Moving through time…
It’s a grey and foggy day, down here by the Willimantic. No traffic on the bridge, no one walking back into the thickets by the river. I’m fortunate that the water’s cold, even this winter when we’ve had no snow and the raging theories of climate change continue to rattle people’s consciousness. Maybe someone will listen. Maybe someone will act.
My shelter is invisible to others. They think I have a hut somewhere, that I’m sitting down in the tall grasses just to watch the ducks or to catch sight of a passing fish. Nothing more to add. I’ve put all the poems in the fire. They burn well, warm the night, stir the clouds, send out signals to the young. Keep your thoughts. Record the passing and pass on the ephemeral. Anyway, I’ve found a new nest down here, lined with thoughts and dreams. Sometimes the rain fills it, spilling silver and gold onto the dirt. Someone might come along before dusk. Walking slowly along the path. It’s narrow, there’s no room to falter. The water is near. Cold tonight, rippling through our veins.
January 1, 2022
The din of conversations streaming by, tires on wet pavement, whistles above the trees, a softening of color, the sky is grey, the sky is gentle blue. It’s time to head up to the café, share a table with someone, ask for hot black tea and a folded roll shining on the plate. It’s a ways to the café, but the wind is calm this morning and I’ll take the canoe as far as I can, then the old blue bike up the road, down the road. I’m dreaming conversations now, words simmering in my veins, hiding in my pockets, curling up in the warm folds of my scarf, knit with milkweed floss and sunlight. The river is sweet today, singing along, the fish somewhere out of sight, the ducks still among the grasses. There’s no ice here, no snow. It’s been raining all month, perfume of melting glaciers, perfume of worry and concern, perfume of images left beside the bed, left beside the fire, the door…the windows are now open so wide they escape, images out in the air, fleeing, flying, they aren’t here anymore, they’ve gone across the Atlantic to see if any fragments remain over there, under there, up where the ice has caught fire and the birds are growing inordinately wild wings to take them out of here, out of this noxious atmosphere, into dreamland and pure-land, into a space made for peace and harmony, where the light is clear and the evening brings us all together.
January 14, 2022
J’écris ce soir pour tirer du néant le soleil de la mort, pour attirer les conséquences désastreuses des grands voyages de l’âme, pour empêcher que tout soit coincé entre le jour qui arrive et celui qui l’a précédé, j’écris pour ouvrir la plaie, pour célébrer le corps exaltant, pour réduire au silence les bagarres de l’esprit, pour inviter quelque chose de difficile à faire son nid dans mon âme, pour empêcher que tout soit une ligne de plus dans un dessin méconnu, j’écris pour établir les profondeurs où toute pensée se noiera, j’écris pour tordre l’arbre magique, pour tirer sur la pierre qui roule hors de contrôle, pour mettre des bouches de bouleaux dans un grand tas de silence, pour risquer le feu qui léchera mon cou, brûlera ma langue, rongera mon ventre, j’écris pour te suivre, présence dont il n’y aura jamais de nom, pour suivre cet indicible et obscur mouvement du corps face à la disparition, face à la confusion cosmique, face aux désastres répétés, aux inondations du territoire humain, aux incendies du cœur qui ne cesse de veiller sur la perte, la ruine, l’indigence, j’écris pour participer à la douleur, pour offrir la main aux autres, pour éviter que tout se désintègre, que les masques tombent sur des braises bleues, sur l’explosion de toute matière, pour rejoindre ce que nous perdons au moment de la naissance, cette intuition des crises à venir, cet instinct de survie qui appartient au sang et aux muscles involontaires, pour retrouver le moment qui précède la naissance, le point nul de toute rencontre humaine, l’instant où tout bascule et le corps redevient passage, déchirure et geste.
La nuit est dense, l’obscurité longue. L’hiver nous apporte des heures de lumière intense, de méditation profonde. Chaque soir nous inventons encore une fois la renaissance du monde. La neige, la glace, tout ce qui gèle et tombe du ciel, tout ce qui est glissant et dur, tout ce qui rend la vie quotidienne difficile nous accompagne pendant quatre longs mois, notre saison de Perséphone, du rameau perdu, de la stérilité et de la perte, mais après le solstice nous retrouvons quelque chose de vert au creux de l’âme, dans les fissures produites par les vents féroces de janvier, juste au moment où tout est perdu, où nous n’avons plus d’espoir, où le chêne et l’érable sont des sentinelles raides et mystérieuses qui bougent par des nuits de froidure extrême, laissant au matin des traces de feuilles éblouissantes, de rameaux luisants et purs, d’ombres bleues et mauves sur la surface des champs, dans les trous du renard, à travers le ciel couvert, dans les rayons du soleil soudainement refécondé par le passage de quelque chose de frais et de fragile, par des ailes de granit libérées, par des ailes de mica en révolution. J’écris ce soir pour retrouver la source du regard, pour célébrer l’âme de l’artiste, la folie de vouloir aimer, de vouloir toucher le monde sans intermédiaires, la nécessité de continuer malgré tout ce qui nous empêche de vivre sans douleur, malgré tout obstacle émotionnel ou spirituel, malgré la monotonie et les obligations nombreuses et les échecs inévitables, malgré le désespoir qui nous accompagne quand nous voyons que les autres subissent des épreuves inimaginables, malgré notre grande impuissance et notre manque de courage, malgré tout, dans la simplicité et la foi de notre condition humaine, nous écrivons tous et toutes pour apprendre à vivre, pour ne pas céder au néant, pour vouloir continuer, pour aimer et célébrer ce qui nous rend vulnérables et ce qui nous permet de vivre, en toute simplicité d’esprit en gardant l’espoir d’un monde meilleur.
