The Hawk Corner Room 4:50pm
EYE Live
on a widow’s walk
with One Magnificent View —
too bad the only people
EYE have to share It with
are The Birds.
Not even The Cats are allowed.
The Hawk Corner Room 7:28am
As I drink My Coffee decked
in My New Hammacher Schlemmer
Monogrammed Turkish Robe
before The Sun comes up
The Window is open to The Surf
I can hear The Rooster
again, as I heard Him
during Those Heady Days
when I first made My Escape
from that chemical prison
of 23 years
— only now My Husband wonders
if there might not be
2 or 3 Roosters?
and He briefly brought His Electric Shaver in
to The Corner Room
to comment on The Sky
The Hawk Queen Bed 7:54am
“That’s right Blue Jays–
You tell Those Hunters
They are disturbing The Peace
by killing innocent birds
trying to fly South —
You tell Them — there’s A Woman
on The Hawk
with Her Bed Room Windows open
just so She can hear The Waves
and has to be woken
from a wild dream
of transvestites and babies
hefty and shrinking
alerted to Those Lethal Bangs”
The Hawk Kitchen Outpost 12:17pm
They flew above Me
surrounding My View
by the hundreds —
a thick flock of Blue Jays
where before I had always seen
Their Brilliance singularly
or in pairs —
I saw Them all around
weighted in The Scraggly Apple
even landing on the deck —
it doesn’t matter what
I was thinking or
where I was standing
— EYE Saw Them —
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 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
The Hawk Kitchen Outpost 9:51am
I stood bare-footed beside My Rose
above It, twice
and first I heard a Blue Jay
and second My Mother’s Chickadee
and as I looked at the numerous blossoms
I heard the surf of The Cape
and reveled in the fog droplets
upon the fertilized leaves
The Hawk Kitchen Outpost 2:16pm
I have planted My First Rose Bush
“Knock-out Pink”
under Our New Sign saying The Blairs
in iridescent white
printed with a Blue Jay —
Chicken Polenta is made for The Kids
and can be baked anytime
and We’ve been invited to Their Grandfather’s
Memorial Service Friday Afternoon —
tomorrow night My Tree-planting Darlings
and one Mexican Collie
are to be collected
from the airport four hours away
and I will be making ham sandwiches
to take
and a Duncan Hines carrot cake
fortified with chopped pecans
just to have on hand
The Hawk Deck 10:10am
I have said Good-bye
to My Darling Cow Bird
Whose love affair with My Car Mirror
is gone
He bowed off with another
female two weeks ago —
I have said Hello
to My Husband
and will be hanging The Bedding
in Our Hot Sun
I will be playing
The Cow Bird’s Song
on an internet recording
for The Arrival
of My Children
one week
tomorrow
Joanna Gilman Hyde 