons are the colours of clay ochre red sand
Mountains are blue purple and from above grey-black poems
The only green on the slopes are the stone pines standing
slightly awry with their crowns dignified against the wind poems
or the emerald vein right at the very vortex of the fissure
throbbing silently once every million years a poem
I am this vein keeping the earth alive, I am those crowns
sheltering sacred circles of petrified life poems
I am the koan of the canyon – all the tears and struggle
of those unanswerable story poems
I, Ilze, am all the poems written about all the mountains
And all the joy and inner knowing of all those wonder poems
My soul is a scrap of paper blown by the wind,
my cold tears have named themselves sorrow and loss.
I lie awake and listen to the crying wind.
Come beloved, walk with me through our secret garden
where sparrows gather, waiting for your crumbs to fall.
The petals of summer’s last rose flee from the wind.
They tell me that God has one hundred and one names
my tongue stumbles over saying one. In the face
of His glory I am but a reed in the wind.
The aloe’s spiked flowers pierce the grey clouds, blood red.
The waterfall merrily counts the steps to the sea.
Seagulls soar, suspended overhead in the wild wind.
Winter settles deep in my bones and makes a home,
My love is a flame grown cold and grey with waiting.
Even the brown tortoise turns his back to the wind.
If I surrender to this voice where will it lead?
The ship has lost its captain and blows rudderless
across the sea, hounded by a following wind.
In the calm after the storm the birds sing a new day.
Golden sunlight slants warmth through an open window,
one cloud still hangs, motionless, waiting for the wind.
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one cloud still hangs, motionless, waiting for the wind Karin Andersen
I am mountain
I am mountain – still. But, look closely. I move.
I am alive in the tips. I move .
I am dead, burnt by the mountain fire.
Your ashes nourish my slopes. I move.
I lived from you. You live in me. I live because of you.
Flowers take root, birds take nectar. I move.
I am you. You are me. We are mountain.
I am Megan – strong and eroding. I move.
Come on, come up here, let me share my views;
some were shaped by mentors, others are mine alone.
Persistent roots push through the granite of injustice,
but the crying wind of self-doubt is heard by me alone.
An avalanche of anger unleashes words that wound,
they injure people who think this happens to them alone.
Fires rage like traumas, fascinating, we can’t look away,
are we mountains of strength in a crisis, or frail, and alone?
Truth can’t be unsaid, harsh criticism can burn.
But, through the charred ground, a green shoot emerges alone.
and when we see the sun sparkling on an agate of wit,
we can pick up the phone, reach out and share it.
Gushing hysterical laughter, helpless as a waterfall.
Finally the realisation: No, we are not all alone.
What’s the point of knowledge in a rock-like skull?
Cathy, you must share it, even if the writing gets done alone.
Mountain mantra
Hidden from the hunting gaze of the black eagle
the secret lies in the cloud that shrouds
my foothills in a mantra
I am the song of crystal water
The sub-sonic smelting rumble at the
core of a mantra
Brushed by the tradewinds wild and fair
I am the russet restio hair
O! earth’s restless mantra
I found footing between two ancient random pebbles
unseen in the fecund kloof
of a mountain’s mantra
Waiting for the parting of your crags
I, Jaël, am the deep black-green of
Love’s dark mantra
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peaks glow gold in early-morning-light
Sally Ball
Mountain Memories
Friends gathered together in the waning twilight
murmur memories in the flickering firelight.
Cliffs of silver crags soar skywards;
sigh secrets in the soft starlight.
Petals peep between beds of spongy moss;
gleam pale in the brooding moonlight.
Far horizons warmed by a gentle touch;
peaks glow gold in early-morning-light.
Streams skip over stones and slow-slide into pools;
dragonflies dance in jewelled sunlight.
Who am I? Carried across years and continents:
Sally, giving glory to He who is Light.
Lion’s Head (Leeuwen Kop)
From Eastern Boulevard
she lies like a majestic Goddess
warm and burnished by the morning sun
Slowly she reveals herself to the City
Created by forces deep within the earth
her form she took from the winds and the sea
that choose to pound or caress her
Much like an avid lover they have left their mark
She glows – rounded, swelling
pregnant with energy and life -
life that she holds within and upon her
She hosts flora and fauna as best she can
Mornings I have sat on her sun-warmed lap
contained, comfortable as in my favorite chair
Only once I dared not tread her usually welcoming path
Was she angry or was it me?
