Without thinking too much about it beforehand, I decided on Shrove Tuesday to give up Instagram for Lent, along with a few other things. I wanted a chance to practise restraint, hoping that freeing up some space might leave more room for things I’d rather prioritise.
I’m still keeping my ‘year renga’ but have appreciated the change in pace that not filtering it through social media seems to have brought. Perhaps I’ll always be primarily a pencil and paper kind of writer, thinking at the speed of graphite. But here is the next instalment in digital form – February’s verses to look back on as we enter March and whatever it might bring.
February
hibernating tortoiseshell
waking up too soon
for Imbolc
for Brigid
endings and beginnings
to explain grace requires
a curious hand (Marianne Moore)
in late light
pruning the apple tree
figuring it out as we go
fractal mosaic
of a dragonfly’s wing
in this dream
we are all at once hero
and enemy and saviour
flock of redwings
a shook tablecloth
life never speaks simply
it shows itself in its flower
it hides itself in its roots (Luce Irigaray)
writing in my hut
calling itself Atlas
storm moon and hailstones
I warm myself
at your fire
the year’s first snow
settles on the trees’ north
in the city
a few hours of spring
petals peel back
in the market
for tomorrows
do not stand
in a place of danger
trusting in miracles (Moroccan proverb)
curled against the world
a small white ibis
my driver knows
hardly any English but says
‘We need more water’
the charcoal seller
in his infernal cave
a city lost
between its past
and its future
the best thing about going away
is coming home
50 million years old
seedpod souvenir
from the flame tree (Brachychiton acerifolius)
I admire his blackboard and chalk
keeping track of the bins
as if we were out at sea
the wind’s waves
gusting and toppling us
however far you walk
the road stretches on
I open the front door
onto a wall
of compacted snow
mandala of wood
atlas of the imperilled world
a dead man’s tattoos –
fail we may
sail we must (RIP Andrew Weatherall)
dressed in ceremonial kimonos
they look back from the future
how to translate
all these words
into acts of love?
alone and walking
against the weather
Botanical 