the beauty that lies in the imperfect the damaged, the broken unintentional beauty set the shadows to music what would be the tune?
small songs #1 (2021)
writing
small songs – intro (2021)
small songs between breaths painted by light sung in the silence voices of star-stuff whispering
the beginning of a series of small verses inspired by the photographic prompts from 52Frames
the room is quiet, the air is still
I’ve been questioning whether to post this. But this poem, these words, helped me get through some of the most difficult days last year. They helped me stand and claim my place, they gave me hope, and helped me honour one of the most important people in my life. I’m thankful for everything I’ve learnt during all the writing I’ve done over the last few years. It gave me the ability to compose something meaningful, expressive and true to myself.
My father died in August last year. I wrote this the day after, writing into the depth of night until it was finished.
I wanted to say something at his funeral, but had so little time to prepare. So I drew from a couple of earlier pieces just to get started, then continued to create something new and special just for him.
When it came time to read it at the funeral the next day, I shifted from feeling nervous, to feeling strangely calm and almost confident. I could feel the silence in the room, the quiet attention. It was afterwards when the hearse drove away that I felt that falling feeling, the sense that you could collapse onto your knees and wail. Perhaps if I was somewhere else on my own, I would have done just that, pressed my hands down flat and keened into the earth. But the concrete entrance to the funeral home wasn’t the right place.
I keep having this sense that there is some symbolic ritual that needs to take place. I don’t know what it is, and it hasn’t happened yet. I thought there might be a sign, something that would suggest what I need to do. Perhaps a dream, but in fact, I lost the ability to dream for months. They’re back now, but he hasn’t appeared.
I’m thinking that I need to stop waiting for a sign. He came to me once, many years ago, and I treasure the fact that he re-entered my life. Perhaps this time, I need to come to him, find him somewhere in the bush, in a river, in a garden. I’ll speak to him and thank him for his love. Perhaps then he will visit in a dream, perhaps he needs to feel invited.
©clairegriffin:march2021
untitled – Tuesday 19 December 2017
The sky is pale and grey, not heavy, but flat and low.
The world is shallow, horizontal, with little space to breathe,
except in spaces cleared by flurries of warm wind.
Sparrows visit, fearless, curious thieves,
crumbs disappearing at the speed of flight.
A magpie swoops in, a botanic priest to correct the masses.
The roses are every colour from cream to peach, cerise to ruby,
some freshly opened, some over-blown.
Stopping at the climbing roses,
and drawing a branch close to breathe in the scent,
voices approach, a conversation full of soft “-sh-sh-“
the sounds of the breeze and these dark, blood-red blooms.
***********************************************************
The gates are open, the path reaches on ahead
and down the hill to the city.
Purposeful runners make short work of the distance.
Tourists walk past, looking straight ahead, keeping to the trail,
“you’ll see a lot of them here – this is tattoo country”
but looking down, this forearm is bare, unadorned,
the design resting in imagination,
as does the house of possible ancestors.
The outline sketched in brick, visible across the grass,
sliced in half by the path these people walk on,
oblivious to the souls that made a life here,
the commitments made,
the children born,
the woman who refused to leave
after the death of the man she loved.
***********************************************************
Children cluster on the edge of the hillside,
where the ground falls away through the trees.
They look out over the city,
people they will never meet, lives they will never live.
Names and dates and ages
carved into their homes of stone.
Angels hold the space, but offer little comfort,
wings broken, eyes blind.
***********************************************************
Isabella draws her hand from the water, and stands to leave the pond. The memory of goldfish kisses tingle across the ends of her fingers. She walks past the rose garden, and up and across the brow of the hill, until she reaches the stone door her parents had placed above her small narrow home, the home that was gone now. All she has is the door. From here she steps in and out of the world, watching until sleep calls and she slips through stone into memory, held in the sacred space of love and loss.
She watches the woman. She watches her trace the outline of the cottage with her steps, sees her break a kawakawa branch and place it on the plaque, sees her step back in silence. Sees that the woman feels the disturbance in the soil, feels the loss. And she feels the years collapse around her until they are two women standing on a hillside, two women lost in time.
