feitio rede de palavra: λεεσα
TRANSCRIPT
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 .
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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
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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
BURCKHARDT, 'Feitio Rede de Palavra', Irish Review 24 (1999) 121
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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
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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?
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