feitio rede de palavra: λεεσα

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Feitio Rede De Palavra: λεεσα Author(s): Olivier Burckhardt Source: The Irish Review (1986-), No. 24 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 118-124 Published by: Cork University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29735945 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 16:26 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Cork University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Review (1986-). http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.248.111 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:26:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Feitio Rede De Palavra: λεεσαAuthor(s): Olivier BurckhardtSource: The Irish Review (1986-), No. 24 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 118-124Published by: Cork University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29735945 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 16:26

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cork University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Review(1986-).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.111 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:26:47 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Feitio Re^l?^dp/Palavra

OLIVIER BURCKHARDT

Feitio

rede de palavra ? the English words & phrases battled with in the

silence of seashellear purl ?

knowledge is not wisdom.

In search of the perfect spelling for the sea's endless speeching I travelled

through the night. April's full moonlight filtered by the train's passage in the

flickering of a beatific face of the child-woman to the accompaniment of a

drunk belchfartsnoring Catalan.

Morning's firstlight on Portugal's northern border ? a burst of eucalypt ? mind's echo of an (I never dared call mine) Australia recalled without

time for sharp-focus-imaginings. In broken English and fragments of Portuguese I bought a coach ticket to

a village I did not know ? a name driven choice.

Illslept eyes consumed everything in swerving view: pine & eucalypt hillsides, hand hewn granite pillars propping grape-vines, cork & olive

trees, copper pots by the roadside, oaks, washing drying in the sun, old

men squatting round in the square; names to strain grit-full eyes; Cristelo

Covo, Ar?o, S?o Pedro da Torre, Campos, Reboreda, Lovelhe,Vila Nova de

Cerveira, the Rio Minho, Loivo, Gondarem, Lanhelas, Seixas, thirsting with greed after every glimpse of the Atlantic, Caminha, Cristelo, Moledo, Vilarinho.

Obliterated in the staleness of the coach, scents Sc sounds assailed the

moment I reached Vila Praia de Ancora in the noonheat. A rusty pierced fish weathercock, the weatherfish, pointed inland towards the hills and dis?

tant mountains, walking tailward I found the boundless Ocean and a

muttonfat jade river running into the sea, a footbridge spanning its narrow

width beyond which the white beach and dunes swept into the hazy dis?

tance of an isolated mansion bidding discovery.

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Eyewalking the shore: among the dunes; meandering the tide mark;

among the rocks; wind-blown seaweed, condom wrapper, feather, plastic can, straw, rope with net segment (a tangled mass of frayed knots), sand filled

glass bottle, plastic bag, half of a green clothes-peg, twine, shells & segments of shells in the process of becoming sand, suntan lotion tube full of sea

water, thong strap, bird bone, bottle cap, margarine tub lid, round light bulb,

cuttlefish bone, olive tree flower, fragments of various grain size granite, ochre layered red to orangeyellow pebbles, sanitary towel (cleaned by the

sea), oak leaf, leaves of an unidentified tree, green glass bottle, adhesive pro?

tecting strips of sanitary towel, crate, intact apple (granny smith), matt-green

pebble, onion casing (outer three layers, perfect even if hollow), rubber

band, broken flip-flops, part of a crate, rope with knots tightly jammed between rocks, clump of seaweed intertwined with black plastic rubbish bag & fishing net with green leader rope, short fluorescent-light tube, white

plastic glove (right hand), plastic oil can, seaweed, segment of large anchor

rope with frayed ends, sawn birch log (approx. 30cm), large plastic ridged

tube, metal sphere with sea life still attached & living, plastic engine oil can

(lit) with attached mussels & ropes (at one time used as a float marker), stake with fishing wire & large hook, remains of a heron, lower rib cage &

tail ? feathers dark grey to black ? delicate bones ? tail bones curling up to a red point

? on the remaining leg bones 3 rings ? one bleached white

plastic ? one green plastic ring inscribed with numeric "4" ? one metal

plastic coated yellow ring inscribed

Portu

gal93 3085308

reaching the mansion overlooking the dunes: a fenced madhouse for tor?

tured souls screaming silence.

