Tree Lung

Tree Lung

On the occasion of student artist Rachel Bultje’s installation, “Breath of Life” at Chatham Kent Secondary School (June 14, 2016)

I am what’s left of the Orange Osage and Ash,

their remains lie with me now,

post execution of their roots so

that passers-by won’t slip on a

falling fruit.

I am a museum exhibit of the extinct

Protectors of our health. Each

carefully manufactured leaf, once

healed 2,000 lungs

diseased with asthma, viruses,

exposure to the worst sort of

world.

These limbs used to sway free,

filtering the oily toxins from

their families below, releasing

the diamond-clear air of life.

Now they are bound in this cage

crinoline, as an example:

‘What not to do’

‘What has been done’.

Glass Birth at the Glass Academy

Glass Birth

Inside the oven’s core

awaits molten sand and

cullet, broken shards that

have long since lost their

lives and returned to an ash of

soda and lime, gametes ready

for mitosis

at 2,200°.

Jason, like Gepetto before him,

gently gathers a gob of swirling

zygote, like honey on the end of

a wand, turning to keep it latched.

He dips it into a petit bundt

mould, giving it edges, a core

of ridges to form a heart

and life.

Colours are added from the sulphides

and oxides of the Earth: blue

from the cobalt, sun yellow from

the cadmium, and a red of

Mesopotania’s ancient gold

chloride.

Jason’s gaffer pinches the ends,

pulls the soft swirls forward,

turning creation at the glory hole

to add radiant layers of a shiny

new epidermis. He strokes the

newborn head, limbs,

coaching it to reveal its own

unique

character.

Once gestated, iron scissors,

clamp and pull at her base,

water is added as the anti-

element, creating

stress.  Cut from her

maker, her annealing

convalence into

the world

begins again.

I'm Growing Things

I’m growing things. A baby and vegetables,

taking root in the deep soil of

my womb, spreading small

fingers and fragile golden

hair to the boundary of their

containment.

I’m growing things. A baby and vegetables:

first, a wee heart of hemp,

cultivated beet by beet with the

sweet liquid of the sun.

Innate food of the earth seeping into

small passageways to

transfigure the seed into

lungs of leek, and carrot-coloured

kidneys, tiny turnip

branches of our family,

pushing forth into light and

waiflike pathways.

I’m growing things.

Splitting Worlds (for artist Darla Fisher-Odjig's Exhibit, 'Cowboys & Indians')

Splitting Worlds

On the occasion of artist Darla Fisher-Odjig’s exhibit, “Cowboys and Indians” (May 19, 2016)

Wenesh aw? Who is that?

I know her not, the girl she is

today,

hard lines drawn by a

world that forced her

conformation, and built

a smooth, clear border

between her inside

and out.

HI hey hey hey, HEY hey hi…

Wenesh aw? Who is that?

the girl within, features

once strong and clear,

fading the well-formed

warrior of her past into

a cloudy cream of loss,

of falling, fragmented memories.

HI hey hey hey, HEY hey hi…

Nmaanaadendam, I am sad,

I cannot take her back,

cannot reclaim her robust

beginnings, full of a rich fern-

green heritage and deep,

sweet fruits of ancestors’

lineage, in an earth untorn

by cultural clear-cutting.

HI hey hey hey, HEY hey hi…

Aabiish Eshaad? Where is she going?

but to find her links to

the grandmothers.

to reawaken the hazy faces and

soft, rubbed out pathways

to her distinct identity in this world

of splitting.

HI hey hey hey, HEY hey hi…

Crow County (Reading at Art Avenue, Toronto, April 28, 2016)

The following is a public reading of, "Crow County" (by poet Kara Smith) at the opening of artist Leonard Jubenville's exhibit, Art Avenue Gallery, April 28, 2016:

Crow County (For Leonard Jubenville's "Infinite Skies" exhibit, Toronto, Ontario, April 29, 2016)

Crow  County

For artist Leonard Jubenville, on the occasion of his Art Avenue exhibit, “Infinite Skies”, Toronto (April 29, 2016)

Infinite skies of quicksilver

wash the canvas in soapy waves of

white, sharp rods of

 steel erupting from an

unsettled time and

field  

where we come home

to roost.

Trees meet in full coverage

over acres of uninterrupted

russet, yet

being Dover-bred, we prefer

the crafty solitude of an

ancient, barren ash tree,

or snow fence gone

astray.

Our stake in this

landscape is steadfast.

Faithful as le vieux pays,

for 20 million years we have

watched rows of gladiolus, conifer

and corn reach and recede

alongside the frozen waters

of the Erie-Thames.

We are a mob family, communing

together to raise our young,

chasing dark predators from

our lands,

and roaming fertile Hudson River

tributaries, testing new life.

A sunflower on a window ledge

may be contained in the ordered

domesticity of the house, but as

the window opens and the curtains

blow free, its wily, windy

core extends to escape.