Diane: I later realised you said the bottom of a pool. (Of course it was going to be full of mutant rainbow trout, but then I went straight to Patrick whose words I know better than my my own dreams.) So I jumped from this springboard into "seabed" which is below.

Patrick: Do you know, there's a dream I dream -- on and off ... Naturally the details vary, but always in my dream I am walking on the bed of the sea.

She was once again walking on the sea bed, having grown so luminous that even her daughter was spellbound.

What I remember is the light I found below: sometimes flowing around me: like water: then, on other occasions, as though emanating from myself: I was playing a single beam on objects I thought might be of interest.

One is always rather fluid in a dream. Or if I took on a form, I don't believe I was ever more than a skiapod (403)

More or less from: Patrick White. The Eye of the Storm. London: Jonathan Cape, 1974.

seabed

You often walk on the bed 
of the ocean, 
having grown so luminous 
that even mermaids are spellbound.

Around your body washes
the glorious sea 
of literature swirling 
with images never seen before. 
Short-stories written about films
nibble at your thighs; 
the silence 
of punctuation
is expelled 
through the strange teeth
of whales ...
longer poems, disguised
as ribbons of seaweed, 
entwine about your fingers;
mystery plays & tragedies,
novels & confessions from centuries ago,  
such huge breakers,
crash overhead --
reaching the shore 
as foam 
& the ever softening
moans of whispers,
spoken behind 
velvet curtains.
Vast works call 
from the depths
and as you listen
your heart becomes glad, 
happy without reserve.
Language of such clarity
pours through your body
causing it to glisten.

The single lines of poems:
as pearls: are strewn
about your hair:
and shells and fish
& bubbles of weed
mingle with the beneath
& above
and through 
of words.

©Diane Caney, 1999

Robin: What about a video piece? With sound ...

So, in June, Robin, Zac, Elsie, Fischer and Diane all ventured up the mountain (Mt Wellington) on a crisp blue-sky Winter's day. On the summit there is a rather ghastly building with excellent acoustics: an enclosed lookout. While the children silently ate pikelets, Robin recorded Diane reading "seabed", accompanied by voluminous winds. He also recorded the wind singing solo. Later, in Diane's uncarpeted hallway, Robin recorded Diane reading "seabed" again with and without the accompaniment of Robin's footsteps on the wooden floorboards. Then Robin made a video ...

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