As the woman turns to leave, Isabella sends a butterfly to brush past her head, and a fat bee to land on the white rose that grows wild nearby. Roses whose work is done, their centres turning brown, dropping their petals to rot untouched into the earth. All is beauty and desolation for the girl who watches, silence for the woman who listens.
*********************************************************
And as this woman turns to leave, she is deep in the silence
these hours without speaking have taken form
and wrapped around her a cloak of pale, thick air
a fog of silence become substance
And as she walks back down the hill to the car
Isabella walks behind her
bees and butterflies in her hair
and on her shoulders
and white rose petals
falling from her hands
©clairegriffin2018
Well, this has taken a long time to resolve!
From first notes made on the day (19 December 2017) until now, this very evening.
I’d tried prose, and being much more literal, then more poetic forms,
until I just stopped looking at it at all a couple of months ago.
Finally (and rather suddenly) tonight, I settled on this.
I’m interested in your impressions – what meanings you take from reading this.
I like the sense of mystery but I wonder if its too obscure. To aide understanding – this is based on notes made during an afternoon at the Wellington Botanic Gardens and the neighbouring Bolton Street Cemetery (see: https://boltoncemetery.org.nz/history/).
Any ideas for a title would be welcomed too 🙂
April
protect yourself
but stay soft in the centre
and reach out past your defences
Thoughts for the start of April, for autumn in NZ.
For all those bravely trying to be true to themselves, speaking, writing, creating, loving the world.
We need to take care of ourselves and be a little cautious, without becoming risk averse, without becoming hardened and cynical.
We need to find ways to please the eye and feed the soul. Ways to warm our hearts and sweeten our words.
To keep reaching out to engage with the world even when it’s tough – that’s the brave thing – the creative act.
Working out how to keep yourself centred and true – that’s the spirit work.
19 December 2017 – notes for a poem – un-named as yet
The sky is pale and grey, not heavy, but flat and low.
The world is shallow, horizontal, with little space to breathe,
except in spaces cleared by flurries of warm wind.
Sparrows visit, fearless, curious thieves,
crumbs disappearing at the speed of flight.
A magpie swoops in, a botanic priest to correct the masses.
A large golden dog steps forward and they take to the air.
The roses are every colour from white to peach, cerise to ruby,
some freshly opened, some over-blown.
Stopping at the climbing roses,
and drawing a branch close to breathe in the perfume,
a conversation approaches, full of soft “-sh-sh-“ sounds,
the sound of the breeze and these dark, blood-red blooms.
This is the beginning of a longer piece based on notes taken on 19 December 2017. Its taken me a while to feel that I’m beginning to understand how this wants to be written. But this feels right, and I’ll persevere with the rest…its not always an easy process.
©clairegriffin2018
EDAFW 11 January 2018
misty cloud hangs low over the hills
the air is cool, and light rain falls
some leaves lie face up
others bend earthward
heavy drops gather at leaf tips
#EveryDayAFewWords
©clairegriffin2018
January – Every Day A Few Words
Over the last few weeks I haven’t been writing very much, and I was beginning to feel a bit worried about this.
But I know part of the reason is that I’ve been more focused on the visual arts recently. I took a few art classes at the end of last year – and I loved it!
I needed to give time to this and find out whether it was just a passing whim, or the start of something new. I’ve worked out that this new learning in drawing and painting is something I want to pursue so that it can become another way to explore my world and to express myself.
And then – thanks to a connection on Instagram and Twitter I was led to Jackie Morris’s suggestion to write a few words every day – just 25 words, no more than 50 – handwritten. She describes this at the end of her January 8 blog post on http://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/blog/more-than-home-from-home/
I’m trying not to stress over how much, or how well, just to write. This feels like both a challenge and an aid. Its all about noticing the world around me and writing a small observation, a reflection.
I started posting my small writings on Twitter and Instagram, but I think they belong here too. I’ll include photos when I can, and who knows – a few drawing and paintings might even start appearing!
I’m happy to use my first “few words” for my January calendar – I’ve been a bit slow getting this year’s calendar off the ground.
reflections on 2017
Sunday 31 December 2017
Thoughts on the past year:
2017 was a busy year at work, the winter was long and wet and gloomy, and this might be part of the reason why I didn’t get as much written as I’d hoped. There were achievements this year, and sadness too, as I said goodbye to my black cat of seventeen years. The arrival of a new ginger and white fluff bundle helps redirect the love.
