Thoughts on Darkness 04: Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis – Series I, II, III

It is November and it gets darker, earlier now.

We are kept inside by the cold and we do what we must.

We write, we paint, we talk, we smoke, we get stoned,

we fuck in the dark with our hands and our hearts.

We eat bagels with cream cheese and peanut butter,

make soups from barley, grains, roots from her Jewish grandmother.

The house on Walnut St comes to life in the dark,

as we open ourselves to the night, the Arctic might,

as we weave in and out past the sullen streets

onto the flat wheat fields, now barren under the tall,

tall night of the Canadian prairies.

- 1987, Winnipeg, Canada.

This series of ink drawings called Metamorphosis was created in the freezing winter month of November 1987 in Winnipeg, Canada. I was studying TESL and English Literature at the U of W and was then living in a house on Walnut Street (we dubbed it the Nut House) as it comprised of painter Robert Reimer, jewellery artist Aliza Amihude, her boyfriend Doug, Elena Feldman, a fellow writer whose name fails me, artist Tim Bremser and myself. This is the only series of drawings I’ve ever produced.

~

Bernice Chauly is a writer/poet/photographer and lecturer. She is currently writing and researching a literary autobiography of her Chinese and Punjabi family diasporas, part of her M.A in Creative Writing at the English Dept of University Malaya. To view more of Bernice’s work, please visit her blog: bernicechauly.wordpress.com.