This is the 5th in the series of Fluck Tuesdays.
Inspired by Oliver Fluck’s “Low Tide.”
I highly recommend clicking the above link and then clicking the image to see this photograph come to life. It was also my mother’s favorite of the series so far.
Photo courtesy of Oliver Fluck.
Sleeplessly
I watch over
the spring night—
but no amount of guarding
is enough to make it stay.
~ Izumi Shikibu
Sometimes he literally believed that he could exhale her into life. Right there. In front of him. And everything would carry on as they had always wanted.
Never understood why you always bring me by the water when you are afraid of it.
“I am not afraid when there is low tide. You can see things that you couldn’t before. Besides, you are Mami Wata. Why would I fear the water with you around?”
No, you are the tide jewels, kanju and manju, from Japanese mythology, the magical gems that the Sea God used to control the tides. You help control the tides to bring us here again and again.
“No, tidal changes are the net result of multiple influences that act over varying periods. The combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. We can stand on something together when the moon does what it does, that’s all; that’s why I like to meet you here.”
I like to see you in the sun.
“I like you with or without the sun.”
I read something which made me think of your eyes.
“By?”
By Dorothea Grossman.
“What’s it called?”
‘I have to tell you.’
“When?”
No, that’s what it’s called!
“What?”
It’s called ‘I have to tell you.’
“Come closer before you do.”
‘I have to tell you, there are times when the sun strikes me like a gong, and I remember everything, even your ears.’
“Come closer.”
Did you like it?
“Yes.”
Except I remember your eyes, always.
“Don’t be sad, please. We are here. We are together.”
In your head.
“My head is real. My thoughts are real.”
Why don’t you just write your thoughts of me and send them to me instead?
“When I actually furnish my thoughts with words nothing comes out. That’s when I stop thinking about you. I don’t like to stop thinking about you.”
We don’t exist because of the net result of multiple influences that acted over a period.
Sometimes he literally believed that he could exhale her into life. Right there. In front of him. And everything would carry on as they had always wanted.
I plucked both poems from Heather Moore Niver’s garden. You can follow her on twitter @nivermoore.
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- Pleasure Zone This is the 6th in the series of Fluck Tuesdays. Inspired...
This is so beautiful, Annie. All the words are there in the mind. And there’s remembrance. Words which can’t be put on the page, for to write them down would be to forget.
Really like how you bookended the first and last paragraphs.
“Sometimes he literally believed that he could exhale her into life.” Absolutely beautiful, Annie. Love this!
Annie, this is gorgeous – the picture and the words. I just love it.
“Sometimes he literally believed that he could exhale her into life.”
@Sarah – Oops! I didn’t finish my thought… ahem…
(Love, love, love)
(Love, love, love)
(Love, love, love)
Hi Annie, I like the way you get the dialogue going back and forth in this piece. It reminds me a little of one of my writing books (frantically been searching my office/house for the last 15min, can’t find it) about dialogue and making the off-kilter in how it goes back and forth. The come closer line does this for me, part of the word play initially but then it transitions into something more emotional. Like the piece as a whole.
[...] progresses, we’ll watch the amazing colors of the sunset over the ocean. Annie Q Syed of Trial of Words: Writings and Fragments will share a touching and haunting story about the ocean and show us amazing photographs. Josie [...]
I found my book on dialogue; only took me about two weeks. The book is “Writing Dialogue” by Tom Chiarella. In one chapter he categorizes dialogue by the direction. He describes one “misdirected” where the dialogue veers in odd directions and states that sometimes this can sound like more natural dialogue. Your dialogue had a similar haunting quality to it.
I read it once. Then I read it aloud.
It is different when one can see and hear the words. It has a cadence, that mirrors the subtle lapping of the waves at low tide. It is soft and moving, there is a peace and calm, which I find comforting.
I liked the symmetry of having the first paragraph return at the end, just as the high tide will return. It is as inevitable as the moon and and the sun.
A wonderful post indeed.
You are so lyrical, and your words do justice to your beauty. What can I say?
This is very lovely, Annie. I really appreciate the ambiguity between speaker and spoken inside the bookends: the absence of gendered pronouns invites one to wonder…(?) But not over long, as it matters not who says what but that their love is animate.