Shells

We put them up to our ears and we wonder what we’re hearing

Perhaps it’s our breathing

The ocean within us

whirling

twirling

breathing on the sand.

Below is a Transcription of a Sound piece about Shells but I did not go ahead with it. I’m sharing with you to show my processes, a mixture of text and audio.

 Shells

[The sound of the tide coming in, washing over pebbles, over and over]

The edges, the edges are creaking. The edges are in harmony. They are creaking and they are soft, and they are not crisp. Instead they are half bitten. The jewels and the jewels see the blue in the sky beyond a horizon.

[Mystical electronic notes rise slowly]

The pink in her cheeks. The green below my feet, the red up high beating blood around my body, about warm, as warm as fire, lonely here, where all the women who birth their babies, who are growing older, like a strip of paper, a note written on crumpled paper, a strip of words because we have got lots left to say.

[The sound of a boat’s horn]

A boat out on the water, her sails are made from our wedding dresses. The curtains of our rooms pave out a story, a map of love, like sealed envelopes. Old age, it centres us. Walk over rocks and see, in the darkest night, where we lay all of our dreams.

[The rumble of thunder, and a heavy rain shower starts]

In the darkest sky where all the women wonder why, and the [left 1:50] bit of sky, in the lit up sky. In the lit up sky, covered in stars. In the starry night, women cry.  The forest is where I lay my head beside you.

The moss on the ground is thick and the air is -

where I lay my head beside my son.

[The soft sound of crickets and forest insects chirping into the night]

His head is cold. His cheeks are blue. I feel it too.

The forest is where I lay my dreams behind me, our house on a hill.

Our house on a hillside and the clouds.

[Heavy rain breaks again, and distant thunder, not angry, but rumbling]

I feel so ill.

Outside my voice feels someplace else. In the village on the hillside I see my home still, quiet, basking in all of this light. Windowsill I put in a jug some flowers and I see from the windows, from the windows I see - I see the sea tumbling, falling, splashing down, and the sun snoring softly. And his snore reminds me of the sea, and the ocean waves, and the sun splashing sea salt air, taste it on the lamb they feast on.

[A plane passes quite close overhead]

Last supper, kiss me goodbye, kiss me awake, sun kissing sea. Sea reflecting the sky. The forest is where I lay my head.

[A tree creaks and crashes to the ground far away.

The sea continues to wash in and out]

The forest is where I lay my head when the ground was shaking. Ground shaking. All the bodies could have been hanging from the [tree] branches.

[Another tree falls with a bang. Waves wash in and out]

Branched tree.

Climbing trees.

The trees are broken. And so are the returning men’s brains from war.

The rocks have escaped the mountaintops and have eaten up the village, eaten up the clouds.

Cloud pouring out the smother dreams for school children playing tag in the playground.

The rocks have spat out only three.

The grandmother and her two grandchildren, too busy, distracted by the goats and their kids.

And beneath them I’m lying feeling so ill.

I lie in the forest and beside me, the sun, and behind me, a sun in the sky, rising, pouring the light all over, all over my face.

Because I’m home.

Because I’m home.

[The tide washes over the shingle, and fades out]