Gallery of Light and Letters

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Chapter 12: Energy in the Landscape: Water & Over Silent Water

Ali Scattergood, Energy in the Landscape series: Water, 2012.



Over Silent Water
--after e. e. cummings

Of course no water is silent the sea’s
voice especially
echoes the sun’s hiss
rising from its bath of steam

so why then do
i feel such
loneliness ankle-deep in the
ebb and flow of this
not-silence
thundering out to the horizon

why, gods of earth
air and water, would you create
this longing in me to understand what my
ears can hear what my mind cannot translate this
rhythm like the one that beats inside my breast

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Chapter 11: Meadow & Transcription

Ali Scattergood, Energy in the Landscape Series; Meadow, 2012


Transcription

Lunging
knee-deep
through the tall
grass, I catch
the arc of a bird
whose colors,
cloaked in movement,
blurred by sudden
exposure,
speak almost too
softly for my ears
to hear. I understand
these feathers
like you understand
a poem but cannot
repeat its meaning
in other words.
I write it all down,
though, in black
and white—
it’s what I know
how to do, it’s
the best I can do.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Chapter 10: Sheer Presence & Sense and Softness


Sense & Softness

If at times the task
(embrace the envelope,
the pirouette of smoke
and gesture) seems
to decorate the means
of crafting answers, more
than answering what
you actually asked—

if at times the veil
conceals the language
you expected (dancing
on that rail between
gravity and dream)—
if you let the statuary
stretch, allow the light
a long exhale—

how could you shape
another nuance equal
to this arc? And why
deny the way that balance
wants to speak?