After Frances O’Connor’s film Emily
After two and a half hours immersed in the wild landscape, wild hair, the wilderness of Emily – that passionate, defiant heroine. Introvert, resistor, rebel, we – my old friend from childhood and I – come out into the glare of day, such a shock after all those green grasses and winds and tress and moors, and Emily’s sardonic secret-smiles-to-self face, a face, a body, every strand of dishevelled hair brimming with passion and thought, and intelligence. My friend asks me, ‘Where do you think it came from, their stories?’ –‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Only they would know.’ And my friend persists, for this is her way. She is probably slightly irritated, she likes answers, she likes definite, she’s not wishy-washy. She listens to podcasts that do summaries, snapshots. She doesn’t have time for things that go on too long. She gets the gist. My friend says, ‘Like they said [in the film] – they asked that question – where do your stories come from? Remember?’ I nod. Yes, I remember. I say, ‘Yes, but I can’t speak for them. For her. Only they would know.’ [And even then …] My friend says, ‘Yes, but I’m asking YOU – what do YOU think?’ And again, I say, I don’t know, only she could possibly know. My friend nods, says something about, so you’re saying it’s a mystery, creativity … At that point, I could have said, yes, it’s ultimately mysterious, and unknowable, but I don’t, I’m silent. My ex used to say I was like a sponge. With people. Taking on all the transference. [It’s to do with a lack of boundaries, he said]. But I wonder if actors are like that too (and I wanted to be one once! How I wanted to be that!) And in that moment, I feel imbued with the spirit of Emily. I feel still back there with Emily, hiding in the closet, unable to face a class. Sobbing over the lover who has shunned her. Standing up to him. Challenging his God. Telling her sisters, I won’t do it! I won’t come out of my room! In this moment, I can’t be pinned down. I can’t speak for Emily. I can’t speak all my theories. The isolated imaginative childhood; the too-soon dead mother; the pastor father; the Bible, the moors; the enmeshment of family; the too-close bonds that bound them in play, shutting the rest of the world out for a fantasy world of their own. For these are all of my theories, but I can’t sum it up in one sentence when my friend is standing there in the street with her body half-turned to turn away, to get home, to go to Pilates. No, I can’t! I won’t! I know I may be incurring disdain, displeasure, for my friend is likely not satisfied with what I say. I am not trying to be like Emily, I’m not standing there in the street seeing myself in Emily/Emily in me, but still, there is something in me that sometimes refuses the conversational offer, the game, the way you’re supposed to play. But it’s also in that moment, I can’t think, I come out with things that come out of my mouth without my controlling or knowing it, it’s like the unconscious spilling out without you having vetting power over it, which could be a sort of passion or could be simply lack of emotional regulation. Imagine saying that to Emily Bronte! Oh, we’re so big now on regulating our emotions but oh, imagine even saying that to Emily! (Though you can imagine it with Charlotte). When someone asks me such things, sometimes I’ll enter into serious, analytical, thoughtful discussion, and other times, it’s as if I’m a hunted animal, caught in the headlights of an interview, terrified. I won’t be drawn. ‘I hate doing interviews,’ I told a friend. ‘But you’re such a great conversationalist!’ she said. Where does it come from? Who knows?
Spring Day, Nearly Summer
A boy, well, a person who has a boy’s face, a boy’s body,
getting off the bus, walking along the pavement,
with his boy-friends, all of them together gabbing,
intent, off to a day at the pool, school sports –
this boy I see first is in a bright pink tutu, sparkles,
he’s leading the noisy little gang, I’d love to stop him,
ask him – Who are you? the boys are excited, fast,
none of them seem fazed by the pink tutu or sparkles.
I can feel the smile on my face all the way to the car,
finally turning away from them, holding them
in my glad bursting heart.
Any Day Now
You say you long to be untethered but no one believes you’re telling the truth. The depression you tend to, your mashed mind, your slow feet. Out in the street, footsteps. Others going about their lives. Being alive. While you keep your tethers fresh, watering them daily, saying I have never really left him. Meanwhile, he has someone else somewhere else, far from here. You interrogate Is she kind? Can she look after you when you are not well? She lives at Beauty Point. That sounds nice but how long does it take her to reach him? Can she save him? The poor woman doesn’t know you are doing this handover from here. Doesn’t know the hold he has on you. You call, you are careful. Bequeathing him to her, you have no option. You will try to befriend her, say Oh yes, he’s wonderful, please look after him! Though you tried that with another woman he was with and she told you smartly, I’m sure he’s capable of looking after himself. You play Bob, one of his many legacies, sing loud and strong, almost as if you believe it Any day now / Any day now / I shall be – released.
B.C.
Maya’s hair long and waving in the wind, looking at the camera like she knows something that can never be captured; and Martin almost smug with his face up close like a fist saying here, take on this! strong, handsome, before you threw in your lot together and took the path the research shows as one of the paths that leads to happiness. Oh, that, he says, that was B.C.. – before children – weren’t we beautiful! and he shakes his eyes as if the sand’s still in them and says, Ocean Grove - we had a whole day there and she says in that way she has of adding lines like she’s an undercurrent – and no rest since – and right over the top of her, shaking his hands in the air like there’s a grain he might catch and hold up to the light – imagine – if you had money –just to, you know – a day like that – and again, the undertow – I’ve never felt rest like that. Ever. I dream about going on retreat but when I tell her I’ve been many times, they’re cheap, easy to get to, there’s something I will never reach in the troughs of her green ocean eyes. In that photo, he says, we look so good – we look like we’re really going somewhere.
Poetics
Are these poems? Prose poems? Micro-lit? Flash-fiction? And who shall say?
Publication Details
‘Any Day Now’ was published in Journeys, Poetica Christi, Oct 2023.
This poem was shortlisted for the Poetica Christi Poetry Prize 2023; and also for the Robyn Mathison Poetry Prize 2021.
‘B.C.’ was published in Brushstrokes II, WA Poets Inc, 2022. It was rejected by numerous journals.
The other poems have not been previously published.
