The Liminal Compass: Tuning
This poem was written at a time when I was living in Glasgow and missing the landscape of Tayos and the landscapes of my childhood; the place where I live now, on the west coast of Scotland. I was hungry to attune to a different kind of sensory experience. But the poem isn’t a rejection of cities, nor is it an exaltation of nature alone. It is a reminder to myself to pay attention to what to attune to. To make an active choice to strike the tuning fork of your senses, wherever you might be.
Tuning
Skim away
the top note tin
of headphone beats
through subway ears
Smooth out
the wrinkled sheet
of voices raised
in Friday night anger
Sweep up the dust
of traffic hum
into a heap
crushed in a fist
This black diamond
of exhaust
and exhaustion
I don’t want it any more
I want
To strike the tuning fork
of small leaf shaker breeze
of canopy creak
of downpour
of dawn chorus
of vibraphone wing beat
and xylophone droplets
of river’s white noise
of cave’s echo
And drown out
the alerts
I want to be alert
to something else.