Claire Clube
38"x62" Monotype, silver ink, and stripes of silver paper
Loon
Watch a loon, most ancient of birds, in milk-glass-blue light
spear the membrane of the sea, a film of water about its head,
gold leaf of waves as it extends itself into oblivion,
phthalo-green. The loon bows, a dark angel.
There’s life within shadow, an unseen miracle,
iridescence inside a silent current, the icy field of the sea
carding the loon’s plumules, onyx wings.
What can I say? We spent seven lovely years together married the last four. She finished her first manuscript, Dora, poems for and about women and nature. She loved Janet Frame. She loved Gerard Manly Hopkins. She loved what she called the-barely-there, what others overlooked. David Whyte admired her first lines. I loved the whole complex, dazzling poem of her. Loon was our first collaboration. We hardly expected it to be our last. Ten minutes before she and her daughter were killed in a plane crash, she texted me:
“I feel free. I feel close to god and there are angels all around me.”