by Jay Millar
South Western Ontario, there is always that quick glimpse of a straight
empty row of dirt that reaches into the distance as it is replaced by another
at the exact moment you saw it.
all the adventures we had had along the way, and as such they would be
replaced by dreams, dreams and the occasional moment of speech.
the cornstalks we walked through to find the lights of fire trucks, all of us standing are
the fire, looking up we could not see the stars, although later
we could realize we were not really seeing, weird wonderful waking dreams
in which those rooms would actually fold up with us in them.
we were standing… somewhere… pure magic
on fire with being, the Sunday afternoons of our lives, the trees,
their branches and their leaves, together they are the energy
of the world, waiting to be touched and then to fall away, the time
travel and such incarnations, it all becomes the earth waiting to catch us
and hold us tenderly,
where memory becomes a solid of eternity.21 for we were walking
along the side of the road when suddenly it struck us that we were
walking along the side of the road and it stopped us
right in our tracks, stopped us all where we were…
Coda:
wide open. we are ready to embark into
imagine… its is so nice to look there
(Our minds glass eyes and mist, youthful, on fire with being…)
boring the reader to death it was our duty
to watch the windows do whatever. in the afternoon
there were many beautiful photo opportunities
between places and the sound so still, what creates
a pattern in the human mind and where am i?
at the exact moment you saw it and hold us tenderly
right in our tracks, stopped us all where we were…
Endnotes
1 After some study, we decided that these trees were actually more highly developed forms of the local fungus, since they sprouted from the same rich soil that supported all the vegetation of that area. Earlier, we had discovered some particular soil that appeared to be composed of small mushrooms that clung to each other as they struggled to grow out of smaller fungi as they decomposed. The ecosystem was obviously growing and decomposing at the same time in these intricate layers of subtle colours we could not describe. Sometimes we counted as many as seventy-two new growths that managed to sprout from a single decomposition. Other times there were only two or three. Some specimens succeeded in growing as high as our ankles, but it was the trees that were truly magnificent, and it was around their stems that we could find the most interesting samples. When we stood perfectly still we could hear spore pods dropping through the moist air from the spread out canopy of the upper branches. Some round greenish pods we found were the size of tennis balls and we took turns throwing them at one of the thick stems poking up from the ground. They exploded like soap bubbles filled with smoke, the sort we had blown in the schoolyard as adolescents. They made a soft popping sound as they exploded in the windless air. When one of these powdery clouds hit the sunlight it created rainbows of deep ambers and purples, drifting slowly through the air until they came to rest quietly upon the brownish leaves scattering that landscape.
2 Childhood.
3 Often the dreams of trees will manifest themselves in various appendages, most often in the form of mushrooms and sometimes in the form of flying squirrels. Notice how certain mush-rooms are found under certain trees. Their shapes will give you a clue as to what the tree in question may be dreaming about. (This is where we learned it.)
4 Fossil records have shown that the influence of so-called academia and institutionalized learning caused trees to have leaves that were as solid as the wood they lived upon. Trees simply had no idea of their own mortality, or cared not to acknowledge it. It was a time in which leaves had no desire to fall, nor did trees have any desire to lose them. Over time, however, with the introduction of human commerce, which began to flourish as early as the Cenozoic Era, trees learned that to ignore their own temporary forms was futile, for it was only their way of living in greed. They were witness to many other life-forms that became extinct, if not rendered completely tedious due to their strange belief in their immortality they were not capable of conquering. This is why we find such a difference between the skin (constant static) of mammals and the leaves (tempo-immortal consciousness) of modern trees.
5 It has been hypothesized in several well known papers that trees are quite aware of our fate as a species, perhaps more than we realize.
6 For some examples of tree poems, see the translations we have made that follow these notes.
7 See ‘Appendages’.
8 There should be more slow noise (music) in the world. Record the sounds of trees for hours.
9 This, of course, is true for the trees of rural landscapes, where our studies took place. It has not been determined whether or not trees living in an urban setting experience the same kind of uphoria. We suspect, however, that a tree’s environment has much to do with its state of mind.
10 Many human Utopian political parties have been influenced by trees. See their shifting plat-forms, available in various fictional forms, for reference.
11 undercover all solstice long.
12 and as the leaves fall away it becomes so much easier to see through it all and into
13 as the leaves fall away it becomes so much easier to see through it all into
14 as the leaves fall it becomes so much easier to see it all into
15 as leaves it becomes so much easier to see all into
16 as leaves it so much easier to see into
17 leaves so much to see
18 and as the leaves fall away it becomes so much easier to see through it all and into
19 An anonymous piece of writing discovered one afternoon in October while dissecting the consciousness of a tree and meditating upon the concept of The Opening of The ‘Field’, the title of a book by the American poet Robert Duncan. There are many instances throughout the text that suggest it was written by Stokes.
