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

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.

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?