Le 28 janvier 2022
Je viens de parler avec l’ermite qui m’a raconté l’histoire de la noyée. Il semble qu’une amie de sa sœur soit tombée dans la rivière Willimantic pendant la nuit de vendredi à samedi. La neige est encore très épaisse sur les rives. Ici et là le soleil a créé des plaques de glace bleu clair. Mais comment reconstruire ce qui s’est passé ? Personne n’a rien vu. Il faut inventer ou faire face à la folie. Ariane rêvait. Elle suivait le murmure des voix inconnues en essayant de traverser la rivière sans entrer dans l’eau. Elle portait des feuilles de chêne, des pages d’un livre trouvé dans la rue près du café. Elle en a parlé avec la sœur. Une ombre est passée près d’elle….celle de la lune noire que personne ne voit sauf par les nuits de neige extrême au moment où tout se dissout et la mémoire est suspendue….Les feuilles de chêne s’embrasaient au moment de son passage; les pages du livre pesaient sur son corps frêle. Le lendemain matin, on a retrouvé une des pages sur laquelle ces mots :
« Je ne vois plus que des cristaux détachés / et tu me dis que tout ce silence autour de nous / n’est que rêve et illusion ».
L’ermite est venu au café vers six heures. Il a passé une nuit blanche sur la petite île de la rivière Willimantic après avoir reçu les nouvelles de son amie. Je lui ai demandé s’il avait un bouquet pour elle. Il m’a répondu, « On n’offre pas des fleurs à l’Inconsolable ».
Le 3 février 2022
It’s hard to concentrate this afternoon. The river is still cold, a skim of ice along the edges. Trees waiting, grasses waiting, fish and birds waiting. People waiting also, listening to the harsh winds blowing in from the east, listening to the percussive repetitions, followed by flames. Listening to voices, cries, moans, outrage and sorrow, love and anger. The world is not green anymore. It’s swaying in the brittle brown wind. But the river is still cold, a skim of ice along the edges. While we wait with the trees, with the grasses, the fish, birds, the clouds, the granular strokes of sun coming down so quickly softly, sparkling on skin, we’ll watch for people coming over the hills, speaking a new tongue, drawing with them the dove’s children, the imperceptible blossoms of the language of love. A courageous procession, not always seen clearly. No baskets, no bags, no chests, just arms filled with the fire of forgiveness and the strength of the trees. Speaking and singing in the blue-rose twilight, in the turquoise clear dawn.
March 4, 2022
There’s muttering down by the shore. I heard the voices clearly even though the pounding rain mutes the words, distorts the pauses between sentences. But it’s not a poem or a prayer. It’s not a person speaking to herself. It’s the rocks communicating to each other, to the sky, the water, the dust, the fires burning thousands of miles away. It’s the rocks speaking about destruction, about the loss of compassion, about hatred and rage. There’s no blood left on the shore. It has dissolved the night scarlet, rendered the noon skies livid. The rocks continue murmuring, muttering, at times raising their voices to a fine-tuned humming that sounds like the wild song of winter, the dance of the vernal equinox, the spinning of the full moon. I’ll wait here awhile, over by the spruce. There’s no one else around. I might try to sing to the rocks, even though my voice is so frail, so hollow. Our song will carry the night away, gild the soul with spruce resin and finely ground mica, our song will staunch the blood flowing onto the ground so many thousand miles away.
March 17, 2022
Moving back into time, shifting focus. It’s autumn again and Lac Massawippi is smooth and cool. The border is open, there is no pandemic, no war in Ukraine, no cauldron of sorrow and despair. The lake is pure this evening. Sitting by time, sitting by the streaking fish, seen as clouds of light under the water. Sitting while the trees light the sun, pull in the moon and stars, while Québec glows in the evening dusk, in the soft and magical haze of love.
April 13, 2022
L’ermite a trouvé une feuille sous les buissons près de la rivière sur laquelle quelqu’un a écrit un poème dont la plupart des vers ont été raturés. Il lisait lentement, en se demandant de qui ces trois vers parlaient:
Restent le silence ombrageux de tes derniers mots
ton cri qui coule à travers nos bouches sèches
l’ardeur de ton corps dans nos bras épuisés et tremblants.
Le 24 avril 2022
Dreaming again, trying to find the threads, the filaments, the slender spaces between memories, words, hands and lips. It’s warm out today, the sky all wild grey and folding over and over. Down by the Willimantic the birds are moving rocks, twigs, leaves. They’re constructing something in the far corner of the island. Uncertain identities. Impossible movements. I’ll take the rocks from someone’s building site; they’ll never know. Everything blasted, torn up, tossed around. It’s granite and quartz, mica and who can label what comes from the depths of the Earth. I’ll put soft light on the rocks, let them sway out of focus, regain territory, leave this divided space. Tonight others will come. No traces, no prints, no scents. The birds are capricious today. They’re not building nests. I think they’re reading again, pitching poems into the water, pulling out stories and fables, scouring the river banks for music. Someone’s walking along the island now. Disappear. Hold your breath. Dreaming again, trying to find the threads, the filaments, the splendor spaces between what we do and what we feel, how we recreate what was half-present, almost-here, slipping into the sun or the moon or some other body that no one has found yet. We’re by ourselves again. The someone has passed by. A few footprints that the wind will erase. The birds followed the someone closely, silent, insistent. Guarding the river banks. There is no path, no way to come and go easily. The someone was trying to find the ruts of an old path, but there aren’t any. Flying, swimming, dreaming….the only way we move around here, holding our breath or singing. The someone will never know, unless a stray poem or melody happens to float by on the early evening wind.