20 The breath of clouds, as imitated by trees in earthly realms.
21 Seasonal Drift:. August contemplation of days, remember to slow down days again. October… days, they are, after all, only days: a surface clouds at three in the afternoon and a branch that suspends it (thought) shrink each single motions grows until it vanish into the perfectly capable blue (sea monster) (heaven) (wing gust) but it was the cool rain came down that time of year, nice, we thought, to close down the morning, the evening, and of now. (the end) to be the darkened skies of hold the holes of our dreams, all the excitement, all the lust, now is cool and heavy (closed) way down here in the just imagine what behind the clouds all our little veils falling from the trees come about their way to catch our little thoughts, we are all angels, all shy birds who watch each of us clouds out the front room window in the afternoon, from the inside out when we remember how we were absolute (happy) our dreams when they were our selves, shadows of branches at dawn.
Conwenna Stokes was born and raised in London, Ontario. She lives near Poplar Hill with her cat, Jonah. Her photographs, recordings and carvings are on display at the Forest City Gallery in London.
portrait of Conwenna Stokes by Alex Cameron
B’urd
Alex Cayce
The myth you were writing right now
is fine, though the plot needs a little work.
fix it. i dare you. nothing
but bursting tedium
out of the sky
could view life as an ongoing experiment
within the limitations of the flock itself
it offers several variations
upon a theme that can be directly
and intimately examined
because you are on
e of them living.
but could the world suddenly find a self
actively involved both mentally and physically
(wings are a shrinking structure) a language
singing of the immediate surroundings of soft air
instead of a viewed force
impossible to separate the drifting from the
poke and prod, prod and poke
that which uses hands (wings) and thinks
these things aren’t attached to mind
J.M.
Revolutionary Hymn (for the flocking birds)
life is not boring
life is not tedious
if we woke up this morning we’re probably alive
and all the sad fuckers
out there in the universe
they don’t even know how we died
We
Don’t
Care
Four Small Birds Are
sitting twenty feet away watching me through the open window. Two rest in the dead oak behind the garage, two sit on telephone wires that lead to our house. If a sound or a sudden movement occurs in the atmosphere they burst apart, and I watch these quiet explosions knowing somehow those involved will always meet again. And they do. Sometimes they meet closer to me, then further away. Together, each of their weightless heads flit quickly, seemingly at the same instant, but then one shits upon the laundry Hazel hung out on the line to remind me they are only four small beings, each one living inside a little head, singing so alone, quietly beneath the soft breeze of their feathers. At the moment they have vanished, but they don’t seem too far off; they never do. The sky gets so huge sometimes, and we the birds are so alone within it. The four again explode to what remains of the light, and I watch the feeder I hung last fall sway empty, and all of us remain outside, remembering this small unscheduled visit.
Morning Sky
Strange unpronounceable red outside
of the birds (Erik Satie was of
the birds, knew the plenitude of
clouds) wakes with a mysterious roar
the sun shoots out rays of red, orange,
blue and gold, and we are told our size,
somewhat larger than a squirrel
far less interesting than our own train
of thought speaks directly out of (time)
gathering a language no one tried to
learn (Erik Satie knew the lurch and
stretch of time) makes us so very small
just to wake us, just to make us small, ‘we
lay at the bottom of a strange ocean, in bed
where the trees were pure sexual beings, swaying
in our heads and your breath was the smell
and Satie was the sound of the sky, slow
moving, promising whatever came to mind’
The Blue Sky Was Made To Float Against
Listen to me, the birds are here too, they have short, intense
lives, sparks of whyng-drift, a light shudder
AGAINST the light, and not in it. They will flyrt from
the innermost regions of any space or time into a
quantified moment of being alive, full of song (NOTHIN’) a
language working in oppositions, present even when the body is not
(Present). Definitely the least threatening of all beings,
any species you like, Rose Breasted Grosbeak, AmErican
Redstart, the Killdeer, take your pick. It is
entirely worthwhile to pay attention, for if you only listen,
nothing but recognition of something invisible could be learned.
Listen to me, the feather was formed of light some time ago
in order that light might be carried thru the void. The Earth as
host for the migratory patterns of light. The bird, which is light,
comes from the egg, which is gravity. In turn, the egg comes from the
bird. As it is, things seem destined to move against their origin and
with it simultaneously. Such it is with the bird, and since we are
creations of imagination and continue to use it to destroy
itself, we should notice them, the birds, yes, we should, but
not because they are beautiful (and they ARE! THEY ARE so BEAUTIFUL!)
