*

Donna Gagnon Pugh
Were I That Cow
Response

A photograph hangs above our fireplace, ponderous in a frame far too ornate for the subject matter. Sun dried, desiccated bone deserves lightness of air, freedom from the weight of dark stained oak and double charcoal/oatmeal matte.

Many things follow my husband home on Saturdays in the spring and summer. Broken bicycles, water-stained hardcover books, rusting bird cages and, occasionally, something halfway decent (like the picture over the fireplace) is actually allowed into our house.

Yard sales baffle me. Cast offs from strangers’ homes, things that were once useful but no longer wanted, spread out on makeshift tables, dusty and smeared with unidentifiable fingerprints. Everything going cheap and, if it doesn’t go cheap, sent off promptly to a landfill or tucked back into the dark recesses of a shed or attic. In my mind, there are too many sad stories behind these things and I couldn’t bear to have them on my shelves. But the cow photograph is somehow different.

“It IS a nice picture,” Martin says. “Excellent balance of light and dark. Look at that gaping eye socket. It’s as big as the world.”

Sometimes, while Martin sleeps, I stand awake and keep company with the cow skull. We discuss long desert days and the unbearable cold of night. The cow explains what it’s like to be skinless, free of blood and responsibility.

Oh, I say. That sounds so nice.

RESPONSE –
Outside of Lessons
by Donna Gagnon

grass
in
springtime
fresh and soft
Taj runs, swirls the new
yellow dress, sings praise to her maa

sun
frowns
at this
innocent
dancing so freely
orders the wind to blow harder

Taj
falls
her knee
scrapes through grass
skin breaks, breath sobs and
when she rises, life continues

INSPIRATION —
Migrant
by Donna Gagnon

Mette wrote: kære mor … Paul has lost his mind. I am bringing the children back to Copenhagen. We cannot live this uncertain, plebian lifestyle. He cares nothing for us … only for his paintings.

Paul wrote: Cher Mette … When the name Gauguin is on the lips of Europe’s paisan and camarade, you will understand. I am staying with Vincent in Arles. He is crazy, threatening me yesterday with a razor. There must be a place where I can paint in peace.

In 1895, Paul threw his hands in the air, angrily tossed paint soaked linen rags in a leather case and sailed to Tahiti once more. Under heat soaked, moisture drenched foliage, he found the right colours, the full moments. At dusk, a young native woman came for him, led him away into the falling darkness.

‘My soul is a migrant,’ Paul whispered. ‘My head, my heart, my fingers … I must wander until I get this right. There are truths in men and their women, colours we see with our eyes, feel in our skin that I must pour out …’

Sleep finally came when, not understanding a single word he said, his lover sang … “shhhh”.