To be on the edge of a continent and face the setting sun bleed into the

saltsea of its rejuvenation, to rediscover the original moment when ocean's

terror seized the heart ? a wind-driven Newday to find & comprehend

infinity ?

began in a to & fro walking of the esplanade from muttonfat jade river to harbour.

Miniature minaret port guiding flickering lights keep sentinel on the

incoming tide, watching the breakers arching high, windtugged gulls surge

and sway under full wingspan. As the Atlantic rolls in I understand the Greeks' reluctance to name seasky

BURCKHARDT, 'Feitio Rede de Palavra', Irish Review 24 (1999) 119

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colour, it is ever changing, a living mirror reflecting light and darkness, a

quilted sequence of rippled & smooth water, hazed, in constant movement,

dull or shimmering. O fallando do mar; the sea's hashwishwashha mingles with the smell of salt & mercury. The foghorn wails, guiding skiff, hooker,

scow, coble, smack, dogger, buss, drifter, trawler, purse-seiner, whaler, to har?

bour through banks of fog outatsea. The swelling Atlantic gives no rest save

final rest. Fishingboats must be pulled out of the sea and put back into the

sea. Fishing folk watch each operation, though none watch their own boats

going out, blackfrocked stout women help pushing the boats up the ramp on their return.

Portside, under a frayed green awning, a make shift platform, a raft of rat?

tling planks and salt rusted iron over the slanting road, a stack of plastic

chairs, a table. More than a half dozen fisherman and the bar becomes filled

with the whole thundering dark sea, raucous rasped voices born of a thirst

with only saltwater in sight reverberate and sway among net snaring objects

hanging from the low rafted ceiling: ancient glass floats, rusting iron cups, the jaw of a shark, shells, fishermen's knots, net mending shuttles. Over the

threshold a blaring TV, cartoons of shipwrecked rafts, behind the squaring counter a nakedblonde calendar, pots atop an ancient fat encrusted gas

stove, I dare not ask nor sample. ? Un copo de vinho verde branco and the glass is filled past the rim spilling onto

the counter. - Sessenta escudos.

Sitting outside, watching the sea spilling over the retaining wall and onto

the road, fishermen ebb & flow over the rattling boards, my glass totters and

jumps on the plastic table, conversations from within burst out to collide

with the splashing waves. The bartender comes to glance onto the spilling sea returning a moment later to bring a saucer of unshelled peanuts.

Watching the sea I am reminded of Paolo Conte's line ma la paura che ci fa

quel mare scuro che si muove anche di notte, non stafermo mai.

A fisherman rounds the corner, wife and two young daughters by his

side, a bundle of nets in his embrace. As he hooks a net to the wall wife 8c

daughters sit on a bench, shoulders to the stone wall. Fisherman mending

nets, mother crocheting a seaspume lace curtain, nets for fish, nets for catch?

ing stray glances. Another copo, maduro this time, cinquenta escudos, it does not overflow

the rim. Outside the fisherman mends his net. With the sea behind them I

can look on unabashed. Sea spray pluming/blooming over the seawall.

Old sea-dog, children and women gather round. An older woman

inspects the lace, gathers the length and rolls it into a neat bundle before

pinning it with a large safety-pin. It will not drag on the street.

The fishing net is made up of two layers, the wider meshed layers lending

120 BURCKHARDT, 'Feitio Rede de Palavra', Irish Review 24 (1999)

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support and evenness to the finer meshed one. The fisherman inspects and

repairs, strands that have come loose are either cut away with his teeth or a

small knife, then the shuttle goes to work, severed connections are made

anew. The existing net serves as the pattern. Tugging, he calculates the

amount of fishing wire to be added, new knots made, surplus strands cut

away, guide lines, weights & floats inspected. That which outofsea appears a

jumbled mass will, once in the silencing seadepth, dance a veiled ether

dance.

Old sea-dog looks over the net and grumbles, rasp-voiced he plays the

gruff grandfather to daring children before bursting into raucous laughter;

conspiratorial eyed he mistrusts silence.

Twilight on a perfect to be gibbous night, three nights after full, betwixt

muttonfat jade river footbridge and Vel?iro s bar, the fisherman's caf?: mid

esplanade, gesticulating a charade to absent sun; the wildman stood; raven

cloaked; miming messages in hisown language, sang a song creating world;

striving to revoke the irreversible sun'spassage, encantoado espertad?r from

the torture house of human souls, words beyond comprehension . . .