Her ravines hold my heart
her rivulets carry my blood
She is authentic and bold
Am I?
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The mountain maroons in orange twilight (Gertrude Fester)
Gertrude’s Ghazal
What is this dangerous spiralling inside my self?
I am searching for the Stillness of granite, of water, of self
The mountain purples in morning sun, soft sun’s caress on rock
Where is this Stillness of granite, of water, of self?
Inside me is a Samurai sword, piercing pain
I gasp for the Stillness of granite, of water, of self
I am an oak leaf dancing, a pine’s rigid spindle
floating, searching for the Stillness of granite of water of self
I am a gushing river rushing, a meandering stream of melting snow
Confusion abounds still, no Stillness of granite, of water, of self
I’m a swallow merrily singing, a fish eagle swooping on prey
I grope, strive, deprived of Stillness of granite, of water, of self
Yellowwood, elm, fynbos, iris, orchid, protea
Accepting my diversity I reach for the Stillness of granite, of water, of self
The mountain maroons in orange twilight. In the warm embrace of the hazy moon
I celebrate. I am Stillness, granite, water, myself
You never know what’s going to crawl from her, or when (you have to think)
In her sunny, fresh-aired, clear-visioned spot at the very top (she thinks).
Then she falls, smashing down and losing bits of herself in painful chips,
ending up in a her-sized dent, bits of self scattered amongst the gravel (to think).
Now a smooth, interesting, though not really pretty pebble they all want to have,
and next, a solid and lazy rock warming herself in the sun (forgetting to think).
Soon to be kicked up with the dirt and sand, left even further behind than when she started,
again becoming the loose, ungrounded gravel (too painful to think).
And, sporadically, surprisingly, a top rock, though never a king rock,
but Deirdre would rather be home to snakes and skinks (I think).
Who?
Always the same and never the same
I am the many and also the one
I am many and one of the hungry and scared
for the wrath of the weather will not save us
My mood shifts.
Clouds cover, then leave my steep sides
As my tears fall gently on your parched soul
your spirit rises, shining sunset gold
Sweet smell of fresh rain on hot rocks
many voices sing for joy
Keep still. You can hear
the silent alive singing
In the shade it is cold.
On my sunny side mountain berries grow
Those before you and those after you
will tread the same paths
Always the same and never the same
I am many and also the one.
Try to catch the second when the sun changes into shadow,
lapping against river reeds, obsequious in friendliness.
Holding myself together like hands with tightly interlaced fingers
I search for the greyness of consistency between the extremes.
I am, reluctantly, the rock, the strong one
To remain in the inbetween.
I am the sunlight and the shadow
I am the leftover stubble of a bush
Popping up playful bubbles as I pass over rough patches,
I droop, cowed by age and circumstance.
Withstanding heat, cold, rain, wild winds
strong, steadfast, this immortal range of mountains
Ephemeral, swirled in the mists of time and memory
quietly majestic, forever regal, these mountains
Mystical, awe inspiring, remotely distant,
purple against sunset skies, jagged mountains
A stark reality in an illusory dimension
snow covered granite, quartz, ice compacted mountains.
There are lessons to be learned from mountains
ever present, taken for granted, eternal mountains
My Mountain Faces
I watch the passage of the sun and moon-face
with stony eyes set in my implacable face.
Long ago, fire and fumes belched from my open maw,
my molten self erupted to free my dragon face.
Now, in my mountain steadfastness there is a core
that can never be eroded; a granite face.
My careful mountain goat picks its surefooted way,
then bursts over a waterfall with exuberant face.
In joyful playfulness, I gurgle over river beds,
ephemeral morning mists soften my craggy face.
White cloud pom-poms dance from peak to pinnacle,
a haphazard waltz to celebrate my frivolous face.
The rising sun warms my ancient crone-stones,
stains in slow saffron blushes my silhouette face.
