An excerpt from the follow-up/-on to The Floating Harbour.
“Coffined thoughts around me,
in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words.
Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, mooneycrowned.
And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest.
In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks.”
– James Joyce, Ulysses
“Yahsawyerdad?”
“Ahsawmadad. We listened to the birdsong chorus.”
“Dyarite?”
“Aiallwayzdoo.”
They shared then – the sons, their mother, ‘n the border collie – the crackling, flicker-flame sounds of tide-eternal-time. As she began to hum again, an idea washed ashore.
“Oh okay, yeh. Where is it?”
She told him it was upstairs, in his room.
Carpetlessness creaking under step ‘n under foot ‘n under creaking cart’lige cushion holding fast ‘n holding on… Unvarnished grain grows – sturdy; split – up, on, and o’er again; the top-stair corner carries ‘round onto the landing.
He walked upstairs.
T’his room he tread those boards – going not far; treading not long. A finely crafted lot of letters nailed into its door, the room, so full in retrospect, slept – spacious; silent.
In moted dustlight leant his old guitar.
“Found it…” She softly breathed out air through phonemed chords – her little hands on fat’ning hips; her shoulders sloped ‘n forward fall’n – now that she’d stopped her streetway wand’ring, winding – wandrous – wondersome through Abdju’s pathway-roads ‘n by its fam’lied houses. In grand’yus unremarkability, unbathed in memory, it merely stood, its spacious silence settled on the soil, ‘n while she watched that portal-house, a-peering b’yond that present past, she knew not why it was she heard the sound of strings.
“Heh-loh?”
She only heard her question-call sail westward.
“Hell-oe?”
She merely felt its rippled rings recede.
“Huhhigh?”
And so, it seemed, there was nobody there.
It was – at least, it seemed – neglected; empty.
william altoft 