Imwold & Stephen – May 2013

Lorraine Imwold and Carol Stephen traded words and art. Lorraine shared this wood block print, entitled “Feeding Time”:

In response, Carol wrote this poem:

Mother’s Milk

At dinnertime, the sow calls soft and low,
singing mother-sounds to her farrow,
guiding piglets to their favourite teats. Each
competes for its own place in the meal line.

Her song alters with each phase in the feed,
a grand chorus of grunts and oxytocin
just before the main milk course.
When the flow slows, dinner’s done.

The piglets change places, massage and suckle
though there’s no milk now. They’re telling mom
how much they’ll need for the next meal in an hour.
Two, if she’s lucky. Time for a wallow—
the luxury of solitude all mothers know.

Her head dips to nibble her own food. She
savours the taste of her favourite grass.

Pigs can smile.
And she does.

* * * * *

Carol shared this poem with Lorraine:

How Water Memorizes

how a drip of water memorizes the erosion of granite
how a river memorizes canyons and valleys
how sharp mountain peaks grind to rounded shoulders

how sharp angles of shoulders are ground down by gravity
and gravity softens muscle and skin
how time reflects age softening in the skeleton
as wisdom etches cheeks   

how the brain etches experience and
impulse into memory, how the mind
uses chemicals to remember—
or to forget

how forgetting works

In response, Lorraine made this hand carved/pulled print, with water coloring on rice paper, entitled “washed out wisdom:”