The south wind feeds the inferno with burning breath,
Anne is the creeping snake fleeing the wildfire’s face.
Mountain of Pain
I am many-faceted and, I hope, fascinating;
but now, my outer covering of politeness and charm is burned away.
The bushes blaze in uncontrolled, hellish light
Afraid, I feel the mountain falling on me. And charm is burned away.
Can I apologise- again- or do I let it lie?
Mea Culpa- how can I put out this fire of tactlessness? The charm is burned away.
Praying for rain, for water, I weep, vulnerable and weak;
Water will douse the flames. The charm is burned away.
The baptism of fire is literal and real;
new growth now- the mountain recreated.
Yet still the scars are there.
In Winifred, a red point of pain.
colours shoot up, a necklace of daisy jewels, a pair of bluebell shoes (Sukaina Walji)www.createdesign.co.za www.createphotography.com
I am many
I am many sided faces. An oddity.
Which one you find depends on how you approach.
A wet winter, tears of waterfalls gushing down,
to melt into larger pool of sadness.
The fog comes over, covering me,
you look, straining to see curves and outlines.
A fire of anger leaves me burnt and gasping,
I rise from my knees and wipe away the rage.
Spring, tears dry and colours shoot up,
a necklace of daisy jewels, a pair of bluebell shoes.
The fog lifts, I emerge from shadow to light.
Sukaina. Instantly recognisable, a precious oddity
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Shards of Mountain
A mountain of girl is desperate to be small.
A mountain girl is eroded to sand. Made small.
The sand girl screams to sound like a mountain.
Her mouth is Empty. The flatlanders keep her voice small.
The sand girl eats alone. The flatlanders, they point they
throw sticks and stones. Shove her down. Easy, she’s small.
The sand girl is hard. Invisible. Glass. Nameless.
The flatlanders throw bricks. Biceps big. Cocks small.
The sand girl shatters into millions of pieces.
All of them small.
The flatlanders cut their feet as they pass over shards of her.
The shards put together into something – something not quite small.
I haven’t seen you around before, what’s your name? the flatlanders ask
after the gluing is done.
Varsha.
Varsha.
Varsha.
And I sure ain’t small.
Story of my life in five minutes
when I was little
the mountain was my cloak
as I grew bigger I did not need it anymore
I was solid
offering my sides to climbers
They traversed me but sometimes they fell and died
It hurt me so much that I made a rule
beware of me, the mountain
and its cloak
Many mountains. I am
Thirsty roots suck life from earth
Rain that falls seeps through my veins
I lift my feet, pull up, resist the ground
The water creeps.
It dilutes me, cuts me, makes me weak
porous. I am rooted in water, and air
that rises gives life to plants, gives none to me
I shrivel. Close the gaps where darkness forms
Set loose through cracks, the barefoot hippy
freefalls, catches rainbows, leaps and springs
with yelps on jagged rocks beneath
I catch the birds and set the water free
I am old. I am wise. I am high
I am all the flowers and the trees. They are me
I am unpredictable. I am power. I am many
Penny, you are seen by all.
But you are things no one can see.
Susan is who I am.
I lie low in the valley, misty blankets covering
the body I am.
Dim light, dank smells lurk there,
where I am.
Burrowing beneath, you can look there for
the many I am.
Crevices of anxiety and triumph mark
the person I am.
Thickly crusted veneer hides
what I am.
Unfathomable, like secret tunnels leading to
who I am.
The mountain is me
I am the mountain.
Susan is who I am.
You commit me
Inside sallow skin, blood boils a bright brew
Outside, my svelte seal pelt, stretches sour silence
Slimy to touch, I slip through your fingers
My smile is blue, pink and peachy, sly silence
Midnight murmurs the hour, you stare at stars
Moaning moon melts beam, solitary silence
My hunger hunts and ravages your plains
Words, curled and complicated, stolen silence
Multiple madness inside plastic file
LINDA, capitals, wrapped, in shiny silence
Mountain spirit
Breathe, I want to meditate, for Stillness and a Quiet Heart.
The true self will emerge, they tell me, on the out breathe.
I breathe, but I know there are many selves I could own.
Was it my false self that said yes when my hidden self screamed no?
My Selves are as abundant as the cracks and fissures on Table Mountain.
Connected, each nook and cranny renders an aspect of the whole.
Table Mountain, an iconic symbol in the family parade, Harbinger of the Mountain Spirit,what has been endured and what has been accomplished.
Raised by forces deflected downwards before they break the surface. Generational layers formed by stresses and pressures. My surviving self.
Breathing with Mountain Spirit, I am bound by eternal images that begin and end all things. Sheer rock face repels further penetration.
I was born at the bottom of the sea, the whales sing my song. I am magnificence petrified on the foreshore (Isobel Terry)www.createdesign.co.za www.createphotography.com
The mountain
I am on fire ragging into the darkening sky,
the molten fluid beneath my bedrock smoulders on my skin.
I am solid silence, a reference to your orientation
I go nowhere, I go to the beginning of time.
I was born at the bottom of the sea, the whales sing my song.
I am magnificence petrified on the foreshore
conceived at a place where lands collide,
liquid hardening with air when the seas departed.
I am minerals of resistance on a continent drifting;
an anchoring of layers, granite, sandstones and shale
yet when you are very close to me I am not.
I am many and I am one. I am nameless, given many names.
I know the names of you and her. I am many.
I am the secret place to which she fled,
the rocky path up which she climbs,
the steep sided canyon into which she falls.
A gasp of breath, her muscles stretch and strain,
those strong arms that washed clothes in my roaring stream.
I am her gorge, a place to hide from her lecherous master.
I am a cloud-swept dream covering her with a veil.
I see your chiselled face in the half light
and hear a howling of sorrow as day breaks.
I am a grave that holds her bones,
grains of minute tone embedded in rock
and lifting them towards the summer moon
then I shall speak, not of self, but of molecules of story.
I will blacken out the sky, darkening to a shadow,
you will hear a scream, stiffened by silence, Isobel are you listening ?
Faceted Mountain
Like a mountain who has four faces
I am East and West, North and South
I am several people, I have many facets,
I have sunny sides and gloomy ones.
One senses the dawn of emotions,
another explodes with the riot of sunset,
one is dark and never sees the sun,
another turns dullness into pearls of laughter.
One of my mountainside is all ragged rocks and hard to climb,
the other, gentle slopes, green pastures and the ding-dong of bells.
East, West, North and South
I am a faceted mountain.
I am the flower on the mountainside facing the sun, searching for pleasure
The lightness of being, its rays on my petals, searching for pleasure
I am the path winding its way up the mountain
A guide in times of uncertainty, searching for pleasure
Finding the rock where I recover my stillness
Gazing at the mountain, its beauty, its majesty, searching for pleasure
Eroded with time, beautiful and rounded
Energy and passion, stillness and compassion, searching for pleasure
Sometimes noisy, sometimes silent, always alive
Mary, a life force, an energy that does not falter, searching for pleasure
www.createdesign.co.za www.createphotography.com
I am you. You are me. We are mountain. (Megan Hall)
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – info@itch.co.za
Artists working in any medium and writers expressing themselves in any form or genre are invited to submit work for the fourth issue of ITCH Online.
The “theme” is: A moment’s expectation, a silent space between the verbal flow… A short row of spots, to be sure… A breath held… Or expelled… Visual space, opened for interpretation… Ellipses eclipsed… Hesitation, uncertainty, the pause prioritised… A confused vagueness… The search for the right… words… or pictures… or sounds… An unwillingness to end a statement with certainty… or commit to a particular and unchangeable position… A soft ending in hard times… An evocative moment unwilling to be crystallised into expression…Three pennies on the floor… A sigh… a logo… dot dot dot…
You are free to interpret this theme in any way that you wish, to speak to or against it, to explore or ignore it, with words, sounds and/or images.
Poetry, prose, essays, book reviews, short stories, unclassifiable writing, photography, graphic design, sound art, visual work, animations, short films, drawings, paintings, and more, are welcomed.
Submissions are open until 28 August 2009.
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One. Who spends years screwing it most of the way in, and more years finding that final twist at the end.