June 2, 2022
L’ermite est parti encore une fois. Il a passé la nuit près de la rivière Willimantic. Il pensait au temps avant les grandes neiges. Il lisait ses cahiers en arrachant des pages sans importance. Le feu grandissait, la chaleur fumeuse rendait la nuit moins froide. On lui a reproché ses silences; il a beau expliqué qu’un ermite ne parle pas souvent, qu’il préfère la nuit cristalline près de la rivière à la chaleur du café, qu’il aime les autres, que le silence ne détruit pas la solidarité. Il écrivait des poèmes dans la simplicité de sa foi et la nécessité de son cœur avide d’un absolu d’amour et de paix.
Le 3 juin 2022
And today in the windy sun that pulls autumn to spring, summer to the lost veins of night, the hermit watches the dead pass by. They are cool and fleet, their blood is like stars, shining all night, burrowing into the dawn with the sweet sigh of young wheat. The dead have many faces, many voices, their forms are elegant and pure. They speak with the west wind crossing the burning continent, the north wind from the still frozen light above, the east wind from the dark green Atlantic, the south wind bringing in the coral flames of the long Caribbean night. They are lost in dreaming, their bodies shine with apple blossoms and grass pollen. They have changed their names to protect the day, calm the night, relieve the long suffering that attended their passing. As they pass the island in the Willimantic where the hermit lives, they leave a trail of feathers and fleece, musical and daunting to decode, their footsteps twinkle like children’s shoes, flashing and gleaming as they cross and cross again, day and night, night and day, unfolding and forgiving what has been given and what has been taken away.
June 18, 2022
Down on the shore yesterday with the hermit. Neither one of us wanted to talk about the wars, the famines, the droughts, the state of the country or of the world. Dazzling photos of of outer space have captured people’s imagination recently. The birth of stars. Passage into something beyond existence. Not a meeting ground, not a void. The mind wanders, as if it had already left the body, attempted the flight, left this planet.
Someone asked if the hermit has a name. Of course. So do I, but it’s not mine. It varies, it depends, it sings off-key, on-tune. Someone gave me a name. I’ve kept a certain register, a certain key, a particular tone. As the hermit has kept an echo of the name given to him.
We didn’t talk about poetry…the Willimantic keeps most poems hidden. Spring thaw reveals a few pages. From time to time the ducks stir up the bottom, mud and paper, tender plants, forgotten words.
A quiet afternoon. The sea was cold, the wind still. Fading into the light. Pulling the stars closer and closer. A word, a phrase, the night hovers, and we depart.
July 14, 2022
Milky skies, dew on parched ground. The mind wanders. The hermit left yesterday, following the Willimantic. I asked him where he was heading. Nowhere special. Somewhere. Not here. Another place. He’s not easy to engage in conversation. Water rippling behind him. I wonder if he sees something different, not the river at all, perhaps a cove from his childhood, or a fragmented image from a recent dream.
August 5, 2020
I spoke with the old people last night, down by the Willimantic. They were just floating along, quietly, steadily making their way down the river. Sparkling water, smooth sky. The hermit was nowhere to be seen. I asked them where he had gone. Somewhere to the north, or maybe to the east. Out on the snowfields, out on the ocean. Vast expanses, almost entirely preserved in the mind, shimmering and glittering, undulating whenever anyone spoke, even hundreds of miles away.
I wondered why the old people hadn’t gone with them. The café is really no great attraction. A cappuccino, a beet green salad, a hint of music somewhere close-by. Maybe they just wanted to see what people were up to; they had lingered far too long at the edge of the woods. It’s something we don’t talk about. Dying and absence, repositioning and forgetting. They’re humming along now so quickly that all I see are blurring colors, a streak of white hair, shining teeth, a smile floating above, and I wonder if the hermit will be back this evening. Or if I will stay here hour after hour, waiting the fires, the snows, the rains that may never return.
August 21, 2022
L’ermite a passé tout l’après-midi hier dans son jardin. La chaleur de septembre lui est bien précieuse. Il a retrouvé les feuilles laissées par des visiteurs…des pages éblouissantes, des pages grises et mornes, des pages simples et franches, des pages aux marges solaires, aux marges lunaires. Il comprend maintenant que l’expression du monde vient des coins qu’on a déjà vus mais pas vraiment contemplés ou regardés de près.
Pages du cahier, relus le 6 septembre 2022
From a very old photo in black and white. Early spring in Québec, on the road down from the Abby. Sky, water, snow, birch, the remains of a fence.
La parole des dieux de la terre, des dieux antiques qui ne révèlent que le mystère qui nous unit. Aucun signe de présence, aucun mouvement. L’esprit y retrouve son équilibre.
Filtering through the day. Hours dimming. The slightest stirring in the woods.
La lenteur grandit, le corps absorbe le blanc, le gris, l’intensité et cette neige qui vient de loin.