V?in?m?inen's kin.

Heeding the shrieks of the lone Earth mid Heaven sea mew, sight scan?

ning its flight from distant seaspray enrobed mansion at dunes' end, curving the esplanade's contour overhead, pursuing to harbour s embrace and flight's

end; the sea's resounding applaud exalt the Wildman's cryptic mime.

Thoughts unformed dwell in unfathomed ocean ebbing and flowing in

constant purling movement; remove what you know and all that is left is

unbounded process, to but bathe in its waters and never to want for more

than that.

A mirror mirroring itself; a hand thrust out for escudos re-establishing the

illusion of fact. Hallow footsteps punctuate the journey to harbour's side.

Vel?iro s bar ? solitary echo of an abandoned vessel ? a glass of red

maduro an eyeing of the pot harbouring stove. Outside, on the rickety plat?

form, table & chairs howling -

sitting under tattered green sail I drink wine

and greed savours the moment.

Next to the caf? a group of fishingfolk sat, stood, talked, laughed, gestic?

ulated, spat; the women daintily, moving to one side, letting their gobs

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freefall in perfect perpendicularity; the men sending their gobs in that per? fect arc of forty-five degrees as far as anything shot out at forty-five degrees can go. I took the golden mean, the take-it-now or weep for nothing for all

time to come.

Returning inside to play a game of gestures and grimaces of pointing and retracting of taking and giving until on the counter a trilogy of

saucers appears. 3 large Portuguese sardinhas, heads & tails overhanging,

accompanied by a generous onion serving with bay leaves. And pao, yes, one please, I now know the size of a bread roll haloed in a white saucer,

and a glass of maduro tinto ink akin, the hand-till tolls 400 escudos, we

smile, the bartender and I, as he aligns the empty saucer of promise that is

bear the remains.

The glorious darkening sky welcomes me anew, beneath the chair the

boards creak twitch and groan. Settled, wined, sardined, paoed and secret

companied; I watch the sea, eat delicacies between me and the minaret tow?

ered port guiding lights beyond which is the sigh so sea see sae she swish

swash sea to endless reach of ear and eye.

Fishingfolk, fishermen and women of the long sea watching and washing sea, trick track talk, gestures always end seaward, seabound, sea braided, sea

cast, gather the gob and spit-splash, the one with half a mouth of teeth,

smiles a comic Janus profile; right profile smile of beacon white teeth, left

profile smiles a gaping darkness. V?in?m?inen's kantala must have been

made from such a pike jaw.

Eating detail of sardines wrought with care, on the once empty part of

the trilogy perfect skeletons accumulate, head intact, deadfisheye cooked to

popping white cataract perfection; blinded sardine watching without seeing to the core of my eye which watches the sea and its folk, the tail by back?

bone attached, a tail that once knew of the deep unbounded sea. Delicate

bones form the rib cage, if fish have ribs and if sardines have sea bones, these

are the finest, bristle hairs a brush could be made of. What sea monsters

would they paint or are they only for the stomach gut darkness of a sardine

Jonah knows. Unbroken backbones arched in an aberrant outofsea fashion

form a cascade of ???????? - Gob splat, ha ha ho and then . . . end wine end

sardines, still alittle pao.

Empty plated, empty glassed, make the miracle, just one, one, once more.

Yes it is good, it is very good! Pick poke pick the biggest, no the best, the

122 BURCKHARDT, 'Feitio Rede de Palavra', Irish Review 24 (1999)

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best cooked is not the biggest, and onions, soft sweet a hint of vinegar

onions, a pile upon a pile of them with bay leaves, does the wanderer know

not to eat them, but to suck upon the tree leave of the bay as one sucks

upon a fish tail, your eyes glance questioningly. Wine flows to the rim with?

out brimming over. The miracle: ?the universe so small; an intimate

boundless ocean; a rusty caf?; a raft of rickety boards on rusty supports of sea

salted iron floating in space; the stone dilapidated house next to the caf?; a

gathering of apostles awaiting the arrival of the one who would walk the sea

to guide them gently to those places that as children they dreamt of.

