Rennolds & Filbert – August 2012

Carrie Ann Rennolds and Nathan Filbert exchanged art and words. Carrie shared this piece, “Topography,” with Nathan:

In response, Nathan wrote this poem:

Topography

These, our cells of skin, over time –
with just this congeal
and recombine –
never fitting
still sometimes within
(in the over-under way)

The lines were drawn
and disobeyed
with both of us bleeding
one into the other
some malformed collage
of drunken tissues

To find you here
would be to lose
identification
such a cut-and-paste
operation

I spread out
I bleed over
where we cross
we will darken
in our retreats
we will pale

Our natural arrangement
appearing artificial –
disjunctively constructed
over time –
with just that conceal
and realign

The fragments
each de-meaning
this wild topography.

* * * * *

Nathan shared this poem with Carrie Ann:

Sketchbook : Waterfall

runnels of phrases
sentencing lines
splatters of words
when the stream is full
comes thundering down
pouring
needing only a mouth
and a pathway
riven through rock
which requires much time,
the craft is there
tunneling funneling
boring the channels
through years
for when the rains come
what appears constructed
is erosion
the wearing away
that shapes direction
“habit of rivers”
it is sometimes called,
a pre-pare
which means a “cutting away”
sculpting
from a block of granite
some seemly thing.
who said
“readiness is all”
had the idea.
if there were water
where would the water go?
these kinds of questions
for sketchbooks and waterfalls,
their working answers
a grinding away
at the knots and the whorls
and the masses
that block the way

In response, Carrie Ann made this image, “Sketchbook – Waterfall”: