UnderCurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies (E-Journal - York University)

Fine, Joanna

UnderCurrents' Recipe

thoughts, armed with daggerswage battles behind my eyes --soldiers riding memories --multi-coloured horses pavehooves into the valleysof my mind
[...

Beevis, Christine

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by Christine Beevis
thoughts, armed with daggers
wage battles behind my eyes --
soldiers riding memories --
multi-coloured horses pave
hooves into the valleys
of my mind
jets of ink wash
over hills and grooves,
flood into
the channels of my veins,
delineating branches, trunks
become a forest,
bleed beneath my fingernails,
choke, struggle to keep afloat in the current behind the rolling ball
emerge victorious,
and print myself into
the fibres
of this page
30 UnderCurrents


English

genesis

Emerge just shy of a culvert on the valley floor,dart across yellow-lined (park)way,monkey over a fence and drop down beside a moist bed of reeds,border of an abandoned rail line.All vigour and curiosity.Gingerly slippin' through eye-high cattails, crossin' cut-gravel and twin steel spines:Union Station curvatures.
[...

Macdonald, Andrew

Hogtown Diary I: Edward the Caterpillar
by Andrew Macdonald
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Twice, in late September and again in early October I sojourned to the Don River
valley below the Bloor Street (Prince Edward) viaduct. The first time I got lost and
skidded down the western side of the valley south of the bridge; the second time I
found the stairs flush with its southern buttress. Late September:
Emerge just shy of a culvert on the valley floor,
dart across yellow-lined (park)way,
monkey over a fence and drop down beside a moist bed of reeds,
border of an abandoned rail line.
All vigour and curiosity.
Gingerly slippin' through eye-high cattails, crossin' cut-gravel and twin steel spines:
Union Station curvatures.
Hard path pocked and dusty, courted by wildflowers and waist-length grass,
I'm wad in' through Golden Rod, Queen Anne's Lace, Purple Loosestrife and burrs.
Pace slows, half pluckin' burrs from sleeves half eyein' the tell-tale ribbon of trees lining the bank of a river:
Willow, alder and a meagre smattering of hardwoods bud this tongue of biota stuck between the asphalt strips of the Bayview
Extension and Don Valley (Park)way.
Passin' a patch of saplings, nestled in swaths of grass
and reach visible water, reach the Don River.
Tangled locks of vegetation obscure its bank,
Fall current slips by en route to shoreline wharves and industrial marine facilities,
Great Lake Ontario.
Resting, rocking on haunches Icontemplate a bee who rummages for nectar.
A halcyon sky drifts over afternoon, buoyed by Sun's shine
Rays slant to the nape of my neck: wax ecstatic;
willin away the motorists' drone:
Most of my urban-slung dreams include pining for fresh water to listen to,
or into which dip a paddle.
For a quarter-century I've lived within walking distance of a river;
suddenly Ihave a strange sensation
of being ridiculously late for a spontaneous meeting.
Bikers flying low like swallows flicker past the blind of trees on the far bank.
From my position a quick scan captures the breadth of the valley from Danforth-side to Bloor-side, east-side to downtown-side.
Dwarfed by the viaduct's titanic legs and muscular steel webs
like a pebble in the shedded skin of a glacier
I'm gazin' up at a frozen caterpillar spanning this unruly gap.
I
I try to imagine it isn't there.
Wonder how the valley was perceived by someone living in Toronto before 1918: People crossing flimsy wooden spans or
bolted iron bridges in the gut of the valley.
Wonder who (if anyone) lived by the river?
People do now.
(My other trip: unlashed tarp on a shelter; blue tongue ranting with wind in the husk of our metropolis)
it
Troddin' upstream beneath willow branch eves,
exposed river bed rises around the footprints,
water spins by the far bank and
Fan s-diaphanous-,
chattering over stony flats,
senses steeper grade and disappears at my heels.
Mud shelf tapers to the river bluff and a path above snakes northward;
in places decayed brickwork lines the inner banks, forming a discreet channel.
The sun's rays jostle with distant branches: Waxen orange perched on inverted roots.
vol. 10 23
Climbin' now up the shady west ridge, cooler beneath the steep chin of a hillside stubbled with sumack and wildflowers:
knuckles brush the earth- knees bent- churnin'-toes diggin in- calves taught like cords- bloody vessels pumpin, and
CRESTingthe shoulder feelin' ...
w N E F L
Heaving, akimbo,
hooded eyes trawling the view; head like a sluggish satellite receiving signals through viscous waves of air:
flies swirl around dots on a green pitch;
smoke stacks stuck in shoe-boxes;
copper spine of a steeple;
peripheral signal: sliding light, west in the stomach of the caterpillar
Still cradlin' slim treasure(s) found for a loon at the Victoria College
second-hand book sale,
wisps of valley flora tucked in its jacket.
Dissolve with shadows of a path along the ridge,
homeward,
all vigour and life,
jig and flow,
like molasses accelerating off a spoon tipped slightly.
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24 UnderCurrents


Hogtown Diary I: Edward the Caterpillar

Biosucci, Mia

Exploring the Mundane

At night we sit around the mess tent and even the non-smokers smoke because we need to indulge and the head rush is great after a day of hard work. We share stories. About the land. About the tree prices. About a granite hill which we have to plant tomorrow. About a crazy day a couple of years ago when someone was supposed to plant a quicksand strip out in Alberta. About a woman from BC who planted 10,000 trees in a single day ...
[...

Richardson, Lisa

Bagging Up

Chan, Emily

Floating Home

Editorial Collective, UnderCurrents

Masthead

Liscio, Lynn

Gonzales Bay Beach

I want to tell you my story.Pass breath through my lips d weave a sorted spell.Spelling out the space between us.Breath from the bones of memo bearing witness to my soul.
[...

MacLaren, Stephanie

Telling In Silence
tx anie MacLaren
I want to tell yo my story.
Pass breath through my lips d weave a sorted spell.
Spelling out the spac,e between us.
Breath from the bones of memo earing witness to my soul.
L
So I step up and st d na1<edin the center,
Fuml)iing for the path of wo tis that have been laid out for me.
But the words do n01>betray the story ....not mine.
Do they yours?
The words bumble around' my lips and tongue.
Eschewing the profundities known to all that have gone before me.
Making known all that has been told to me,
Yet holding no particular allegiance to form least of all to me.
Bearing no resemblance to the hot screams of anguish so necessary in
their formation,
Cool words can speak only to the fiction of man.
ing clean the dense bush With the scythe of righteous truth,
They would ave me pruned.
extst@nce.
'ng Ihad to offer.
The truth is in th being not the telling.
Dwelling in the tender clashes of rds that make a story lived.
I'llsp:eak no more with their cool words,
Bu tell my st with the hot passionate words of silence.
vol. 10 13


Telling in Silence

Sathiyamoorthy, Sanj

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3 £ggs
1 c. Sugar
1 8g package IIanilla sugar, "r 1-2 Isp IIanilla edracl
1 1/2 c. Il"ur
1 1/2 Isp baking p"..,der
ewre« Is, ch"c"lale chips, "r an" "Iher dried IruU
cinnam"n I" lade
In "ne b"..,l, c"mbine Ihe Il"ur, baking p"..,der and cinamm"n. In an"Iher, darl bealing Ihe eggs
(eill.er b" hand "r ..,Uh an eleclric mixer). S,,,..,,,, darl I" add Ihe sugar "ne Ihird al a lime, and Ihe
IIanilla sugar, ..,hile c"nlinuing I" beal Ihe midure. When Ihe midure is n" '"nger granular Ir"m Ihe
sugar, begin I" add Ihe Il"ur midure, 1/2 cup al a lime. When Ihe midure is sm""Ih and c"nsidenl,
dir in Ihe ch"c"lale chips, currenls "r "Iher dried IruU. Sp""n Ihe midure "nl" a baking sheel and
shape inl" I..,,, '"ng l"gs, each "1 ab"ul 3 inches in ..,idlh. Bake al 350"1 I"r 30 minules. lake "ul,,1
"IIenand cui "n a diag"nal inl" desired ..,idlh and lenglh. 1lip Ihe c""kies "n I" Iheir side and bake
again I"r 15 minules. lhe '"nger ""u lea lie Ihem in Ihe sve«. Ihe harder Ihe" ..,ill gel.
recipe blJ ~,anna iine
Photograph by Sanj Sathiyamoorthy
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air.
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
teach us to sit still.
T.S.Eliot
32 UnderCurrents


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