The Little City (continued) - at October 2018

And so, the next month, The Little City is beckoning.  What a great downtown to go to for an introvert like me! 

This day I feel that familiar urgency to get there.  It’s already October and I’m running out of time – again.  I hear the cicadas.  It’s a warm day but not the choicest time to be courting. It’s October for crying out loud!  They must be in a muscle flexing frenzy propelled by season’s end intuition. I wonder at their urgency and how it is related to mine.  Their melody precedes and follows me onward from about halfway along the inner road.  I’m missing something. 

Of course! Nothing is ever just one thing. I figure that like any sectioned orchestra, the grasshoppers, perhaps day-night confused katydids, legs bowing on wings, may be contributing to this symphony.  And then there is the breeze with its foretelling undercurrents sighing over my ears and the lapping of wavelets once I get near enough.  I think how I will miss this concert. For months.

And there it is! I’m snapped out of my symphonic reverie.  I know by heart the above the rubble cliff landmarks by now.  I’m here. Slam on the brakes, ditch the bike, a few steps, peer over the edge. And, YES!

Today, despite a bit more sprawl, The Little City exudes its enchantment without letting me drift to real-world urban reflections like last time.  I am particularly motivated to hold everything Spit-magical today.

A new tenant:

And that little blue beach glass heart, the pen is claiming as a tribute for its ink. What a diva!

I leave this:

09 October 18

A linear page today
to echo your linear
orderliness.

Your ability to inspire
growth is, well is,
astonishing
considering your precarious
foundation.

My guess is that your sturdiness
depends on respect
and
admiration.

It doesn’t hurt either that you
have tucked yourself in here
below
the rubble cliff.

Do you plan to wander
to the sea?

Until next time. 

The Stealth Art Collective

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The Little City - August/September 2018

I first came upon it a few weeks ago ─ barely visible from a distance and unidentifiable.  It kind of telegraphed a sense of order, just enough to pique curiosity. 

Like so many things on The Spit, it was worth the trek along the sand, pebble, rubble beach in my clip-slippery bike shoes to get there. You don’t have to go that way.  It’s just that my curiosity drove me onward without considering less complicated alternatives. I was already on the beach below the newest incarnation of the Magnificent Pile trying to get a shot of it from the lake side when I received the ‘telegraph’.

And then:

I left this tucked into the back, facing the rubble cliff:

Here it is, a little easier to read:

26 August 2018

A swan pair flies
overhead.
He’s in front, honking to her.
Is it to make sure
she is still there?
She’s not answering from
her nearly
beak-to-tailfeather
position.
Or is it the other way ‘round?
She, then he?
And then there is you,
small city of wonder…
Oh, and another swan
alone this time,
the honking not quite
so confident.

As distractingly wonderful
as those three were,
you are here beside me,
a begin-again
experiment
in
harmonious high density
living.

Ten days later:

For a moment I am transfixed by the encounter of this Google Earth likeness. I am a benevolent introspective giant here.  The impending sky, the juxtaposition of the rubble cliff and its meaning, with the orderly elegance of the vulnerable little city, and the promise that it might offer, all held in a single gaze.  A small shiver of recognition passes through me.

7 September 2018

Hello again, hello,
charming city of
harmony
with your perfect
value scale balance:
white to grey to black
and
back again.
You’ve grown so, and now
you have yourself
an orange brick
delimitation.

Keeping out
or
keeping in?

Perhaps a frame to show you off
to best advantage
by
its colour difference
and precision placement.

‘Ah, you cannot know the
answer’ says the pen. ‘You
can only guess and spill my ink
with your speculation.’
‘You’re wrong.’ I say ‘It’s only play.’

Some days I love not knowing
answers.

Also on this day, the tower builder arrived and was instantly hard at work and keenly focused just down the way.  The temptation to approach was huge.  But I knew that knowing would change everything.  And so,

07 September 2018

I thought I was
unshakeable
in
my commitment to
anonymity.
Today is a little shaky.
The pen is sniggering
at my distress.
The builder is over there as
I sit safe-distanced
by the little city here.
Shall I leave this note page
here or there?
There, would only be
a sort-of half
revelation.
Is there such a thing?

I visited the little city again the other day.  It has developed urban sprawl with low-rise additions at its periphery. Still charming. And yet somehow its magical intimate ambush eroded with this suburbs hint toward real-city evolution. There it was, a nudge toward the commonplace world I inhabit and me, deeply reluctant to leave enchantment behind.

Until next time. 

The Stealth Art Collective

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