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| Photo: Natasha Douglas |
Seven Glances at Time
1.
The tock of the wipers
the long rain sliding
the road
unwinding
2.
A view
A haze
A mist
A cloud
A fog
A wall
A wall
3.
Inside a box, coiled tight,
there is all possibility –
blue with stars.
4.
Sometimes the air is so still that even
the clock
stops breathing.
5.
A breath and a breath and a breath
and a breath and
6.
Years unspooling –
the clack of cine film
flicker
you flare
and falter
years ago
7.
The way
minutes pucker the surface.
How, suddenly, my grandmother’s fingers
are holding
this pen.
Sally Douglas
The prompt for this came from Jo Bell, via Twitter (@Jo_Bell). The task was to read Wallace Stevens' poem 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird', and then to look at something else thirteen ways. This was quite a challenge for me because Stevens and his blackbirds seemed to be at my shoulder, whispering all the time! I did write thirteen ways, but decided the whole thing needed cutting back for the sake of the poor reader. If I were to do this exercise again I'd write about something a lot less abstract, but I had the one initial image-based idea (which ironically was one of the bits I cut) and that dictated the subject without me really having a say in the matter.
Not the greatest thing I have ever written, but the point of doing this month of writing was to break the block, so up it goes into the world.
