Elettaria

 CW: passing mention of death/ mourning.

The first time you taste it,
it is likely lost in a mélange,
a tangle of strange, bright frissons,
more scent than anything.
The apple flares to life,
more itself than it was alone.

The same is true for the next time.
And the next.
So that the first time someone tells you:
Be careful of the cardamom,
you are surprised, digging through slow-cooked lamb,
and discovering four things you didn’t know you liked.

One of them is her – eager to please,
but no-one is suggesting she’ll replace the unspoken.
You are, all of you, too old for platitudes,
but politeness is a gift you can bring
to this new table on a barrage of charm.
She seems nothing like your mother, and he loves her.

Alongside whole cloves of garlic
you unearth dark, wrinkled, unprepossessing pods,
which have seeped their soapy sharpness
into the sacrificial flesh.
Later you will recognise it in a brief stint,
never written home about, as a chambermaid,
the linen closet fragrant with peaceful secrets.

And even though these days it only graces you
in glass-bound mixes blended by other hands,
you cannot now untaste it,
and it stands coolly apart from
neighbouring clove and cinnamon,
a reminder of love after death,
and the inevitability of new memories.

This last sample piece I’m going to post from Spectral is from the section on Joy, and, like a surprising number of the pieces is centred around food… and not, obviously. Like many of the joyful pieces, there’s a great deal of focus on being embedded in a body that enjoys a range of sensations. In interesting contrast, now I come to think of it, of the pieces that outline a body that creaks with pain and fatigue and difficulty. I’m very glad of this observation, for a number of reasons (not least being that, at the time of writing, I’m battling my body’s tendency to just be a texture of pain against, and moving through, a world that is unmoved by that static scrawl of “please, no”).

(My study smells quite compellingly of cardamom, for a start!)

This piece, while hesitant and shy, is still very warm, and I hope the smile it brings me can be echoed in you too, no matter how good or bad a day you’re having today.

This piece was very nearly something different, which is probably why it came last, but I was determined to draw at least one illustration for a piece in every section. Having already drawn four for Nature/ The Sea, and two for Whimsy, Joy looked like it was going to be left behind, but I finally decided what kind of pottery I was going to draw, and here it is. This is a quaich, and it comes from the Uig Pottery on the Isle of Skye. It is surprisingly small, and fits in the palm of my hand – a really pleasing weight and texture.

I probably wouldn’t know much about quaichs if it wasn’t for a somewhat impulsive trip back to Skye in 2005, this time to Uig, the port that opens up to the Islands via a number of ferries. I got to do a lot of walking, meet some really interesting people (including one of the potters), and experience exactly what it’s like to be able to hear nothing for literally miles around as you sit on a hillside, except for sheep, a dog down in the bay, and the ever-present gulls. I deliberately went up on the anniversary of my mother’s death, starting the ongoing tradition of Being Busy Around That Time (which often, with the timing of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, involves travelling to Scotland and/ or performing on stages. I think she’d have approved…).

I have a friend to whom we never got to say goodbye properly, due to, well [gestures vaguely around] All These Interesting Times. I think I’d like to drink a dram to her health (she loved a good whisky) from this cup sometime, hopefully down by the sea, in the company of good friends who loved her.

Once I’ve cleared the pods out, of course. That might be too experimental, even for her.

Hope you’ve enjoyed these glimpses at the book and the journey of creating the illustrations for it. There are a few more things lined up for you to become privy to but, for now, I’m going to have a couple of days off before I get stuck into making the audiobook…

Marker

This angry poem needs some work but, whoever and wherever you are, it’s for you, and it needs to go out today. 

Sixteen years today
Sixteen years and grey hairs
Salt me,
Multiple choices mock me:
You’re recategorised.
Never mind,
I think she’d still recognise me.

And I’m joined every year
By more companions-in-grief
Reaching out,
Each one bludgeoned by
All the memories -
Sweet and bitter -
All the feelings -
Hot and cold -
All the exploded notions
Of continuity dashed,
Record houses now ash.

