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| David Milne "Painting Place 111" 1930 oil on canvas 51.5x60.4cm |
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| David Milne,s paintbox |
I remember Adrienne Rich as a powerful mentor of visionary clarity. Her wisdom will always be with me. As my friend the poet Shauna Paull says; "her language holds us together in our work and our singing".In the year of her Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry
lifetime achievement award
Lemon trees in twilight. Dusk bruising the cadmium fruit
with purple shadow
In that golden hour light soothed
like a hand
your face in profile as we sat together
on your covered verandah, silently conversing.
I was just a kid who couldn’t find her tongue,
who couldn’t breathe
too shy to stay inside,
to join the voices of poets gathered
in your home
to speak of politics, injustice, the erasure of women,
words and power
Dream(s) of a Common Language.
Together, long ago, evening coming down
quiet but for cicadas
squeak of your rocker, forward and back, time between us slow as a Southern river.
You knew nothing of me,
I was just a kid who wanted to confess
I still remember how deeply you listened, how you heard
my yearning
how, for a moment you held; “I write”
like holy communion
between us, your words slender thread in the dark
flowing unbroken into the future
“Keep on. Keep on writing”, you said
in that leafed temple of stillness.
And I have.
And I have, and you will never know what glow you left,
what fragment of fire embedded in my flesh. What seed, what ember undiminished has become the bright and sacred fruit, grown from this root the strong branch holding both the bitter and the sweet.
Gabryel Harrison
June, 2010
FRAN-tastic trip to visit my beloved friends and gallerists in Parnell, at The International Art Center.