No one else on the road. Frozen dirt, ice. It bends around the fields, descends down to the lake. Eternal lake hollowed out of the sun.
Cet hiver radieux qui nourrit le sang et le cerveau, hiver éternellement présent, bénédiction et cercueil.
September 19, 2022
Dans les montagnes les gens attendent les dernières migrations. Les oiseaux sont déjà partis. Il ne reste que les esprits qui partiront par une nuit froide et claire ou au cœur du matin au moment où le givre fond et les dernières fleurs brillent. L’ermite reçoit des nouvelles tristes. Il les met dans son canoë et passe toute la journée sur la rivière. À la tombée de la nuit il revient à son île, fait un feu sur la rive et attend.
Le 22 octobre 2022
It’s time to hunker down and watch the ducks pass overhead. They cast luminous shadows, almost rainbow streaks, the kind of shimmering, shining that children see after it rains. No one else sees this. It haunts the eyes, slows the heart down, softens the gaze. A feather or two filter through the air. They’re like wisps of smoke, almost white, not quite grey. And the hermit is already sitting on the river bank, holding a book, the eternal cup of black tea, laced with honey. The evening is short this time of the year. Chorus of geese somewhere in the distance. It’s chilly here late in the day. Sky flushed behind the branches. Are there poems in the water, or have they been snagged up by the bridge? It’s a simple bridge, not too stable. It seems to float and sway with the wind, the sun, the evening coolness. Some people think it comes and goes, that it isn’t always there or here. It waits for the wind from the west, for the blue luster that comes before the snow.
All Hallow Even 2022
Je suis descendu des collines. La rivière encore sinueuse, sans glace. La plage est fraîche. Il n’y a personne car c’est la nuit et la nuit il n’y a que des étoiles et des esprits, des fantômes ou des poissons curieux, c’est impossible de savoir qui habite la plage la nuit. Je n’ai pas de cahier avec moi. Inutile d’écrire….j’écoute, les oreilles gelées, le nez presque translucide…des sons viennent des vagues, des bruits derrière les buissons, une sorte de mélodie éphémère se lève…j’écoute, les cheveux givrés, les yeux noirs et calmes. C’est la nuit du Solstice et on dit que la lumière sort de son antre et danse avec les esprits courageux.
Le 21 décembre 2022
Darkness. A light in the window across the street. Perhaps in the living room, perhaps in the tiny hall where they usually put their daffodil bulbs. It’s cold in their house and drafty. Someone always leaving a window open, sometimes upstairs in the hall, sometimes in the kitchen when the stove burns too hot and it’s hard to keep working. I’ve often wondered about the people in that house. Shadows at dusk returning. Returning? Perhaps from work or school, or perhaps just returning. It’s an enigma. Flutter of laughter, tiny pinpricks of light on the walk. Light from where? They’re not carrying flashlights or torches, or candles, as my daughter suggests. Yes, a daughter who lives not too far from the Willimantic. She’s discrete and I never talk about her. Silver darkness now. Skipping backwards towards the light in the window across the street. It’s a street most people have never seen, a light that comes and goes, shadows that return, and the flutter of evening laughter.
December 29, 2022
De la neige, de la neige, je cherche la neige, elle se cache, elle s’en fuit, elle disparaît sous la pluie. Elle perd ses couleurs, le bleu de ses yeux, le turquoise de son cœur, le vert foncé de ses poumons. Et la blancheur revient pendant la nuit, blancheur de sang et de boue, blancheur de rêve et de frustration. La quête n’aura pas de fin; les banquises ne sont plus, les tempêtes s’écrasent entre les bras des coraux blessés. Des goûtes de sang sur les lèvres des poètes, sur le visage des témoins. De la neige, de la neige, je cherche la neige, dans toute sa splendeur sauvage et impeccable.
Le 12 janvier 2023
A quiet morning, waiting for snow, watching the birds and the red squirrel come and go. The field is bare, brown-gold and muddy. Seagulls sudden and swift. Maybe the ocean has advanced during the night, maybe one of my dreams has escaped morning vigilance and moved out into field. I spoke with my sister last night; she was tired from moving rocks and boring out stumps. The wall grows slowly, wobbling along the back field. I told her maybe we should meet next week, have a cappuccino and a slice of poppy-seeded lemon poundcake. She thought we could spend the night on the island; it’s been a long time since she was there, wandering through the night with her peculiar gait, shivering in the cold winter air, an old army blanket loosely wrapped around her. She remembered sitting by the fire on the far shore at dawn, a dream fire whose flames probed the darkness.
January 19, 2023
Des reflets que j’ai longtemps cherchés, souvent au cœur de la nuit. Des fragments du jour, mais toujours hors de contexte. Longtemps j’ai cherché des visages dans la neige absente, dans les nuages descendus trop vite. Et des reflets des pensées, souvent à midi quand le soleil se souvient de ses brûlures et la peau ne peut qu’absorber des étincelles.
Ma sœur a trouvé des oiseaux aux profondeurs de la nuit. Des poèmes de sang et de bec, des poèmes en musique et en couleur. Je n’ai trouvé que des déchirures invisibles dans les fibres de chaque page qu’elle me montre.
Le soir nous voyons des plumes flotter sur l’eau, des plumes de toutes les couleurs, de petites plumes duveteuses, souvenirs des rêves les plus paisibles.
