Balance
And They Made Tools
I Wear Lipstick So People Can Hear My Poems
Balance He sashays up the ladder, angle-braced between moat and thatch, as if he is an acrobat or perhaps a dancer, balances the bundle of reed which earlier graced a Suffolk church. He bends across to butt the once green stalks, matching them to the adjacent curve, then shores up the ends with his hands finishing the tilt with the leggett's thump-thump advancing each layer of the coat. Begun at the base and worked upwards nine hundred bundles, dried and tied, shape the circular undulating roof, its central smoke vent above, fire pit, dirt-pounded floor below. The thatcher sets up a steady rhythm between land and sky. Reed, once soil bound now hoisted, protects the small Crannog, a snug retreat for meditation on fire, water, earth, air and spirit. Copyright © 2011 Kaaren Whitney
And They Made Toolssimple at first, a stick, a sharpened bone, extensions of coarse fingers, rough ragged from grubbing soil to get at starch tubers, roots for the blood clan's sustenance, once mashed, stone pounding fibre into flat pulp, sweeter, easier to eat. Walking the land, they learned by feel its skin, discovered food from the earth-speak terrain. They found river pebbles, half cracked, thonged them stick fashion, granting more accurate aim. Flaked flints, 'slicers', scraped clean small mammal hides, destined to become medicine bags, clan clothing for these nomadic gatherers who captured prey in nettle woven nets, traps sprung from tree limbs, from stick covered holes. Survival their goal, uniformity a surety, but new ways of doing, living, becoming tool makers took hold. They walked the land upright. They lived in community. They made tools. And they survived. Copyright © 2009 Kaaren Whitney
They Became Toolmakers: original cyanotype by John Tuckett
I Wear Lipstick So People Can Hear My Poems define the outline in deep red with vain hope of enunciating each syllabic phrase with a flawless precision that will enhance its aural reception in the listenerʼs ear. It is my last ditch stand to stem comments like ‛couldnʼt quite make out what you said, dearʼ ‛loved your poem but I didnʼt catch all the wordsʼ ‛you dropped your voice at the end, just couldnʼt hear.ʼ I much prefer to bask in supporterʼs views of my voice being deep, rich and throaty, a voice that conveys emotion, elusive at times, forthright when needed, soothing at best. RADA-trained teacher slightly improves output, not her fault my voice box resonates in low, or soft, while I do my utmost to project; to me it seems like shouting, all feeling lost. She says 'vary the rhythm, quicken the pace, let go here, put emphasis on the last word'. Although I always give of my all, when I heard about lipstick, I thought, thatʼs something I can do! Copyright © 2010 Kaaren Whitney