And she’d want to know,
So sometimes I tell her -
Even the things I never could
For fear of her fear,
Cringing from her pain.
And the rage gains ground
On these days,
Teeth worn to stubs where
None can see.

And I’m imagining the talk:
Me trying to outline
What we’ve got now
And what we’ve left behind.
I’m finding modern culture
Quite hard to describe,
Winding fists into
Minefields
In high definition

I’m surrounded by sound -
Some of it music so profound
That I’m lifted higher than
I ever thought I could reach,
And I’m preaching redemption
At every soul:
It gets better.
And it does.

Mummy, I’m a poet now
And yes, I still sing,
And I’m happy in my life,
And I thump drums
To guide others’ footsteps by
And - okay - no child -
But I’m proud of what I’m
Passing on.

But some of the chatter
Is noise for its own sake
And hate still holds sway
In too many hearts
And I worry that we’ve
Parted ways - those who
Sing of common spirit
And those who bang gavels,
Gabbling “common sense”
Rhetoric of division,
Flinging new walls higher

And while people are dying
Others are crying about lions
And decrying the desperate:
Let them eat cake
Let them bake in their own ovens
Let them them scramble and fail
Let them be inconvenient
Let them be the graffiti
On the marble bank fronts,
An affront to propriety,
No ladder for them -
Let them stay right there,
Let them bear the marks of our
Boot heels

We can clean that stain off
We’ve got all the chemicals
You could possibly want
And we’ve dropped taxes
And edited credits
And let everything that was fought for
Be no more than two pages
In a textbook

And look! The cat is dancing
Look! The puppy’s laughing
Look! The meercat’s grip tightens
We’re enlightened -
We’ve got an app for that.

And in the meantime
Changes are grating,
Prating ingrates
Scraping more for themselves
Off others’ plates
And we’ve seen this
Sort of thing before -
We can grade the score,
Draw the lines from
Then through now to
Eventual rebellion
We’ve got to draw lines,
And draw the line.

And I’m so psyched that
Love won,
But there’s still a lot to be done
Like: a metric fuck-ton
When equity is sneered at
As unfair,
Where religions who preach
In love’s name
Declaim against each other
And prop up ancient laws
And pour scorn on
People’s safety.

When rapists of all genders
Are engendered in silence
And nurtured in shame
Where game-players
Rake in cash that must
Make nurses sick.
Where pricks think
That hoisting a hastag
Will make more of a
Difference than this
Fucking poem.

(Because at least it’s more
Than seven score letters
And pre-packaged emotions.)

But you know what will
Make for change?
You know what will
Heal us, make us free?
Actually, it’s not a question:
You know how redemption goes
And how love flows
You know you’ve got to show
That - instead of tribe,
We are a species
Instead of species,
We are creatures
Instead of creatures,
We are the breathing,
Bleeding, needing,
Reaching, yearning,
Learning, teaching,
Evensong of starflesh,
The coalescence of
Scattered suns,
Spun-glass perfection in
Every cell and
We are all relative
And who fights more than
Family?

And that’s why we’re feeling
Jealous, see -
We know that we could have
What’s held up
As aspirations
And we flail at neighbours,
Those within our grasp
And it’s not fair.
I know. It’s not fair.

And maybe we can’t reach
The thieves
Who fleeced us yet,
But we can spend every second
Of the next set of years
Being the people we can be,
Arms hard around each others’
Shoulders, boldly loving
Everyone who needs it,
Staunching those who bleed
Instead of aping eejits
Clenched in greed.

“Pay no attention to them”
My mother always said;
She meant well,
And, to a certain extent,
That works,
But we’ll be cursed
If we let our gaze drift
Too far.
Too long.
Because they’re not them -
They’re us.

This is forty -
Caught up in all the things
I haven’t done
And am still yet-to-do,
Brooding on inequities
But feeling that I’ve got more
Power than at twenty-four,
A bigger voice,
More choices,
And more responsibility
To share out the equity
Of my comfortable life,
Strive for verity,
Stand firm,
And affirm love,
Even to those who have
Eschewed it.

Sixteen years to the day.
You told me you were proud of me.
Now I am too.

(But - like I said -
We’ve got some work to do.)