A poem can start with the sound of water
Falling onto my body
Allow it’s curious wet teeth to sink into my flesh
pulling out chucks of questions to fuel a conversations with myself later
The ability to be present was a luxury my mother never had as she worked 3 jobs with her hands down toilets and grinning at men with keys and brutal tongues
I claim the ability to be present
To allow my yearning for a past
To awaken a future
as I salver my arms and legs with cocoa butter.
After Lubaina Himid
Worn timber, cowrie shells,
currency and shoreline,
you sound like waves
and the creaking hull of death.
I try to imagine, she said, what it would be like to be taken from all that I knew, moving in a stinking wooden vessel over something I knew not what to call but it swallows our bodies whole. See sea, sea see. Propped against a white wall to suggest a wave in motion, the angle of pleasure, as I witness it, from the other side, here and now, I rumble with displaced memories. Memories that traumatise but hold onto me like seeds buried within my hair, bearing into my flesh.
I’ve really enjoyed sharing my love of water over this last month. And this isn’t the end of The Healing Properties of the Seas 2022 project.
Expect more 10 second videos to appear for the rest of the year and beyond.
These clips of seas will be posted on the blog first and then find their way to the portfolio page by and by.
A river takes it own sweet time to reach the sea. Slow and steady it goes. I’ll take my lead from the waters.
Living Wild Studios 