Selected Poems
Shadow Memories was produced as an illustrated chapbook to accompany an exhibition of drawings by James Yuncken, responding to the selected poems (‘The Drawing Room’, Fortytwodownstairs, Melbourne September 2015).
Message for Global Citizens
Stephanie Green
‘We shall argue with the stones’ (Bertolt Brecht)
Cover your face. Don’t let yourself see. The sight is too much for you. Pull the shutter down over the window then put the pot on the stove. Be careful to keep your eye on the pot. Turn down the flame so that it will not boil over. Lock the doors, back and front. Don’t let anyone in.
Outside you can hear rumblings, people in the street marching, speaking their minds. Don’t think of going outside to join them. You are afraid it might be dangerous. It will be.
From Shadow Memories, 2015
See also: Links
What is and isn’t silence?
Stephanie Green
On the train two men are signing.
Four birds circling high in a canyon
dive and swoop for their prey,
so far away the catch is soundless
but the meaning is firmly held.
At home, I light a candle and listen:
outside there’s the soft fracas of children playing;
a dog stands its ground noisily
and a song fades past the window.
Inside is silence,
a slight guttering of the candle,
the feel of breath moving
so softly it is almost sound.
Somewhere, in a temple, someone is praying.
Only the lips move and who knows
if the words are heard. Or, if there is sound,
what language can be spoken that will be understood?
Those that give voice with their hands
touch the words themselves,
that still slip from my grasp so silently
receding or turning up like a barrier to sound.
I am listening for the dark,
for the soundlessness of thought,
for the words that form only as
I write them on the page.
In the corners of this room,
nameless things are hidden
waiting for the moment to be heard.
From Shadow Memories, 2015
See also: Links
The Mountain
Stephanie Green
Below the pinnacle
massive ranging arms
pinion the earth.
Streams pour down
to the waiting sea.
It seems only
you and I
seek to climb.
Cattle bells ring,
the fragile sound
of ice breaking
In the distance.
It seems only
you and I
can hear it.
Yet from this place
we will follow
this line of footprints
in the snow.
From Shadow Memories, 2015
See also: Links
(‘The Mountain’ was set for voice and piano by Margaret Legge-Wilkinson and recorded for the Voices in the Landscape CD produced by the Canberra New Music Ensemble. It was also published in The Green Fuse, ed. Carmel Williams, Picaro Press, 2010).