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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