A Snippet from A Twist of Rotten Silk

I actually put this novel away for a bit. It lost its muse somehow, but I pulled it out tonight for a look/see and made a few edits here and there. I miss her. Anyway, Beth over in Books and Writers is going to be doing a workshop on metaphor and imagery. I wondered if I had anything. I think this may fit, especially the last paragraph. Must scrounge up some others.

A Twist of Rotten Silk copyright L. Syratt 2007-2008
(my old witch wip) (unfinished and in first draft)

The path to the stream wound like a serpent through the forest. Every bend glowed with torches of twisted rush, smoking with pig's grease. A mist was rising, moving across the forest floor like fairy dancers, changing shapes with every gust of wind. I shivered like a child afraid of the dark and squeezed William's hand as we walked.

I wanted to tell him I wasn't gripped by fear of the dark. Darkness kept no secrets from me. I was gripped by memory and the sudden chill of that remembering. There was still so much I hadn't told him.

I found myself thinking of Mary again, pulling from my memory all the wretched things she said to me in that cell, the constant bray and cackle of her bitterness. “No man will ever want you lass. Look at you, so full of ruts and ridges. They'd as soon spit on you than touch you.”

Some things from those years I'd forgotten, but memory is a mystic thing – always showing itself when you'd rather it didn't. It doesn't allow indolence. It is raw and bloody with a shrill voice. And there, on that serpentine path, I was haunted with it, listening attentively as it slithered behind us.

John O'Donohue Rest in Peace

John O'Donohue 1954-2008

I was listening CBC radio on Sunday, during a three-hour drive across to northern edge of Lake Ontario. CBC is always good company. It was a Tapestry interview with John O'Donohue, ex-priest, philosopher, theologian, poet and lovely speaker. You can hear the interview on podcast. I'm not catholic, but couldn't help but be awed. He had a wonderful view of life, lovely. He said there is a part of every man's /woman's soul that is pure and good, innocent of the ugliness we see in the world and the ugliness in our own lives, free of the mistakes we've made, the guilt we feel. He said this is the place to go to when you need to feel that purity and beauty. Oh, the things he talked about. His voice was a choir and his words were poetry. Sadly, John O'Donohue died two weeks ago at the age of 53. I wish I'd known him.

‘I would love to live

Like a river flows

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding.’

John O'Donohue

Inspired ... I write the post below.

The Garden in Winter

I resolve to find beauty everyday, to read a poem or write a poem, for that matter. I resolve to see with my heart and not just my eyes. Beauty hides itself in anything, everything. The guttural giggle of an infant. The words "I love you" from a parent, partner, sibling or friend. The way the sky looks on a stormy day and the way we feel when a song brings tears to our eyes.

This morning, I woke to see the frost dripping from every bare branch and clinging leaf. The winter garden is beautiful even without the pinks of gallica and damask. We have those rosettes in the icicles dripping from branches of feathery tamarisk and lilac. We have the naked shapes of things poking up through the protection of snow. The winter garden has its own magic, changing with the years and every snowfall and thaw. Always a wonder. No footprints mar the perfection this snow brings. It is preserved, pristine and crisp like freshly-ironed linen. Smooth as the thick petals of a summer lily.