Le 2 février 2023
Dreaming. Day and night. Clouds vanishing. The pond still frozen and black streaked. The Old Ones are off again. They left behind a skein of bright green wool. Weaving the fates, weaving time, the loose ends dangling. We tried to retrace their route. Along the river bank, across the meadow. Along the road, across the orchard. Fish scales gleaming. They didn’t cover their tracks; they didn’t leave any. We’re searching for clues of passage; there aren’t any. They went off again, leaving behind a skein of bright green wool. I’ve lit a fire on the river bank, down where the bayous begin. The water there is always dark, luxuriantly tinted. Waiting for the Old Ones, for the ice to melt, for the sun to sear and burn, cauterize and inflame. Copper clouds, blue crystals falling slowly. Broth from the moon’s shadow, from the slender green grasses left behind.
February 19, 2023
Des pages retrouvées dans la remise.
The hermit went back down to the river, with a sack of clementines, a tin of translucent green tea, a tin of pungent black tea, a tin of dark, fragrant coffee, and a new notebook. I gave him the scarf his sister made; it’s thick and woolly and smells like sheep. She took off for the mountains last night and left a pile of things for us to distribute. He’s already given the two sweaters to the wandering child of Furnace Brook and to the ancient person who lives above the river. Peanuts for the crows, corn for the jays. Torn sheets from some attic notebook…off on the wind…skittering across the ice…caught on the park bench near the café. I told him, “Light a fire tonight, snow’s coming, freezing rain’s coming.” The birds will have all gone in; no one will cross the narrow bridge down by the tracks. It’s an old story and one we always share. There’s no beginning, no ending, only a vast and marvelous middle that stretches and stretches and stretches.
28.II.2023
La semaine passée je n’ai pas vu l’ermite. La rivière après les grandes pluies avait des courants dangereux. L’ermite est resté sur l’île, celle qu’on ne peut pas voir du pont. J’avais l’impression bizarre d’une fermeture, d’une rupture. Sur la surface, rien de différent. Le ciel laiteux, l’air lourd. Le petit marché des fleurs était ouvert, les chevaux de la fille inconnue dans les champs. Mais une voix me manquait ; une résonance que je n’ai jamais identifiée tremblait aux marges de la conscience.
Souvenirs du passé.
Silence under the snow. Spring wavering in the blood. The trees have all shed their bones, healed the long wounds from summer. I’ve put the leaves glistening and the leaves fluttering and the leaves amber scented and gold, near the shed, near the river, near the thin stream that flows all the way down across the hills, the leaves fluttering, the leaves golden-black and bronze, when silence under the snow and spring wavering in the blood, all the trees moving around again, moving up into the soil again, up into the rock again, sun creasing the bark, and I’ve put the last crystalline shades of winter on the gleaming mirror, on the snowy silence of long dormant blood.
March 18, 2023
Silence. Passage. Reconnaissance.
Ariane perd son fil, laisse entrer la nuit.
Le 20 mars 2023
Conversations with the hermit…someone said the hermit rarely speaks….often sits on the bank of the Willimantic, watching the wind, the water, the whiteness overspreading the sky. People rarely leave the road. Narrow, barely paved. It’s impossible to see the hermit from the road. The great meadows of the Willimantic are beyond the fragile copse along the road. They stretch and stretch, often slip into the sky. Gold-brown, fibrous. Waiting for ducks, snakes, the fleeting fish that wind through the meanders. I asked the hermit if anything was different this spring. Maybe the light, maybe the cataclysmic news from everywhere? No, the light still bends around us, the news has the blackened bronze weight of centuries. Perhaps my sister will come by tonight, perhaps the old ones, or it may snow the delicate wildness of April, the fluted melody of the Earth on fire.
April 1, 2023
Crossing time, wondering if ten years have changed the landscape, creased or wrinkled the flow of the light. A simple snapshot from a chalet on the shore. Black flies hovering in the fields down the road. Menacing names to the headland that dominates the farms. Narrow crescent of land. Salt stings. Herons, black ducks, the shimmer of fish. Rippling rocks. The hermit washed the stoop, hung out his shirt and pants. Heavy wind, searing sun. Inversion of the expected. A cool wind from the past. The only communication in the evenings, while the fire brightens the heart. Murmuring at the edge of the visible. Never a letter or a call, never a postcard or a text. The moon rises swiftly. Crossing time. Night comes, night recedes. Stirring in the shore trees, the whisper of a song.
May 3, 2023
Heat moving in. Smoke from the Alberta wildfires continues. The hermit found a place to read. A few poems, a newspaper (published at some unknown date in some forgotten place, a haunting crease in time), and a letter written in pencil, the corners soft and worn. Paper fibers and the light from eyes and heart.
May 28, 2023
Des rêves profonds. Des banquises, des bois, des passages indéchiffrables. Un message de nulle part. Le chemin change de direction, de saison. J’entends une voix distincte. Mais de qui ? La tonalité des lunes invisibles. Ma gorge est sèche. Quelque chose déchire le rêve. La conscience de la neige, de l’eau, du vent. Reste le silence autour de tout. Reste le passage des fantômes, guides instables dans le labyrinthe du rêve. Des secousses, des cris. C’est une sculpture au bord de l’eau. Tête d’oiseau, corps en plumes de nuit. Le rêve fait des plis dans les chambres du cœur, enlève la compréhension et l’harmonie. Le goût des incendies dans la toundra, des incendies dans les champs de fleurs au sud, les brûlures dans le cerveau du songe. L’éveil sans cicatrices. Des banquises, des bois, des passages indéchiffrables.