A sardine in one, the remains in the other, the broken bread in the other

still, a woman watches me eat the last, pulling the flesh away from the bones

with lip bared teeth, skeleton bristle tickling my nose, net caught sardine fish

head who once knew the sea between right thumb and index, tail at the

other end, sinister thumb and index. Where tails belong.

Sucking fish taste from my thumb, did the salmon Lynn Feic who fed on

wisdom's hazelnuts provide Finn Mac Coul with wisdom or does the suck?

ing of thumbs gain one only knowledge? And Oannes, lord of wisdom, does he still emerge from the sea each

morning to tell us of the tilling of land, of healing, of writing and does he

still retire to ocean's depths with dusk? is the great fish Mah still holding up the universe for you and I? do fish still bring us parcels of mud from the sea

floor for us to recreate an earth? away from here, can all this be contained in

Portuguese yellowtinned sardines? A fishbone quartet of eying blindness out

of a net ?

wisdom's form ?

queries all.

From sea laughter caracols in the wake of a ship. They talk, knowing each

other' fish as their own pockets, a game of keys begins, yesterday's net

mender's hand thrust out of pocket with a key ring offering to the youngest

among them, everyone follows suite, keys are piled on the fish catching

hand, a mound becomes a mountain, car keys, boatkeys, house keys, town

key, fort key, key to a lost padlock, key of a cousin lost to an uncle key, the

recipient bends at the knee, the weight in cupped hands crushing youth,

Sisyphus has an easy time of it, keys jingle, a netfull of keys, sinking through the rings of purgatory and further still to hells' pit. Merqury, mazda, honda,

toyota, st christopher, knotted rope, david's star, ying-yang, horn of goodfor

tune, fist with thumb between index and middle finger; none of the

talismans attached by chain, rope or leather thong will help an anchor of

keys from sinking through the abyss. Generously they laugh and take back.

Each to their burden. A spare key is closely inspected. Mine? Yours? Our?

BURCKHARDT, 'Feitio Rede de Palavra', Irish Review 24 (1999) 123

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No! No!! No!!! I feel like rushing over, eye the observer, to say ... to take . . . But tourists don't exist in the ocean, have any ever been caught in a net?

Which fish is a stranger to the seasheseashhh? Shhh tell no fibslienetwith

lies, no lie or ley of the land ever concerned these ploughers of sea, plough the ocean and no scar remains save on the plougher. the sea gives shhh takes,

raging on her surface, Silent into her depths, Ha-de ser o que Deus Quizer, m?e de deus, atl?ntida, nova Jerusalem, cristo salva, mois?s joel, mar de

galilea, peque?a, flecha, san da guia, branca maria, sao bento, fatima, nuno,

dorca, linda, maria helena, Jacinta, maria, teresa malfada, cristosalva, mer

ciana, velho caba?a, sol nascente, churriba, jovem seaeia, badalico, st antonio,

touta, manuel raimundo, patricia carina, nani claudia, paulo renato, olivia

Cristina, antartica, logoal, anfibio, femando, aninhas, rosita, dorca, linda, luis

manuel, gaivota ? a tolling of bells, a telling by bellsname, ask no questions.

Ire not her wrath. Silence.

Colophon:

The words that stumble over the rim of an inkwell do not reveal all. So

much remains hidden to the blindness of a page, the sea dark trail of ink that

would forever run seaward, offering itself like Homer offered muttonfat to

the gods, joins the unctuous darkness of the shadows of words to come.

Lashed by the foregustwind of Atlantic waves fashioning a net of words.

What thoughts will it ensnare? Tu Fu, disguised as the screeching seagull

hovering mid air, entreats the courage to withstand the doubts of despair. In

aid of what is all this moidering on words if not to distil creation from the

created.

Life's rebus offers itself in the chidechild that rings my goats'bellchime to

ask if there is no one here with whom to palplay. My thickboldhead

searches for reasons of intellect an answer among a possible range of rea?

soned answers of wrongdoor, wrongstreet, wrongvillage,

wrongseasonofmylife -

intelligible reasons for a playmatesearchingchild who insists by bellchime at the door of my intelligence driven to stupidity - is there anyone here to play with?

124 BURCKHARDT, 'Feitio Rede de Palavra', Irish Review 24 (1999)

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