A Bundle of Silent Tantrums
It is, as you know, to sit and expand your view to the enormity of the space. Curated for opulence, you are out of reach. The neurotic individualist sloops down into their polished seat under the invisible thumb, comfortable. Head tilted back to count the endless arching bones. He or She does not come into question but, wow… It’s You. A bundle of silent tantrums encased in plaster and stone. There is a permanence that is broken by hastily touch ups. A drip down your cheek of candy apple red. A tear deeply misconstrued as a wound or maybe so, yet another divine miracle. I depart from the idea of our relationship by a firm pull on my jumper.
It is no longer my tongue, His or Hers, but your tongue collectively and supported by all. We are your voice. It is cogitatio and humiliatio in shining gold. We click our fingers in poetry reading praise at You. You are grotesque. Mutton dressed as lamb, You are reflecting unto me your preservation. Pickled possibly but why?
I should ask You but I’m afraid You will talk back. Your mouth contains more teeth than the surrounding clickers. Oh! how odd it must be, to be Up There or possibly, Down There without your voice, Anthony. Without your salt and vinegar mouth, I know how that feels.
The cats got your tongue, you’ve lost your voice and in shock, your jaw has hit the floor. You’re falling apart Anthony, but at least you’re self-isolating. I leave the echo of my footsteps with You, only to buy a gold-plated replica of your remains. You are with me now, Anthony, placed on my windowsill.
I talk to you and you whisper back, your keys are in your jacket pocket.
~
She was in pain. Pain I had never witnessed before, wild eyes restrained by lids from escaping. I am instructed to go find assistance. Assistance of the purest form. Gold plated, where are you now Anthony? I foraged through the heavy ply of the green carpet. It was spotless, mum must have been cleaning again. There is a place for everything, but its place is not here. Assistance to some is a nuisance to others.
Undisturbed, it was sitting at the snout of the hill, embellished by a rusting tractor tyre, very on trend.
Buttercup yellow, its petals were velvet but not to be touched, not with bare hands. I was warned. I kick the tyre as teardrops fall from the trees above. Your rings aging rust is a tornado of rose. I choke, but your golden petals shine brighter than ever.
You nearly lost me, Anthony.
The ring is thrusted into the river, decanting its minerals and the precious ragwort. She is there. Her fertile belly at one with the rivers rocked edges. The ragwort wraps its stems around her waist turning it a shining gold under the water’s pink hue. She is healing. Her feet are in the flames.
~
It’s feeding time and you can’t eat love or money. Trapped in the realm of grief it is time for release. They gather to the river’s edge to receive. She is returning to the pasture. Ceremonious to some, routine for others, the ritual stands. It is a revisited tradition. A transaction of a different kind.
She rises from the water, cleansed to a pale blue and bestowed with a feather coat that grazed the grass at her ankles. It is a transformation watching her lips grow pink. The irregular nature of this regular crossing spreads through the paddocks. The trees stand taller and the once wooden posts lining the path turn to bone. It is a procession of pageantry.
Where’s your Sunday best?
A pizzicato of the electric wire taught from bone to bone plays as the hound drools a mirrored pool. The procession is reflected as a rubber spine, contorting the land’s physique. It is deviancy, organised chaos in a visual of odds and ends. Pinned to the bones, the effigies of the season are animated in a deathly silence. They procure life and death to live as one. It is a landscape of the time, the future, the imaginative. It is a ritual of the transference from the land to Her, the future She.
I pray to her.
She is a breed, most sought after, like her mothers. The house won’t fall if its bones are strong and She has been training. It is latching to the breast, the heart, the inherited rug. Sore to the eye but soft to your cheek. It is our hidden property, hanging out the washing in a worn out, stripped, apron.
We are closer to the apex and the novelty is wearing off. It will soon be just her.
~
she is sitting on the edge, her feet swinging over the ground, now distant below. she has acclimated to the ritual, a foreign environment to me. An extension from her to you, I was told, which sounded liberating.
To be blessed with eloquence and persuasiveness.
My feathered blanket was more than accommodating. It was a tearful goodbye as it was unfastened, dropping to the floor with the sound of a freshly fluffed cushion.
I’ll see you soon sister.
I sat down on the cold stone blinded by the hair as it cocooned my face. It has come to life at the new altitude, feral and standing on end. She placed her hands on my lower back as I leaned back. I place my weight on her. My sister, mother, aunt. The world has upturned, a new perspective. You can walk on clouds now, child.
My hands meet the chilled surface and is passed to my jaw as I kiss it. I kiss the stone and the blood rushes to my head. My ears begin to ring, the swan song of my youth. This is visceral yet intimate. Am I a woman now?
Am I eloquent here, arching back with the help of my sisters? Was I but a follower, a student, a floating mind to be molded, until now?
Tell me sister, when you bring me back from my green sky, will the world we both know be any different?
It is an unanswered question. One we could only be hopeful for. But you, sister, have been blessed with a flourishing mind, lungs with autonomous tongues and teeth resistant to the stains of lipstick. We, sister, carry our power with us but will never be enameled in gold. Captured in stone we will be timeless and celebrated in grandeur.
My eyes roll in an eternity of questions. The world twists and turns, nature is in hysterics, what way is South? Sweat mixes with tears, streaming over my forehead. The world becomes brighter, a sci-fi novel of inconsistency. A stretch, for the answer. So easy, no? It is stone, permeable with age but not in your time sister, I’m sorry. If only it was so easy.
A heavy hand is placed on my shoulder to stand. It’s time.
~
I draw inward, a line from then to now. I am cold but such a gentlewoman you are, folding the corner of the green carpet over my shoulders. I root in the potter’s field. My nails grow long before me, burrowing into the fertile ground. My spine extends beyond my neck, an out held hand when crossing the road. Creatures are patiently awaiting to nest while my hair plaits its way through my vertebrae. I cast a shadow over my soil covered body. The wet soil dries to clay, a death mask personalised for the occasion. A glorified gargoyle.
I submit myself to time, to the vicious repetition of history, events and processes. This is a collection of relations, objects and fellow sisters. A collection of thoughts, journeys and experiences. I will be to you sister, as Anthony was to me, bestowing my stone hand and spine unto you. We will no longer look down at our toes, sister, but through the small gap in the hedgerows. You will always be collecting, gathering and searching. Curating yourself to be something more than bone, an abundance of colour. You will visit me in the rain later, when my marble is at it shiniest. True to character you’ll panic when the dog cocks his leg on my roots.
But I will laugh, I promise.
Published in Bloomers Magazine, Issue 05, 2020.