Posts tagged writing

jvpurcell:

I will fill a suitcase with my favourite stones, hide leaves between the pages of my books, line my sleeves with grain. I will carry a bouquet of twigs from the pine trees I grew up beside. I will call a murder of crows, a host of sparrows, a parliament of owls and when I get to you we will all build a tiny shack in a small corner of your land. We’ll build a strong foundation of rock I love, thatch a roof with straw and stick and there will be my Northern Place. And I would do that, trade all of it to touch your neck, trade the grasslands for your morning hair, the autumn wind for your voice. I would do that because there’s a part of home that matters more, that could be here but isn’t. It’s that you breathe. It’s that you live.

jvpurcell:

I try to write but then I cross it all out in heavy pen strokes, filling my page in shiny oily trenches that swallow up everything that I want to say. I hold the delete key down, re-whiting everything, rewriting everything and deleting it again.

I try to write. I even try saying the words aloud first. They’re in my mind but the translating of it becomes so terrible, such a struggle. The words sit in my mind, in my mouth, between my teeth and under my tongue and unreachable.

Damn.

Who do I pull against when
when the sky laps around my feet
and the sea whispers

dark and spinning and so far
from here? Who do I push against when
the sky grows through me?

What do I make these chains of?
What do I shackle myself to, to
be secured, captive,

all at once ocean and cloud?
Not a floor, no, not a tree in sight
but landlocked truly.