constance by Joanne Arnott
by Steven McCabe
when i was pregnant, she told me
reaching back more than twenty years
for the memory
i put sunflower seeds on my belly
i used to read aloud to my son
so he could hear our bones
i love our voices, she said
chickadee & sparrow flutter down
lured by the seeds and undisturbed
by our voices
i put your hand on my belly
i invite you to read this aloud
i want to listen to our bones
& to love our voices, for a little while
Joanne Arnott is a Metis poet living on Canada’s west coast.
poemimage 
I love these, particularly the first two. Quite different from your other work, much warmer and more sensual with a nice surrealistic touch. Bravo
Thank you very much for your thought Michel. Surreal, sensual and warmer! I’m going to dwell on your perceptions and benefit from your eye.
What an incredibly beautiful post.
“I love our voices., she said..” That line gets me for some reason. And your hands in different depths of gentleness – a voice in each touch.
Thanks Karen. I very much appreciate your response to the post. I feel as you do about that phrase, that line in the poem. I like how you connect the hand images to the words via sound and touch. Your experience enlarges the reality of what it is possible to see.
Steven, I support “drawandshoot’s” comment. The hands also remind me of something like a history map and record of blessing. The 3rd from last image is very beautiful like the emerging spiritual light from a womb. I can’t begin to express how I feel about the voices of bones. There are thousands of years of truth there.
Jack thanks for your words. Sometimes you know I’m just responding intuitively to something, like this poem, and all it entails, and the art, the images, catch something. I hadn’t thought of that third from last image as spiritual light from a womb but now that you mention it, in the context of the poem, and the colours, that seems completely accurate. You put it in ways I didn’t apprehend. And the hands being a history map and record of blessing. I wish I’d thought of that! The thousands of years of truth in the voices of bones you mention must relate to the very beginning; which somehow exists in the present tense creating future life. And there we have the poem. And as I said to Karen @ ‘drawandshoot,’ your experience enlarges the reality of what it is possible to see.
The synaesthete may find solace in word constructions such as ‘a blinding thud,’ where the comingling of sight and sound scintillates. And similarly one could be draw to the penultimate image. This is after all a poem about voices, the sound of bones, the thewless flutter of a wing–awash, as is demanded by this form of presentation, in the embryonic waters of soundlessness. Remarkable.
Hi Exiled, thanks for writing. If I understand you correctly you are saying there is some solace here in the words and images. I really appreciate that as well as your thoughts and insight about what you experience with this material. I’m struck by the phrase ’embryonic waters of soundlessness’ and I’ll dwell on this. Good to see you again.
Steven, more specifically I am saying that I heard sound in the second to last image, and I liken it to the type of cross sensual experience that is sometimes found in literature.
Prospero
Prospero thanks for that explanation. Looks like I’m guilty of poor reading skills. Your thoughts constructed an elaborate tower and I raced to the first floor landing and enjoyed the view. I should have kept going! I appreciate both your original and second correspondence.