Blue Trees [and other archival light forms]

(( lemon glow ))

In the rainy season, my mother selects fabrics that weigh very little.
Warm air stirs in the gap between skin and sarong.

A white button-down cotton shirt lifted and unfolded
from inside her mother’s camphor wardrobe

from inside the memory room—

these ghosts of the archive

(( pink horizon ))

I open the door. The four figures do not see me.
Their eyes shut, hair gathered and pinned

loosely in twin twisted knots,
a clatter of bracelets as their wrists lift

to reach each other, to adjust the weight
of the basket woven by another’s hands,

to touch the thin transparency
that has been pulled across the field.

It has a visible texture: soft, porous.
The dusk of another country seeps in.

witness over and over

(( marigold threads ))

My mother pulls the sarong tight around her waist, bunches two corners of the cloth and ties a swift, secure knot. The fabric holds firm against her skin as she moves. With her arm hanging loosely by her hip, she can feel the raised threads of the weft. How many pairs of hands spun the threads, wove the cloth? The colour changes from one edge of the sarong to the other: first a fleshy pink, then pale sunset orange. Outside, she can hear the beating of swallows’ wings against the white walls of the house.

the dusk of another country

(( silver fragments ))

Object notes:

1     Numerous fold lines and tears along the fold (to fit in a coat pocket?)
2     Four full and two partial fingerprints at the upper edge of the frame
3     Underwater, a face pulls in and out of focus
4     Is this an exposure in reverse—
5     The colour of his eyes reminds me of the dull silver of the river in the valley before rain
6     A slow burning in the background, too distant to make out clearly, but you can smell it
7     A type of light that dissolves upon contact with the skin

the white walls

(( blue trees ))

In the photograph, the blue of the trees in the distance reminds me of the wings of seabirds. The blue is in motion, not static — the leaves inside the blue are moving, breathing. It’s true that certain shapes and figures appear blue when you move further away from them, a phenomenon I find myself constantly returning to. I try to describe it again and again, but when I reach out too far, there’s nothing there for me to touch.

of memory, breathing

I wanted to tell you I saw the blue tree again the next day in the foreground of a painting in a gallery in the city. The thick, pale cloud of colour appeared to be floating. I moved closer to it, then a few paces back, watching the branches begin to open.

the familiar sound

A blue portal opens up at the end of the track, at the edge of the forest, leading somewhere both familiar in memory and unknown.

of distant birds