Sea Song, 1998. Six beach stones, engraved text. Dimensions: lengths vary from say 10 - 20 cm.
"The six words ... pebble / beached / glistening / grains
/ stones / clouds
become, as each word opens to reveal its
inner sound:
c loud s / s tone s / g rain s / g listen ing /
b each ed / p ebb le
Twelve words within six. This is a seascape, not
a contemplation arising from absorbed and contemplated silences in the depths
of the woods like Thoreau, but from
walking in the ‘wildness’ of Australian beaches where it is easy to find
oneself completely alone. The sequence is not static but has the dynamic
interactions of the sea’s littoral zone. Hugeness of scale, a 'lion-maned' sea set with
burgeoning clouds, the long arc of beach stretching away into mist. You are walking, notice the glisten on wave-rubbed pebbles. You pick one up and
feel its wet weight in your hand, and then hurl it back into the sea to be
washed up again on the next tide. The swoosh of the spent waves sucking back on
‘each ebb’, and a sense of tides. The sound of rain, filled emptiness."
From a chapter of my doctoral essay Word Art Works: visual poems and textual objects (University of Technology, Sydney, 2007) which is being slowly turned into a book.
Beautiful poems on stones Richard. I hope this will all appear in your book.
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