Editor's Note: Each day from December 1 -21, Halifax' poet laureate Sue Goyette will write a new poem to share with the city on The Coast's website and social media. "If I need this, I bet other people need this," she told us on day one—and we think she's right. In a year that's felt like a months-long dusk, this will be some light we can carry forward, together, until the days begin to grow again.
Here is her poem for December 17:
Here is her poem for December 17:
I once found geometric renderings of birdsong on the internet. Each note assigned its own colour to convey tonal complexity, the sophistication of the call manifesting like an old school Mac visualizer—complex and vivid. Then I heard a podcast about mantis shrimp that have between twelve and sixteen photoreceptor cells; we have three. They see colours we can’t even imagine. A choir was used to vocally trace the shades beyond the colours we’re familiar with. I was driving through New Brunswick and my car became an aquarium filled with sound acquainting me to the rind of the idea of the colours outside my knowing. What else is surrounding us that we can’t yet apprehend? It’s going to snow today. The sky has that low-ceiling feel, burdened with forecast. Wilson Alwyn Bentley was the first person to photograph snowflakes on black velvet. He was also the first to record raindrop sizes. I got a notification that the Cloud Appreciation Group was live and I’m still carrying the idea of people gazing overhead and rejoicing like it’s a new species of treasure. How can we perk to this verging?
