The Hawk Corner Room 11:42am
The Time is Month !4!
since I cleared My Head
— a grey day in The Newest
Autumn of My Life
I can see The Particles
of Air
as I did when I was A Child
when I discussed this phenomenon
with An Isolated Friend
Who became
Our Valedictorian
The Hawk Kitchen Outpost 7:28am
The Sun Is Following Me —
EYE used to see It rise
@ 5:00 o’clock in the morning
when I first escaped from Olanzapine
when I heard The Rooster @ 6:00
and The Cow Bird kept Me company —
now I have The Sun again
after three full nights in a row
of sleep —
I got up after 7:00
and there It was
out My Kitchen Window
lining the clouds on the horizon
with Its pearly gold
of enchantment
and after I looked @ My Watch
That Old Familiar Spark Appeared
and grew into My Friend
The Tomato-coloured Couch 11:42am
EYE Know An Old Woman
Who Lives In The Shoes
Of Her Dead Husband
As My Mother Used To Do —
My Mother Kept Her Stash
Underneath Her Wood-burning Stove
And Could Never Bring Her Self
To Mail Them
Back To Her Departed Love
The Hawk Deck 8:49am
I love My Corny Apparition
of A Rainbow
in My Coffee Cup
seen only as I drink
— I checked to see where
It was coming from
and as I nod My Head
The Delightful Glitter
zooms through The Refraction
of My Eye-wear
as I stand in The Eastern Sun
The Hawk En-suite Bath 9:26pm
I have My Daughter even though
I drove Her to the airport
through new autumn foliage —
I have My Daughter
Adult Female
as She pressed that button
on Her do-it-yourself
flight registry
She cried
when We hugged Good-bye
I think because
She never had Me
The Hawk Queen Bed 4:25am
She greeted Me in ruffled satin
lavender and sleeveless
as She signed Her Self out
so We could sit outside
looking at the harbour
with tea and coffee
and the blue sky
where a flock of geese flew in V formation —
She pointed to where She had been injected
on Her Hip
for a thirty-day stint
of a medication She could not pronounce
and mentioned how The Head Psychiatrist
had called Her Name
and asked Her if She had worked
on a puzzle today —
back inside
She ate pink salmon and dill
for supper
and pointed to Her Self-cut Hair-do
Her Raven Hair
to say the fish was good
for Her Brain —
an oral dose of Seroquel
was brought to Her at the table
and My Beautiful Friend
choked it down
while The Nurse said
“It’s Your After Dinner
Mint.”
THE COAST GUARD, Shelburne, N.S., Tuesday, July 20th, 1993 — 1B
SATELLITE ART FOR EXTRATERRESTRIALS
by Harold Hart
Joanna Hyde of Shelburne has
been busy recently in her back-
yard painting the design of a four-
teen point maple leaf on a huge
40 by 30 foot map of Canada.
–
The fourteen points mark loca-
tions in Labrador and Quebec
where Hyde would like to position
light reflecting surfaces to reflect
star-like points of light in the out-
line of a maple leaf into outer
space.
–
The large map arrived in Shel-
burne from Ottawa on May 17
where it had been hanging on an
outside wall of the National Arts
Centre. It was put there by the
Canadian Conference of the Arts
earlier in the year in an effort to
pressure the Federal Govern-
ment to stop cutting funding for
arts programs. It remained there
until the April 26 budget was
passed.
–
Joanna learned about the map
from an article in The Chronicle
Herald. Being interested in what
is called public art – the kind of
art which is large and displayed
outdoors – Joanna decided she
wanted the map. She contacted
the coordinator of the Canadian
Conference of the Arts and was
told she could have the map if she
would pay the shipping charges.
Joanna agreed and wound up the
new owner for just less than two
hundred dollars.
–
The map consists of twelve sec-
tions that were circulated to
more than 150 art galleries,
theatres, and schools in each
province where signatures were
affixed to protest government
funding cutbacks for the arts.
Once joined together the pieces
make a huge map of the country
with more than 400,000 signatures
appearing on it…
–
“Well, what is its weight?”
“Oh, it’s Dead Weight.”
“That’s OK. I just cremated
My Mother —
She didn’t weigh very much.”
–
After She painted Her 14-point Maple Leaf
Joanna lay down
and almost died.
She almost died
for years and years.
Long after one husband
cut up the map for tarps
to cover wood piles
at Her First Marital Home
Joanna revived eventually
on poetry and bird song
to find in the Summer of 2016
the abandoned map sections —
one with moss and ferns growing
out of it —
With the help of Her Adult Children
She retrieved three surviving pieces
of The Giant “Ties That Bind”
and dragged them across the county
to The East Side of Her Hawk House.
She laid them out
busy in Her Back Yard
hosing and scrubbing a 23-year build up
of Nova Scotia’s Forested Fate
stained and distressed
front and back
to dry in the sun
with the help of a couple of old towels —
not Her Grey One —
there was left no semblance of the configuration
of Canada — only the ghost
of a few red lines
a few patches of indelible signatures
and one partial strip of big black letters
along what must have been
the bottom — in English and French:
“…FUNDING FOR ARTS AND CULTURE”
–
She arranged the pieces
some still edged by sturdy grommets —
into what became a nearly perfect square
measuring 27 feet by 23.5 feet:
She had Her Canvas.
She would paint on the BACK.
She folded up the three sections
and with the help of Her Second Husband
She piled Them onto the floor
of The Hawk Utility Room —
the floor She had been using
for Her Most Recent Paintings
and as She writes, She thinks
of building a platform
a stage
perhaps next summer
if there is the same lack of rain
as this one —
She would secure The Triptych
upside down, with the foundation
of Canadian signatures — what’s left of the original
400,000
and setting up Her Gallons of Paint
with broom and hose nearby
She would paint and sweep and hose
Stratosphere of The Universe
The Hawk Window Seat 9:30am
THE LAMENT OF A MOTHER
She stood above Us
at the gang plank
of Bluenose II
speaking captivatingly
with a tourist-boat smile
My Son kept asking questions
and I kept listening
shielding My Eyes with My Right Arm
against a hazy sun —
I was there to spend a last afternoon
with Peak before He moves to Haida Gwaii
and as We climbed up
to exit the hull
I lingered still
and still My Son was engaged —
He told Her He was leaving the next day —
They didn’t even have the chance
to exchange names
and We drove away
My Son and I
–
PART II
Peak went back
to invite The Crew
to a bonfire on the beach
but She wasn’t there —
“The important thing is
I tried”
–
THE JOY OF A MOTHER
Last Night I saw My Daughter
for the first time again
since She was nine or ten
snuggled back against
The Tomato-Coloured Couch
with Her Blondness down
around Her Face
and Her Smiling Lips
parting over Her Front-tooth Gap
She decided to keep
The Hawk Deck 12:14
Under a heralding
of Blue Jays
and a back drop of waves
I am scrubbing My Canvas
My Old, 23 Year Old
giant map of Canada
where once a Maple Leaf
was painted on Quebec
where now it is pieces
having been left
blowing off wood piles
in Atlantic
I am reclaiming My Stake
in The Work
of “Satellite Art for Extraterrestrials”
to commemorate The 14 Female Engineering Students
killed in Montreal
on December 6th, 1989
before Peak was even
2 years old