Le 19 juin 2023
The Willimantic flooded the other week, took the road out, surrounded the trees. No passage, no detour, just water. Flowing water with leaves and bark and fish scales, flowing water with glistening words, illuminated with the sky’s intense desire. Leaving the bed of the river to follow the rain arc, the subtle confluence of imagination and meteorological lore. There was some chatter in the café about trying to get down to the island, but someone said (eternal someone who knows all) that the meanders had been submerged and the high fields were no longer visible, not covered by the rambunctious river but by low, dense clouds, swinging in off the sea. Blue-grey, cotton clouds, hooked on the tall grasses. I didn’t contribute to the discussion. I wasn’t there; I hadn’t left the island.
Les vieux sont revenus hier soir. Personne ne les a accompagnés cette fois. Ils ont trouvé le canot de l’ermite près du pont. Passage tranquille, l’eau sans rides. La rivière est paresseuse près de l’île. Il y a de petits poissons dorés près des rives. L’histoire des vieux est compliquée; il s’agit des voyages interminables, des traversées, des pérégrinations, des séjours, des jours et des nuits suspendus, sans repères. Ils n’en parlent jamais. L’ermite a trouvé une photo sur la rive. Image indistincte, floue. Un temple antique? Une auberge? Deux figures près d’une grande porte en pierre. Le paysage ne ressemble à aucun paysage terrestre. Où sont-ils? Pourquoi une photo de cet endroit? Les vieux ne parlent jamais des mystères de leur vie.
Le 24 juillet 2023
Someone took the roads apart again, pried off the corners, crumpled the edges. Silver birds hovering, fish gleaming in the shallows. Storms at night up and down the coast. A smoky fire on the far end of the island, where the old ones had camped. Lemon peels, a Spanish olive pit, shrimp shells. The shimmer of a chilled glass. These reflections seem suspended above the water. The hermit hadn’t mentioned any strange occurrence. Mirages are frequent here, inverted reflections, sunset colors at noon. I followed the stream in, the current was slack, the water low. The gentle murmur of voices. Beyond the trees, up in the fields. Shadows flickering. A wash of color, gentle ice-blue, mellow beige. The storms have passed by us, although the air is dense and dark. I’ll leave a message in the usual place. Perhaps the old ones will look for some sign of my passage. They never linger and night here falls amber-close and swift.
August 29, 2023
Ils sont partis sans rien dire. Il neige doucement sur le mystère de leur départ. Le lynx dort, les oiseaux se taisent. Immobilité. Les feuilles collées aux nuages. Un arbre pousse lentement à l’intérieur du corps. Corps de terre et de cristal, corps de pierre et de roseau. On me demande si je les ai vus avant leur disparition. Le regard ailleurs, je n’ai rien vu. Leurs pas feutrés, des silhouettes minces et élégantes. Une bouteille de vin, une tasse à café, une couverture en laine soyeuse. Les oiseaux les ont accompagnés jusqu’au petit lac, à la frontière entre l’été et l’hiver. Aucun message. Un soleil radieux au-dessus de la neige éternelle.
Le 15 octobre 2023
Thanksgiving Day, 2023. Cold sun and wind. Snow on the cut cornfield, the mowed hayfield. Hoarfrost early this morning when only the crows and jays were out. The old ones have already left the island, moved back towards the sea. Cascades of Japanese maple leaves, coming from an unknown source. There are no dark red trees on the island. Only grasses, thickets, an occasional oak sapling. I heard the old ones took nothing with them this time. Left nothing behind. An enigma that even the hermit couldn’t explain. There are no solutions to mysteries. That goes without saying. I’ll head down to the water now, under the steel sun, the north wind, the absence of leaves.
Gathering all the solar energy possible, sliding the moon into position so we can see better, feel more completely, touch the lode stone of grief, the silent rivers that flow all through damaged lands, that fertilize with fire and cleanse as we turn around quietly, gathering love from those committed to living without hatred, from those whose grief spills over and leaves us trembling on the brink of comprehension, trembling because we are beyond sight and touch, beyond the stasis of disbelief, winding our way back onto the glowing soil, into the shimmering seas, holding hearts and eyes, cherishing the vanishing darkness, the vast and blinding light before us.
December 22, 2023
The old ones are over at the café again. Cappuccino and pastries. They’ll be there all morning. It’s snug inside the café, many people coming and going, the door swinging open, closing, the windows steaming up. I asked the hermit if he was going to join them. Maybe. Perhaps. If it isn’t too long a walk. I told him that’s odd, that you say that, the walk hasn’t changed. Have you slept poorly? Are you afraid that the old ones will have already gone? Left the café the same way they came…Down in the meanders of the Willimantic, down where the ducks swim and the banks are thick…down where the air is rose and gold in the late afternoon, smooth and dark when the stars come out. He said, you’re right, I saw many things in my sleep and my legs grew tired, and my heart weak.
January 24, 2024
A bouquet of field daisies left by the water in a vase of light shifting with the day. The wild rose grows in the cracks of the wind while we sleep in the dark, cool night, and the old ones spin another dream, out beyond the island, out beyond the fissures of the day, the seams of the night, and they carry their gods out into the void, singing with the rising moon, calling back to the daisies, shouting over our silence and ignorance as the night slowly and the day softly.
