Earlier this month I wrote about the fact that I had not been writing much, despite my pledge to focus on my own work for a year. Well since that time I haven’t been reading much either, but I have been busy with writing related activity and, fortunately, I have more work written earlier in the year that I am now able to share.
Today my contributor’s copy of the latest edition of the elegant and engaging Seagull Books Catalogue arrived. I have only just begun to glance through it—this 428-page masterpiece begs to be savoured slowly and carefully—and, for the second year, I am honoured to have a piece of writing included.
My brief prose poem/essay, “The Cost of Words,” was written upon my return from the trip I made to central Australia in May of this year, to participate in a charity walk on the Larapinta Trail west of Alice Springs. Thank you, as ever, to Naveen Kishore and the entire team at Seagull Books for this beautiful creation and for once again inviting me to take part.
THE COST OF WORDS
It starts, not with a shout, but with a whisper, a tightening at the back of the throat.
Sadness was an opened door, an invitation, across the globe, to an ancient place where, for a time, the world might stop swaying, where I could focus on the moment, freightless after years of pushing against this cage of flesh and bone. Traverse a vast terrain of sound and sand and stone. I arrived empty, expectant. In my head, I had fashioned a journey of healing, imagined an ordeal to open a conduit to choked and buried grief. I longed to release the words that had ceased to flow. Unleash emotions untold.
Nature defies a narrative directive; life sets its own course. Streams flood, rivers run dry. We are not what we think we are. We are whole, we are broken. Fragile and durable in turns.
On my first day out, my head closed in, my voice grew strained and raw. Over rockbound passages, rising ridges, jagged ground, I began to fear that a different script was being dreamed for me. My challenge would be to submit. I fought it, pressing against weakness and illness and fatigue until one day I dropped from the trail into a circle of needles and stone.
The wisdom of the desert holds you humble. Reminds you when failure, not triumph, will unleash the tears you cannot cry. Water is precious. A gift not easily spared.
In the end, I will never know, how long I could have walked in perfect health. Whether heat or blisters or skeletal complaints would have slowed me all the same. But I do know that the outback is not just rock and rust-red dust and sand. It is explosive greens, the pallid beauty of the ghost gum, the sacred promise of the waterhole, and the wisdom of the women whose ancestors walked this land for millennia.
And the possibility of redemption from ruin. Again and again.
The cost of writing is not simply the loneliness and isolation a writer’s life affords; it is the cost of the life lived, the pain, wreckage, and devastation endured to be able write at all. Words are not free.
What might a perfect life dream forth? Nothing worth the ink that blood can bear. I am not what I think I am. I am broken, I am whole. I seek the words, the notes that bind this song I write. In my heart, after two weeks in the desert, I have carried it home. How long can this self-sufficient refrain echo before it fades to hollow silence?
Long enough if one remembers the cost of words and is prepared to pay the price.
roughghosts 
Please let us know when it’s available and we can get our own copy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
They’re not that easy to get a hold of, Seagull doesn’t usually sell them and they are large and heavy to ship. You can always try contacting them though.
LikeLike
Lovely – thanks for sharing this Joe!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Karen! It is always a treat to share (show off?). Heaven knows I haven’t written a review to post this month, so i’m glad to have something to offer.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The cost of words…. that is deep.
words are not free
How long can this self-sufficient refrain echo before it fades to hollow silence?
Long enough if one remembers the cost of words and is prepared to pay the price
~B
PS go ahead share/show off its beautiful touching work
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your kind words.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haunting, Joe. But I expect nothing less.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Mini. I confess I haven’t even had time to look at anyone else’s contributions yet. I’m hoping to find time soon to sit and sink into the pages for a while!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Take your time. Needs to be savored. I received my copy early, so nearing the end. Some fantastic texts, as always.
LikeLike
Wow: what a lovely looking publication and piece of work!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Somehow my words seem to sound better to me when I see them in such a beautiful setting. It is an honour to be part of it, this is my second year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have had the catalog for a month, since the Seagull publisher handed me one at the Frankfurt Book Fair – this is pure self-satisfied bragging, sorry – and it was a great pleasure to read the contributions by bloggers I know. No other publisher treats bloggers like, you know, writers.
I will have to find a home for the book in Europe before I go, because it is too big to haul home.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Seagull is a class act. Too bad you can’t take the catalogue home, but I’m sure you will find someone to treasure it!
LikeLike
Well done joe
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Stu!
LikeLike
That’s so beautiful, both the catalogue and your words. Kinda sad that nothing of that catalogue sort exists here (or maybe I’m not aware of them).
LikeLiked by 1 person
The catalogue is from Seagull Books, a very special book publisher based in Kolkata, India. Their approach to their annual catalogue is quite unlike any other publisher I know of. And they include the work of book bloggers/reviewers like me alongside that of the other authors and translators they work with which is quite an honour. I have, in recent years, become so much more interested in supporting small independent publishers for the community that can develop with readers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is extremely powerful writing, a very honest and moving personal response. Bravo!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! I wasn’t sure if I was happy with this when I wrote it, so soon after my return from Australia. But looking at it now, especially printed in such a beautiful book, I can look at it with fresh eyes. Creative writing needs a little distance, I find.
LikeLike
All writing benefits from being put away in a drawer for a time. You can get so close to it that you can’t see what is blindingly obvious with a fresh pair of eyes. I’ve found that to be the case with speeches I had to write or articles.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautiful. Your words. And the catalogue.
LikeLike