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 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 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 Dining Room 1:50pm
Yesterday I went back
to the home of My Children’s
earliest childhood —
it stood with dry grass
recently mowed —
a stone bench I had forgotten
under the apple
where I planted myrtle
slowly spreading —
I found My Red Leather Baseball Mitt
left-handed
in an upstairs closet
full of toys
and in the hatchway to the attic
I hoisted My Shoe-less Son
now 28
one-footed upon My Clasped Hands —
He was looking for My Early Sketches
a mysterious tube
of blue-prints displaying the roof of #5 World Trade Center
We failed to find —
as He came down
He pulled the light bulb string
straining to reach it
and when He let go
the slightly-too-short string
sprung back on itself
without the light turning off
and so My Greatest First Love
had to step into My Hands
a second time
He lowered Himself finally
to a painted kitchen chair
flexing His Lumberjack Muscles
— His Right Upper Arm still scarred
from when He toddled
to a cup of too-hot herb tea
unwittingly set within Peak’s easy reach
upon Our old kitchen table
in the little wooded house His Father and I restored
to cherish
The Hawk Deck 8:19am
Twelve weeks ago I took
My Last Pill of Olanzapine
and I am stable as I was meant to be
but have to deal with continued
sleep deprivation —
last night I got 61/2 hours
on 2 mgs of Ativan
which is better than the night before —
Eliza and Jon will see
My Sculpture this morning
as it sits on the kitchen counter
with Its Left Eye closed
and Its Right Eye
in Another World —
The Sun is out
and I have the freshness of September
coming into play
The Hawk Front Yard 10:20am
I have a rose bush
planted for a life
of the sibling to My Children
never seen except
encased by an ultra-sound screen
when He/She was declared
too small
and I had to wait a week
Joanna Gilman Hyde 