Gallery of Light and Letters

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Chapter 8: Grace & Tracery

Ali Scattergood, Grace, 2012


Tracery

Pluck the feathers down to the bone
and you’ll find that wings are not such
fragile things, beneath their gowns
of softness.  Unlike antlers, which
yearly shed their velvet to reveal
new points and branchings, these must
retain their froth or else they’re nothing
but maps of old trajectories, like veins.
There is a price to pay for flight—
call it upkeep, call it frippery—
this lacy masking of the framework
that, despite all its spiky strength,
could not otherwise begin to navigate
the soaring architecture of the skies.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Chapter 7: Wake Up & Fishing

Ali Scattergood, Wake Up, 2013


Fishing

Once a month, on the night
of no moon, you climb in
barefoot. The zodiac spins above,
its castoffs bobbing
into the mouth of the cave,
riding the dark water. Hunger
keeps you from sleep,
so you return again
and again to comb your fingers
through the rushing black
stuff you cannot see
except where it shines
like moving glass below
the floating lights. And if
you slip, you’ll be carried
downstream into deeper
darkness. And if you stay
away too long, your belly
will shrivel from lack
of light. At last you catch
a fistful of the burning
globes. Sometimes you
think you hear other feet
sliding softly over rocks
in the shadows. Do not
disturb them. You know
as well as they do how this
becomes a religion,
the kiss of your soles
against stone.


Sunday, July 14, 2013

Chapter 6: Remember and At the Core




 Ali Scattergood, Remember, 2013

At the Core

Salty waters rise until they flood.
But you’re no longer simply flesh and blood,
something new grows roots, begins to bud,
awaits the fall of cleaner rain.
(The sky dispenses answers, though it won’t explain.)
Your belly glows, your body has forgotten its refrain.
And it’s no longer blood,
but something moonlit pulsing in those veins.
You bow your head and let your toes sink deep into the mud,
containing deep inside a thing you can’t contain.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Chapter 5: Holding and The Cave



Ali Scattergood, Holding, 2013


The Cave

I dream of the dark,
stepping over slippery rocks,
searching, by the glow

of my own garments.
Beneath these rough continents
lies hidden treasure;

somewhere beneath me
yawns a depth my waking mind
cannot comprehend.

In sleep, though, the chill
flavor of that emptiness
threatens to drown me,

sharper on the tongue
than cold sea water, than milk
squeezed from a handful

of constellations. Light
has no place here, but I can’t
escape my own glaze,

the only remnant
of the waking world. Until
I shed this white gown,

I can’t slip below
the surface. But I am in
no hurry. The cave

itself is the prize,
and the unbroken silence
it holds like a gem

in its jaws. What life
could prepare you for this dream?
What dreamer would strip

unquestioningly?