footlights: illuminating the metaphysical

 In these times of isolation and uncertainty, especially through the shutdowns that occurred earlier this year, room has been given for contemplation upon things that exist and happen in our own backyards.  So many of us have been given an opportunity to turn our gaze within, to familiarize ourselves with the things that had long awaited for our attentions.

Through the thick of this global pandemic, poet Pearl Pirie brings a collection of introspections and meditations that she has called “footlights”. The source of the title comes from another title in the book- ‘the saplings are yellow as footlights in the forest’.  Through this poem and others, she is able to capture moments of light, when something turns full frontal to the sun and seems to illuminated brighter than its surroundings, as she has done with the opening lines of ‘honey locusts shed gold at whippet dawn’:

“along the cracked sidewalks

dog, bright as a mote

translucent as a glass fish.”

Pearl lives in the wilds of Quebec’s Gatineau Hills, close to nature, immersed in its quiet, peace and microcosmic dramatic plays.  In them, she sees the synchronicity between the natural and the human, the artificial.  She sees their metaphysicality, their metaphors. Everything literary runs on metaphors, acting as a lubricant for us to move through our lives.  Pearl has a sort of sixth sense when it comes to seeing these devices, as if she sees a dimension few people can see.  A penny for her thoughts indeed would be an investment with high returns.

As an empath, she carefully considers everything, observing from afar, yet her affection never diminishes with the distance. Her observations of nature are subtle, as she tries to not be obtrusive, in ‘what is set in motion’

“aware of my indelicate

predator eyes,

through its reflection, 

I watch the loon.”

Or in ‘ant by lamplight’

“Pausing, head tilted

    we, despite ourselves,

      cheer.  she’s started down:”

She writes with a powerful candid sensuality, as in ‘the ligaments hop over one another’ 

“here, put your thumbs

(each deserve an Order of Canada)

into my waiting shoulders,”

Or she uses powerful corporeal metaphorical imagery as you may find in ‘in the park’s verges’

 

“Will our ribs find they can intermesh like fingers

In a bit of scrub and cedar verge?”

And again in ‘house with you’, we see a lover as furniture, an accessory for your decor where we seek the comfort of human contact, sinking into the contours of your lover’s body.

“you would make a wonderful wingchair

my back to your stomach, your jaw for my temple.”

“footlights” covers so much ground, touches so many different things, oscillating from a lighthearted play on words such as ‘a flannelette’s flannel’ or the life/death drama of watching a cooper’s hawk attack a pigeon while she orders pho in ‘waiting for menus’.

Even her titles tell stories solely on their own, such as ‘pollinators think the bouquet is for them’ or ‘old habits are hard as a boiled egg to beat’.  Still, all of them comment on the human condition through so many transparent layers, like looking into a lenticular picture, where what you see depends on the angle at which you view.

In the end, “footlights” is luminous with the energy of Pearl’s bright and brilliant mind.  She illuminates so many different questions and reflects back the answers through beautiful imagery and lush metaphors.  In what seems to be dark times, she lights us a pathway with which we can traverse safely and confidently through the theatre of life, grateful for her vivid poetic projections and music.