Five After Remedios Varo, by Catherine Graham

​Solar Music, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1955

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​Solar Music by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1955
 
I am interval lest we are clay walking home.
Create through musical vibrations.
 
No humans, aloud to my curious signs:
sunbeam, stringed instrument, bow 
 
across a shaft of light. I remove 
when from dust.
 
Octave laws vibrate invisible 
into a looking forum.
 
Star, ray, root.  I illuminate 
undergrowth and fractal nerve moss 
 
from the house of stars. Shatter
crystal cages and set the red birds free.
 

Harmony, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1956

​Harmony by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1956
 
I cross the occult with invisible stitch work.
Crystals. Glass. I hear what I compose
 
from the beak of a bird from inside the red 
chair, flowers arise through the checkerboard floor.
 
Harmony tilts towards me. Leaf, pearl, prism, shell.
The mandrake root gives route to the access.
 
This higher order from the inner octave,
from scales nested in notes, from harmony’s 
 
underpinnings: the invisible thread that unites all things.
 

Witch Going to the Sabbath, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1957

Witch Going to the Sabbath by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1957
 
Don’t say fire isn’t hair 
or bangs can’t be wings.
 
Alchemy to your dark 
heart is my dark heart, 
 
the want for filling.
My familiar purrs in smoke. 
 
Come close. Don’t touch.
I hold life between the legs.
 
In the realm of the syncretic, 
where infinite expands, creates--
 
the clit is my face.
 

Celestial Pablum, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1958

Celestial Pablum by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1958
 
O caged crescent light,
inside everyone,
an escape hatch.
 
You’re the perfect fit, 
waning. Some say
I’m a two-handed sorcerer. 
 
I spoon feed you 
from light-grinding stars
while turning 
 
the machine’s cold handle.
Expanding, splitting 
seams in metal. You’re 
 
a wingless bird. When they 
say flight, I say blind.
To stand is to arc into galaxy.

​Still Life Reviving, by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1963

​Still Life Reviving by Remedios Varo (Mexico, b. Spain) 1963
 
Flying pomegranates 
ripen when split.
 
Seeds fruit into plants
and the wild wind 
 
circles back. Breath
from the dead, levitation’s
 
not magic. Tablecloths
ache to become flying
 
carpets. At the centre
sits the candle, body
 
heat, my signature light.
Don’t fret.
  
Catherine Graham
 
Catherine Graham lives in the Haliburton Highlands. Her eighth book Æther: An Out-of-Body Lyric was a finalist for the Trillium Award, Toronto Book Award, and won the Fred Kerner Award. Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize and have appeared in Best Canadian Poetry and CBC Radio. Put Flowers Around Us and Pretend We’re Dead: New and Selected is her latest book. Moon Writing, a collaboration with Robert Frede Kenter, is forthcoming as is a poetry book inspired by the life and work of Remedios Varo (Wolsak and Wynn / Buckrider Books).