Navigating Sentient Performativities Part Four: A Poem
Anticipating Connection and Negotiating Community
I arrived at the spot after my earlier recce at 9.40.
I arrived after ‘crawling’ and ‘slow walking’ on the TV in studios six and one respectively.
I arrived at 11.20
Or thereabouts.
I sat on the steps.
I waited.
Kristina gave me a ‘past its summer’ leaf
inviting my choosing from her basket of wares.
I chose a blade of grass.
She said, “They come as a pair”.
And gave me another.
I took the three moving offerings weaving them lightly together.
Then perched them on the wall near the steps.
Leaving the encounter, I walked along the edge of the former tennis courts.
Sandra was troubling a log.
Sandra was making a noise.
I had spied Sandra earlier during the recce.
Sandra is everywhere.
I squatted on the edge of the court.
I framed her space downstage.
In micro-scale and minor key
I formed the small men of the apocalypse on horseback.
Their fragmented dismembered bodies were lying in the succulents;
the cactus-like green stuff we have in the front garden bed at home;
the green stuff that Mairin brought me in a pot,
the green stuff that has now exploded in the centre of that garden bed
and I still don’t know its name.
Finishing my grounded fresco
I turned away from the working space,
left the scene,
and went my own way
through a gap
in the undergrowth,
through a secret doorway.
Behind the doorway
two Beeches were colluding,
whispering, rasping.
Further in and deeper still,
a small abandoned wood store covered in blue plastic
made its presence known to me
and I thought of Richard and Pino.
Exploring on and coming out into the sunshine:
to my left
a steep rise of steps leading to a circular drive and a house rising up.
Andrew was there,
sporting a glamorous dressing gown,
prancing about like the man of the house
but in ultra slow motion.
Today
I want to be Queen of the Castle so I play a circular ritual of fast-paced zig-zags
around the drive.
Round and round and round
earning my place on the podium.
I stand tall like the house,
Not bowing or hiding like the Beeches.
I stand out in hot full sunlight.
The bell rings.
Time up.
Now the slow ending begins.
I feel awkward in the final thankyou circle.
My place in the group had been but a fantasy.
I have only been here a short while.
They have been here for weeks.
Nevertheless, I join them.
Nevertheless, I am in community.
Carran Waterfield (Written after Moving)
Animate in Animate Durational Event 29 June 2022
Sentient Performativities Symposium: Living Alongside the Human 26-29 June 2022 Dartington, UK and online.
For more of my poems written after moving please see
Triarchy Press biog Waterfield