February 14, 2024
Je reviens à l’essentiel. Sang et feuille, eau et épinette. Il n’y a aucune trace de toi aujourd’hui. Disparu. Absent. Des souches carbonisées, des nuages collés aux buissons. La rivière un fil d’argent. Immobilisée sans toi. Les rives détachées. Aucun chemin ne reste. Tu es loin d’ici ou trop proche. Impossible de te voir, de te sentir, de te toucher en rêve.
Il a neigé pendant la nuit. Neige d’enfance, neige d’oubli. J’ai dormi par intermittence. Je ne rêve plus. Les images sont collées aux paupières. Chaque battement les rend imparfaites. Des feuilles détachées, des tiges, des pétales de voix. De la chaleur flottant au-dessus de nous. Passage étroit pour laisser entrer les étoiles. Dans la nuit, dans mon âme, dans ton absence.
Le 24 février 2024
Very slowly now, moving along the river. Sinuous, beige-gold. It’s early spring and the snow never came. Glistening waters, the island firm. Joshua’s woods or perhaps someone else’s land. A narrow trail through the alder thickets. There is no longer any question of the hermit. A period of withdrawal, solitude. Tropical winds in the beech, a turquoise green sea rising too quickly, cutting off the snow. Sharp divisions in March. The café is closed. The old ones have left, perhaps for good, perhaps only for a while. Off to Paris or London, to the dream capsule of memory. Canterbury in the moonlight. The heath on a dark afternoon. Crown of kings somewhere in St-Denis. A forgotten gospel, pages worn, corners missing or chipped. The wind is high today. Maybe the snow will be turquoise green tonight, the Seine gold, the cathedral spires luminous, pulling the stars around the mind, letting the moon descend. Maybe the old ones will say something about their travels, maybe they’ll let the wind speak for itself.
March 30, 2024
Ça fait longtemps depuis ta dernière conversation avec l’ermite. Il y en a qui disent qu’il est mort, enseveli sous la neige. Tête blanche, organes transparents. Les oiseaux apprécient ses silences, son manque d’attention, sa présence invisible et constante. Ils ont transporté sa dépouille jusqu’à la rivière. Des flammes s’élevaient sur la glace, couverte de jeunes feuilles, de cailloux bleu-vert. Pas de bruit, pas de couleur. On a déchiré le ciel pour voir plus clair. D’autres refusent d’accepter sa disparition. On raconte qu’il est allé voir les vieux, comme autrefois quand ils vivaient plus près. Il ne s’agit pas de fantômes. Les vieux ne sont jamais partis. Leurs cheveux blancs, leurs visages radieux. Cette façon de composer le jour, de vivre la nuit tendrement. Et la voix qui monte de derrière le vent, dans la houle d’hiver au moment où le soleil se dissout et le silence est cristallin.
Le 9 juin 2024
The hermit’s down by the creek, washing out the rain, folding the sun over and over, like a soft helium flag, the light splashing out at the edges. Snow here has wrinkles. pits, creases. Sometimes it has marbled pebbles and flat blue-grey shale. The creek’s far from the Willimantic, and it’s not clear why the hermit decided to leave his tiny island. The creek is brown in summer, frozen in winter, even with the sudden upsurge in heat that singes the banks in August. It’s raining ice by the creek today, flashing flares and the sound of multiple voices singing off key. he told the old ones to stay home, the journey would be too strenuous, crossing all those years, absorbing the vast changes in landscape, scraping the floor of memory, dissolving all dreams and illusions. It’s a wild crossing, unmarked although not uncharted. The hermit promised to bring back a mauve thunderhead, a glistening cornfield, the delicate strands of water hidden in Niagara’s depths. He couldn’t tell them that he might not be back for a long time, that he had thought of living by the creek for a while to cure his pain, to reduce the trembling, the uneasy certainty that what was ephemeral could always be with him.
July 16, 2024
En deuil sans parler de l’absence ni révéler les circonstances de cette perte. L’ermite reste aujourd’hui sur l’île. Dès l’aube il attendait, observant les bras de la rivière Willimantic, la descente lente et paisible de la rivière. Le refuge des oiseaux. Petit royaume invisible. La lumière versée par son cœur était de la couleur des arcs-en-ciel. Absorbée par la rivière, emportée par les libellules. Près des jeunes chênes il trouva des cercles dans la poussière. Des signes sur le lieu magique, comme à l’entrée des Enfers. Sans guide, les portes, fermées par des racines solaires, restaient fermées. Le souvenir des pluies fortes de novembre le frappa. Elle était sortie sous la pluie, apportant un panier de bijoux– des perles, des émeraudes, des citrines– recouverts de soie gris pâle, presque argentée. Une soie de Thaïlande, raffinée, élégante. Le soir, elle est revenue, deux colombes blanches dans le panier, roucoulant, murmurant. Midi, la lumière disparue. L’ermite descendit vers l’eau, l’ombre de sa voix chantant parmi les roseaux.