But because thru them we might see to defy ourselves, yes, and the
intensity of that is a firm press upon the head, heart, hands, or genitals,
a soft tuft shyning, mixing consciousness, the full capacity of awareness
first thing in the morning and happy to be
that way uplighting whatever yr made of.
Sing where you come from and what you are in the space below.
Broken Wing
‘A single specimen of the eastern tiger salamander
reported for Point Pelee in 1915 has not been seen since that time’
–Darryl Stewart (1977)
As you drive deeper into the album there is the distinct feeling
that something is coming apart, divided down the middle by the sound of it.
All that screaming only makes you want to drive faster, until the trees
are a blur of electricity. The effect is enough.
There is a gas station in a small town along the way, a beautiful girl
with black hair and fingernails who flies in
on a bicycle and fills your car with gas, the silence overwhelming, as
the wind and the universe
continue to collapse every second
you settle back into your dream of destination.
A casual disembowelment.
Headaches expand the soft skull to fill the driver’s seat.
Aneurysm on the road. Annul that screaming.
The slight panic to keep them all awake.
There is no one in this place who will slit your wrists for you, so you drive
deeper into it awash in the white
blue sky.
Dream: (Destination
Where is it you want to go and will this recording take you there?
Where lyrics are sung by birds heard and not seen ever screaming
Screaming
Screaming Their Little Heads Off.
And the wind records each tiny extinction as the doorway opening upon the
nature
of their tired thoughts
Nature the casual song
Mind the disruptive element
(In the dream you slowly begin to realize you have gone missing
as the parkland begins to unfold around you
the major life zones display their distinct lines, tired landmarks,
tired bones the size and shape of trees
merely convenient labels which blend smoothly into the recording.
Even at this point the sound of waves are invisible and you remember
that if the nature of song is to control, then this is where the album severs into
melodic
undercurrents of sweetness and noise and the flora and fauna cannot exist
anywhere else
where you yourself cannot bother to pretend
Some Notes on Bird Songs
3) THE BIRTH OF LANGUAGE
The History of Language does not exist. However, it shall
continue to be unborn at the exact moment that any member of the
species comes into existence. How could you ever hope to study
something you are? In the House of Language there are many who
hope to speak with such purity and will talk into their graves.
Fly away now if your wings must be so heavy.
l) HOLOGRAMMATIC LANGUAGE
Language is holographic by nature. The written word is in fact the spoken word presented in a three-dimensional, spatial, format. Thus the wavelength of each letter used to make up a given word in its entirety is also the smallest ‘slice’ of that word necessary to recreate the hologrammatic image. The ‘meaning’ (stored memory, o
r learned information) appears to be stored ubiquitously throughout the cerebral matrix of language rather than in the interrelationship between the separate letters/notes. Language is the birth of hallucination. Flashcards to improve your writing. A clock in the shape of a dolphin. You should see the birds.
2) CHEMICAL LANGUAGE
As ‘serotonin’ enters your mind, it travels down the spinal chord, and enters the many wings of the body, at which time
comes to mind and hovers before thee, hoping to open the twenty-six windows of perception in a seemingly random order. This is where a single spirit can rest on the larger, resulting windowsill of the mind, looking in two directions at once. Written to improve your flashcards. This dolphin should tell you the hours. You could be the birds.
4) EVOLUTIONARY LANGUAGE
mutation golare. (as it poens in th hoystri of th spiceis it connat be pecfert, thus it stum nad deos loces in th furtue [persnet, if sene form the pats] so much differently), who era th brids? flacshards era wrettin to tell th time, th livse of th dilphons are eras in nimd.
Fleye
8) TELEPATHIC LANGUAGE (INFINITE LANGUAGE)
7) ROMANTIC LANGUAGE
Because Language is the bridge between bodies, (a light swoop upon the air) that hoop which houses the mind, it is a bird house, whose sexual wings are perched upon those branches. It should be made clear that this language cares nothing for orientation, gender, age, species, or race. It is exactly what it is like to be with another person. If you call the right notes, someone is there who can answer
0) DEAD LANGUAGE1
In many archaic languages, the words for ‘to not exist’ are best
translated into present day English as ‘without the word’ or
(see TELEPATHIC LANGUAGE)
6) FUTURE LANGUAGE
Time is the most difficult medium through which to communicate.
This makes any attempt to predict their songs