a 3 kg container of grit in a paper bag
reduced to a fine gravel, a white-grey rubble
poured clumsily out onto muddy red earth, along a fence-line of a paddock farmed by father and son
while teenage strangers
shot cans off a log and ride trail bikes around us
a testosterone din
rising up like crows
taking on all the bad feelings, omens, regrets, hurts, violence
and flapping with it around our heads
as we stumble through
this ritual to release the demons.
sometimes you just have to punch the keyboard
pour out the disappointments, frustrations, hurts,
perhaps unintended (but felt)
then press delete
“Magnificent Sadness” has been selected for screening at the American Dance Festival’s Dancing For the Camera, June 23–27 2010 in Durham, North Carolina, USA
we are all in pieces
holding a moment between our fingers
waiting for the kettle to boil
getting dressed when half-asleep
going down a goat trail
running our hands over the deliciously knobbly surfaces
with the taste of forgotten passengers
soft moisture on our faces
being torn away
coming to a place outside time, beyond geography
counting our bones
hearing the light
ghost fingers, invisible touch
lying like a broken puzzle
every move is a message
a tilt is an affirmation
a lift is an invitation
the syntax of gesture is dense
I have coloured in a path
between my heart and my third eye
and it expresses itself up my arm in henna
India is taking me apart and moving through me
I am inhaling the cremated
injesting trails of kin and caste
coated in a dust that’s carrying:
this crumbing temple,
that tilled earth,
hair of camel, defecation of cow, saree sweat, spit, urine, incense, sugar, spice…
it’s all a mixing vapour, moving osmotically through me—
the holy and the horrific
the putrid and the magnificent.
the pilgrims are parading to their pooja
and I’m standing to one side
keeping clear of their faith
side-stepping the decorated corpses
dodging the difficult question—”Why not married?”
the city of Shivas up my spine
om-chanting me into submission,
beaten with bindis, roped by rakhis,
the floral garland a noose around my lonely neck
(to be thrown in the ganga or fed to a cow)
all the hippy foreigners have the sideways head nod and the namaste
a hash pipe in their pocket and the lonely planet in their backpack
my camera is my shield, bouncing back their stares
at this ghostly apparition—the single white woman
she’s striving to be a sacred text
but remains the nursery rhyme
falling off the wall
coming tumbling after
her back is a trappstegsforsen—a staircase of ordeals, sensitive to the touch
she is sitting on a bonfire
and the wives and mothers dance around its base
their hands joined in feminine rite of passage
the flames of traditional expectation lick around her
her words come out scorched, melting her resolve
she is in headstand on the top of the mountain
built on deep layers of watching, listening, teaching, learning, crafting, distilling
it is always a precarious balance
an ongoing aspiration, an individual pursuit
the wind whistles commiserations around her
and in the distance a mob of women carry their families uphill
Reindeer bride ghost
the shaman called her up
she’s eating the forest
and regurgitating the people
Yoko Ono and mountain man’s love child
Arrival in a strange homeunsure of her footing
a nest, a womb, an island
maddening lost moments, regrets, grieving
back to business
sweeping a dirt floor
finding her true path
time for coffee
listening to her ancestors
there was a tsunami
bones became sand
reborn in the wrong skin
a petulant predicament
time to end the discussion and listen