The Canyon of Your Heart

I have three potential books mulling in my imagination and my planning at the moment. All three are, in my mind at least, saturated in rich colours, in contrast to the work I am exhibiting at the moment.

One work is in response to the criteria of the NZAG Art Awards - to reference somehow the following four themes: circle, stamp, equality and cool blue. One book is an extension of my love affair with the Mobius strip - which will not let me go until I have created a completely satisfactory Mobius book structure. And one is being driven by a poem I wrote a little while ago, which starred in the Saturday edition of Love Letters at Your Feet, but is now demanding a more tangible, sustainable, manifestation.

The canyon of your heart

Here we are
on top of a cliff
looking across a vast canyon
towards the rising sun.

While you double check the weather forecast
and unpack your bags looking for the matches,
I put my toes to the very edge of the earth
spread my arms

and imagine the warm breeze collecting me
in its sure embrace, imagine
soaring across tender tree tops
following the glitter of a river swollen with spring.

When you are ready
I lift my own pack to my shoulders
and follow you over the precipice
down a narrow, crumbling trail.

We descend slowly and carefully,
into a sandstone bowl
every colour of rust and sunlight,
all the maroons of a veteran’s faded ribbons.

On the canyon floor
we walk hand in hand
through gnarled ancient tree trunks
and tumbled boulders as big as houses.

Midday, we rest in the dapple of the willows
so still and quiet together
that one by one
deer and coyote come to drink upwind.

We walk on through lengthening shadows
until we pull off our packs
and make camp by a round
pool of deep, glassy water.

Dark falls through mauve, cobalt, navy
and the sky becomes a spangled curtain
draped over the canyon’s mouth,
our small fire a flickering tongue of light.

An egg-shaped moon rises late
and rouses us to watch
its reflection pass slowly
across the pool’s surface.

Leaning together for warmth
you tell me stories
about the night animals we hear
until I fall asleep in your arms

in the canyon of your heart.