Le 3 septembre 2024
Maybe I’d better stop talking about the hermit. No one has any real interest in a fictitious fellow of indeterminant age who lives on an odd little island in the back waters of the Willimantic River. It’s not a high-class river; it’s an independent river with many tributaries and beautiful gold meadows. It twists and turns, grows more and more narrow until the banks are only a duck-paddle away. The hermit has a sister and is good friends with two phantom old people. They come and go, appear, disappear, fade, emerge. No one understands who they are. The hermit knows, of course, and he never tries to anticipate their arrivals and departures. The café was a meeting place, but it has long since morphed into a gentrified space. The mills are sturdy, the graffiti clear. The hermit is not a sage, not a Zen master nor a guru. His sister lends him books from time to time, and he buys notebooks at the Shell station several miles away. The old people come with wine and cheese, sometimes the fixings for martinis. He keeps the green olives in a jar in the river. Music all day, conversation all evening until the light fades and fades and the island slips back into some other space. Long forgotten tales lie on its banks, softened with duck feathers, cushioned with the dried fleece of milkweed. It’s a long night without the hermit, the sister, the old people. Moving back and forth between dream and reality, although everyone accepts that the only reality is a dream.
September 7, 2024
An instant. Crossed the bridge, left the river. The rearview mirror opaque. Strands of snow on the windshield. But it’s sunny today. Impossible music still throbbing, down by the bridge, across the river, up on the smallest island. There’s no one there. The old people left for Canterbury; the hermit slipped away. There is a connection, although people hesitate to articulate just what that might be. On the radio, insistent commentary. Burning the Earth, counting the crimes, the outrageous inequities, invoking the Specter that carries no shield, no flag, no emblem. A lone figure crosses the screen. A figment of the imagination, or the residue of straining to find even the slightest movement towards hope, compassion, understanding. The bridge won’t stand much longer; the river is dry, waiting for the great snows of a hundred years ago. The old people are living in a phantom tower, surrounded by ancient trees; the hermit left his old, red sweater on the island’s far end, pledge that he will return, when the sun showers the river and the ghosts of the ancient bell towers return.
November 18, 2024
Des vents froids. L’ermite partit vers les montagnes, laissant dans son abri des mandarines, du fromage et une bouteille de Sancerre pour les Vieux. La cabane n’est jamais froide, elle absorbe l’énergie du soleil, mais il n’est certain que les Vieux viennent par ce temps glacial. Ils s’arrêtent souvent au café pour prendre un thé et une soupe, puis dès la nuit tombée, ils retournent dans la Baie. Leur chemin est mystérieux ; on dit qu’ils préfèrent suivre les hautes prairies de la rivière Willimantic, mais personne n’a vu que leurs ombres dans les nuages.
Que le feu éteint de leurs jours demeure, et les couleurs flamboyantes de leurs nuits. La neige est plus douce après la mort, le ciel d’une beauté infinie.
Le 14 février 2025
L’ermite est revenu hier sans prévenir ses amis. Nous savons que le café a été détruit une nuit de bombardement alors que personne ne veillait au bord de la rivière. Ils ont emporté les fleurs et les lampes, les micros de vendredi soir et la machine à cappuccino. La police est arrivée en retard, sirènes bruyantes, gyrophares allumés. La nuit rouge, la nuit bleue. Il n’a rien dit, les photographies témoignaient son désarroi. Très tôt le lendemain matin il est allé à la plage. L’eau salée a effacé les images, apaisé la douleur. L’ombre des Anciens, le son des voix lointaines.
Le 9 mai 2025
The hermit invited his sister to come work in the garden with him. She gently reminded him that he didn’t have a garden, that the island’s animals would devour any turnips, kohlrabi, and sweet peas he planted. He said he didn’t care and that he was going to put a trellis along the south end of the meadow, where the old shed had been. He asked her to bring some letter paper and ink. She had some paper made from banana fibers and a few sheets with pressed flower petals and stems. It makes for bumpy writing, he said, but letters carry more than words. They put in three rows of peas, four of turnips, and two of kohlrabi and hung the letters on the trellis to dry in the sun. They were tired from working so he made a pot of tea and some ginger biscuits. He asked her if she had seen the Old Ones recently, and she said they’re here now, over by the trellis, keeping watch. They won’t stay all night; dawn will find the meadow perfumed with their departure.
May 11, 2025
The hermit’s dead, you know, it’s been months since anyone has seen him. Not even his sister or the café folk. Someone went over to the island to see if he was around. No trace of anyone or anything. It was as if he had never been there. The river was cold that day, grey sky, cutting wind. Someone tried to pick up the ripples in the water, gather some of the tall grasses. Fading into the twilight. The sun flickered for several hours. At the café everyone learned that there had been no trace of anyone or anything. His sister refused to comment. The day had been long. She closed her sketchbook, left the room. It’s been months now since someone went over to the island. No one has seen the Old Ones or heard anything about them, either. It isn’t a mystery, really, just a fact. The hermit is dead and the Old Ones are no longer with him.
August 10, 2025
Chaque pensée comme un caillou bleu pâle ou gris. Quelque chose d’abandonné dans un champ en friche. Elle s’y enfonce sans rien perturber ; les liens sont subtils entre ce qui est et ce qui n’est plus. Aucune nostalgie n’accompagne cette pensée. C’est une goutte d’eau hors contexte.
Il a neigé pendant la nuit. Neige d’enfance, neige d’oubli. J’ai dormi par intermittence. Je ne rêve plus. Les images sont collées à mes paupières. Chaque battement les rend imparfaites. Des feuilles détachées, des tiges, des pétales de voix. De la chaleur flottant au-dessus de nous. Passage étroit pour laisser entrer les étoiles. Dans la nuit, dans mon âme, dans ton absence.
Osiris Poetry 