I’m slowly becoming more confident to read my work to others. The first steps on this journey began at the very end of 2016 in a writing workshop, and then continued into 2017. I began recording my own readings and posting these with some of my writing.
In November and December of 2016 I took part in a writing workshop. I was initially quite nervous once I realised that many of these were people who wrote for a living, people who had been published, and so I saw them as “real writers”, and I wondered whether it was really the group for me. But they were welcoming and encouraging, and I stuck with it. The plan was to gather ideas and information about one particular day, and then we would meet a few days later and write.
We met in a small de-consecrated chapel and wrote quietly for a few hours. My result was in a piece of work that came quickly and fluently, and the form of it surprised me, a hybrid piece, a poem interspersed with brief pieces of prose. It. It was as if I could hear different ‘voices’ taking turns to speak through the poem.
When it came time for us to read our work (if we wanted to), I knew I had to overcome my nervousness. When it came to my turn, my hands were shaking, my voice was breaking, and I stopped and started over, reading right through to the end. It felt like the scariest, most vulnerable thing I’d ever done. Feedback was positive, and I was pleased with myself for sharing it.
But after listening to the others in the group, I realised most people were writing prose, I wondered if I should be doing that. I tried re-writing it completely as prose, but I missed the sound and shapes of the original piece. So I rewrote it again, bringing some of the poetic elements back into the work. We met again early in 2017 after we had all spent time reworking our writing, for further feedback.
I enjoyed this experience of working as part of a group, and beginning to overcome my nervousness in reading aloud. This was also a lesson in trusting myself, and learning not to be too influenced by others. It was a struggle to finish this piece, and it held my attention during the first few months of 2017. I was so engrossed in the initial focus on the moon that I continued working on a series of moon poems “this imaginal space”.
A weekend workshop with a different group in February continued to boost my confidence, with my writing, and provided another opportunity to read aloud in front of at least 50 people. Nervousness was shifting into excitement and I read one piece without hesitation, without fear. I was buzzing afterwards with the joy of it.
In the last few weeks of 2017 I took a series of art classes. I challenged myself to try the thing I’ve always wanted to do but never felt I was any good at – drawing. It was a revelation! I discovered that with the right tutor, techniques modelled and explained, drawing was in fact something I could do. We explored different media, and I fell in love with oil sticks (oil paint in solid form). The visual arts have always held a special place in my heart, and if I can actually create in that form as well I will be a happy woman.
I’ve spent the last two weeks clearing the spare room to make a creative space for writing, for drawing and painting. I’m naturally a bit of a hoarder and I’ve spent hours and hours sorting and throwing things away. I’ve found a few scraps of poems written in past years and buried among receipts and banks statements and other domestic paperwork. One in particular gives me an insight into my feelings all the way back in 2004 (some 13-14 years ago!!!) just a couple of years after I had begun living in my current home. It seemed that I was finding the green I was surrounded with somewhat overwhelming and that I was questioning my ability to describe it. What it did show was my desire to write was surfacing again. Now that very green is at the heart of my work.
I took to Instagram like a fish to water in 2016, and in 2017 it continued to be a source of inspiration and another forum for sharing with the world. A friend is encouraging me to try podcasting or youtube.
I continue to wonder about self publishing, and I’ve explored different layout options including photographs. I’m wondering now whether any of my own artwork will be good enough to include ??
My thanks to everyone who has taken time to read my work here, and for your encouragement and positive comments.
I hope 2018 finds us all well and looking forward to another creative year.
Take care
Claire xx
December
relax, walk, watch the sun set
It’s that time of year – two more weeks of work – then the summer holiday. This is the time of year when I have time to slow down, and reflect. It’s the time of year when I used to explore new ideas, try out new pursuits.
What I’m proudest of this year is that I’ve made time, taken time, for personal interests throughout the year – specially the latter half of this year. I’ve started drawing and learning to paint. I’ve noticed that as I shift into this visual world my writing has gracefully taken a back seat – but I’m sure it’s going to surface again soon.
What I’d love for next year is to find a way to combine paintings and text into artworks that balance both sides of my soul.
invisible necessity 