WORDS
AND
PICTURES
by Dawn Wood

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'SESTINA FOR MY FATHER'
by Dawn Wood

Let�s flick through a catalogue of beaches, then, race
to Achill Island first, where we went to watch
for the eclipse � a perfect view, it failed to burn
through cloud. Pace beside my father, grab your trainers, check with him the tidal inlet for the floating
of the swollen leaves, adapted to the salt.

A dip, an hour after eating, at Portrush; the strand will be salt-
white; we named black rocks, we raced
our solid creatures, floated
with them into photo-albums; heeded annual warnings � watch
for drowning, stay back at the devil�s washtub. Grab
your pennies for the routine sundaes on the Thursday; the sky will burn.

How long on this parched island? Burning
edges lick round the rock pools, they evaporate to salt,
leaving faded summer litter, desiccated crabs. Hope is grabbing
at an empty bottle bobbing out to sea � a race
in only voice � the ink having dissolved in waves. Watch
a white sheet float

in certain silence. Polystyrene floats
towed for kids� speedboats, a tower-block already booked, a burnt
Algarve; but look, again my father watches,
chooses patterned shells with us, treads the salted
edge of loss. His race
is backwards, since his heart has grabbed

him, west. Questions: do real crabs grab
as in cartoons? Is he a poet, who floats
his words with care? Could the hare, the swifter, win the race?
Can even an eclipsed sun burn
and � a thought about the ghost train in the arcade � can salt
preserve his arm around us? Fathers leave watches.

Mine left, not a watch,
his father�s running medal. Slim as a whippet, he grabbed
the camera for his grandchild. We left him nodding to the basalt
elephants in fault-lines in the rocks; floating
with no effort up steep paths; burning
energy like tight turf; we left him racing,

still mid-story, sweating salt and no one watching
but myself � I�m also in a race, the dune is smoking near thatched roofs, I�m grabbing
buckets-full of water, saving � and he floats above it all, his words well burnt.

� Dawn Wood

Reproduced with permission

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'STYLITES LADDER'
by Dawn Wood

I over hear them speculating how I got here,
comments that barely touch me.
I�ve chosen my landscape though �
spanning below the pillar they constructed for me � no desert;

I�ve installed myself above a Canaletto landscape.
I am a pin-point besides scampering dogs,
curled tails, flagged boats, dark oars, gold rings,
small tradings �

I am a red-cloaked Duke, a red-skirted peasant
I am the stone mason who bends over his fine handwork
I am the mother who remonstrates with her children
I am this interaction, that conversation �

and still, I�ve time to kill �
doesn�t anything sway whole-heartedly up here?
Come, pull that ladder over, bring dominoes, little cakes �
stay and whisper � we could be the highlight
like those Canaletto sleeves that flow,
or the fabulous clouds.

� Dawn Wood
Reproduced with permission

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'PIE AND PINT (UNFINISHED)'
by Dawn Wood

In memoriam Vincent Rattray, Dundee Artist


In this I see you, perhaps it is always
the artist as subject �
here lies a left-over man sleeping
half-under the table-top,

showing through the dark wash
which might have obliterated even himself
cornered; making up things
for which he has no evidence �

over him the artist was whispering
the fluted pie-dish
beside a chalked-in yellow nip and pint
and a logo-less, obviously embassy regal box.

Given time and had it not contained the background
and risen, as black as a lighthouse,
he would have condensed the bright lines
of the cellar into salt.

He knows with his eyes shut all things represented
on the cloth-scape � the centre-piece pie
is a bright cliff, a field with a steam-outlet,
the breast of a saint.

Fine to be quiet. Peace to him,
the painter at his ease,
to concentrate the amber in the nip,
to wake and drink.

� Dawn Wood
Reproduced with permission

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McFARLAND�S EQUATION OF SUFFERING
by Dawn Wood

The state of an animal is shaped
like an egg
suspended on a grid of calculations.

If the animal were to move
because of desperate need,
in a parabola, to touch the shell

that would be to enter purgatory.
Return, of course, will probably happen
Automatically

by the body�s own mechanisms.
Worse, perhaps, is limbo, at the yolk
because of great potential

unfulfilled
because designed for something else
and knowing that too well.

The state of an animal is shaped
like an egg
I want to make it

a freckled moon
since cattle thrive best
with the sun on their backs.

*****

The �Poetry of Animal Husbandry� Project

The aim of my research is to present an analysis of contemporary animal husbandry which echoes the original concept of husbandry as both art and science. The project involves collaboration with farmers, scientists and others who have experiential knowledge of animal husbandry. Good husbandry should incorporate art and science, philosophy and experience, respect and responsibility, the historical and the contemporary, the public and the private, the objective and the subjective. A language of good husbandry would set up a place for being with the animal � open, creative language. This is why I am working poetry.

� Dawn Wood
Reproduced with permission

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Dawn�s 5 Favourite Writers

1. John Berger
2. Anne Carson
3. Luce Irigaray
4. John Banville
5. Russell Hoban

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Dawn�s 5 Favourite Poems

1. Happiness � Louise Gl�ck
2. Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days � Ted Hughes
3. Plant and Phantom � Louis Mac Neice
4. The Captive � Rainer Maria Rilke
5. Gitanjali (Song Offerings) no. 95 � Rabindranath Tagore

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Dawn�s 5 Favourite Things About Dundee

1. The Tay (one day as surreal as a mirror, the next as mad as puppies)
2. The washing lines strung from tenements (always against a high blue sky)
3. Its poets
4. St Paul�s Cathedral
5. The pigeons

� Dawn Wood
Reproduced with permission

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