after reading “To the Lighthouse”

marcia arrieta
April 2023

marcia arrieta

Tracing

after reading
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf

What was the problem then? She must try to get hold of something that evaded her.

empty chairs. bare feet. dotted swiss. light threads. doors into.
elusive the dragons. the dungeons. armor. history/childhood.
inventions. whatever. nonetheless. indications. brief. quiet. startling.
like starlings. unencumbered.

*

The disproportion there seemed to upset some harmony in her own mind.

read the book. the eaves are the seabirds are the sculpture.
the hawk flies above the canyon. in a room women nurse their babies.
the top of the mountain is far. blueberries. almonds. white roses.
the Virgin Mary is calm.

*

Where to begin? — that was the question at which point to make the first mark?

extract a thorn from the bird’s wing. a single word. silent as the space between
a door or a painting.

*

Down in the hollow of one wave she saw the next wave towering higher and higher above
her. For what could be more formidable but that space.

we wear costumes. we avoid themes. we drink vodka. we admire cobalt blue.
we are tired thinking about death or the loss of memory. he ships a life raft across the
sea. in return, an old book—the complete works of Tennyson— arrives in the mail.

*

Phrases came. Visions came. Beautiful pictures. But what she wished to get hold
of was that very jar on nerves, the thing itself before it has been made anything.

skin & oaks & the imaginary. summer fields summer waves—the eye in the hand—

a flower grows in perhaps—blue ink—theories of wonder theories of disappearance
theories of doubt—the lighthouse in the distance.

*

‘Like a work of art,’ she repeated looking from her canvas to the drawing room steps and
back again. She must rest for a moment.

the flute & the manuscript. the empty library shelf. the piano. a sandbox.
a tree house. tracing paper. tracing wheels. circles. spirals.

(italicized lines from To the Lighthouse)

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Marcia Arrieta is a poet & artist, who lives on the canyon close to mountains. Her recent books include a collection of her art & poetry, through time waves (Arteidolia Press) and, within sky (BlazeVOX Books). Her fifth chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She’s the editor of Indefinite Space, a poetry/art journal. →