Painting
Archipelago
The Circle Game
Sinistre
Passages
Snapshots
Surfacing
Landmarks
Terra Australis
For Always
Other

Passages

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In this series, cropped images of siding, signs and awnings are juxtaposed against text extracted from the journals I kept when I first moved to Salt Spring Island.  These records embody the trials and tribulations of a personal odyssey.

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First Light

I am awoken on this (my first) morning
by the hum of a float plane leaving the dock
The sound of someone’s departure.
I try to balance on this rocky shore–
far from the sand and surf of a sunnier time.
Standing on a moving threshold
I curl my toes into oyster shells–
stuck in stone, empty of flesh, robbed of pearls.
I cling to the comfort of drifting timbers,
washed up and worn out, just like me–
too many years wasted–
swimming in circles–
no stars to steer them by.

I leave behind (I wish) a wake of mistaken identities
the shards of a shipwrecked marriage.
An endless ripple of regrets is
interrupted by a wave of tears.
I’ve come to bail another ship
patch her holes, scrub her decks, fill her hold.
I work all day to drown the sounds
of all the voices that wear me down–
lapping slowly.
My sea legs seek out solid ground,
to be not drowning, waving.

                                                   © Gillian McConnell  – 2010

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